‘Nations are concerned about themselves, not about the planet, and this kind of problem will keep coming at us as we discover more and more such potential catastrophic consequences.’  Carl Sagan 1984 The words of Carl Sagan, quoted early in Gerald Kutney’s book, encapsulates the geopolitical issues that have been identified over the last seventy…

Max Roser- ‘The world is much better; the world is still awful; the world can do much better.’ As to be expected, ‘Not the End of the World’ takes a systematic and methodical approach to the issues analysed in the text. Each chapter follows the same clear format of : ‘How have we got to…

‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion… I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain… Time to die.’ Rutger Hauer’s character from ‘Blade Runner’, Roy Batty, closes the film with a…

The map of the known world is being redrawn. Christina Gerhardt, Associate Professor at the University of Hawai’I and Senior Fellow at the University of California, explores the shifting worlds across six major oceans and seas- from the Arctic to the Caribbean Sea in ‘Sea Change- An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean.’ In…

All great sagas have an ending.  Esteemed meteorologist Guy Walton’s ‘World of Thermo’ series has included all the elements of a true saga: journeys, friendships, sacrifice, help from characters with potent, magical powers and an evil villain who needs to be vanquished.  Great storytelling is at the heart of climate communication- those stories that stay…

‘Humanity’s Moment’ is a masterclass in climate communication, with Dr Gergis detailing the climate impacts already being felt and aligning these with real emotional and psychological responses. Dr Gergis served as a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and is an authority on the climate science underpinning the report. This is not a…

2023 has been the year where we have recently seen global temperature records being broken repeatedly, sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic making the international news, and Antarctica sea ice extent hitting new record lows.  In a world that has seen the UN describe climate change as being ‘out of control’, Jeff Goodell’s…

Gleick’s book is an engaging, detailed and yet wide-ranging, authoritative exploration of the relationship between humans and water and how a positive sustainable world is within our reach. He describes that we have already had the first two Ages of Water, with the Third Age being the positive, equitable vision that realises the benefits of…

‘Breathe, said the wind How can I breathe at a time like this,when the air is full of the smokeof burning tires, burning lives?’ -Lynn Ungar Despite the frankly ridiculous tearing up of Sadiq Khan’s book ‘Breathe’ by Talk TV presenters on live television a few days ago, no stunt by them can get away…

When did a spacecraft from Earth first land on the Moon? Who owns the Moon? How many people have walked on the Moon? How many flags are there on the Moon? What legal frameworks regulate space activity and who enforces these frameworks? Tim Marshall returns in ‘The Future of Geography’, a prophetic vision of what…