The State of the Fourth Estate

Journalists, ironically, don’t tend to get a good press – not according to various polls which rate public trust in various institutions and professions and which generally find journalism in the bottom of the league in such tables.

And Trump hasn’t helped with his constant refrain of “fake media!”

But, until recently, journalism (and the media generally) was recognised as such a crucial part of our system that it was known as the “fourth estate”….. But no more apparently….One recent article indeed referred to the “myth of the fourth estate”

This book chapter gives a good overview of the topic.

Over the years I’ve apparently devoted almost 20 posts to the subject – with more than half in the past 2 years (see below for a full list).  I know this because my very recent post on public services accused journalists of dereliction of duty and I used my “search” button to check out what I have been saying about them over the past decade,  In fact it’s remarkably measured – if not complimentary!

I recognise, for example, that the best writing generally has often come from journalists of the calibre of George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Joseph Roth and Walter Benjamin - well before the “new journalism” of the 1970s…….and writers such as Joan Didion and Svetlana Alexievich

Clearly there are journalists …and journalists…..The hierarchy probably starts with “writers” – with specialist “correspondents” having a certain prestige status - and the “run of the mill” sort traditionally known as….”hacks” (presumably from their habit of “hacking” away at the typewriter and with cigarette smoke enveloping them!!). I wonder, however, whether generalist television journalists actually warrant the title of journalist since they use images rather than words???

And people have switched from newspapers to television and the social media. The internet has decimated newspaper advertising and journalists’ jobs – to say nothing of killing investigative budgeting…….

Two other trends have been noticeable –

   -  first a growing number of people are turned off by the grimness of the news coming from their sets and want something more positive. A couple of years ago, for example, The Guardian started a series called The Upside with “good news” stories. But I confess my heart drops a bit when I spot such an item and I rarely click it!

-  And an increasing number of writers are turning to scientific or curious topics and producing fascinating books eg on things such as salt, silence, walking ….even history of economic ideas

Historian Timothy Garton Ash recently produced a large and worthy book exploring such themes (which, another mea culpa, I have not been able to persevere with). It’s called  “Free Speech – 10 principles for a connected  world” and attracted a long review here

We need also to be careful to distinguish journalists as individuals from the corporate structures which employ them.

Most of what might be called the ”sins of commission” (titillation, partiality, bias and downright criminal behaviour) are the results of owners’ and editors’ judgements which reflect their political and financial interests.

Journalists tend to more guilty of “sins of omission” (what they can’t be bothered writing about) and “sins of laziness” (living on press releases)

More specifically my posts have expressed the following concerns

·       Although coverage of what is too easily labelled “corruption” and the blunders of government is extensive, it is too often focused on titillating details - and fails to explore the underlying forces at work eg public spending cuts, ideology, government fashions…

·       articles recognising and exploring the possible effects of such coverage on public cynicism and fatalism are very rare. This raises wider issues about journalistic ethics..   

·       hundreds of thousands of academics and think-tankers (and a few consultants) have been devoting their energies to over the past 40 years to mapping the progress of reforming the public services. But only 2 of tens of thousands of books on the subject have been written by journalists

The archive on journalism

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2011/03/investigative-journalism.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2011/07/british-bread-oz-circus-and-bulgarian.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2012/03/fighting-big-brother.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2012/04/suborning-democracy.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2012/06/getting-under-skin.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2015/05/confessionals.html Pat Chalmers

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2015/05/is-british-journalism-dead.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2017/05/journals-worth-reading.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2017/08/in-praise-of-journalists.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2017/09/making-sense-of-global-crisis.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2018/03/why-we-should-not-be-so-cynical-about.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2018/03/brexit-and-reassertion-of-nation-state.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-writers-craft.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2018/11/kenneth-roy-voice-to-renew-faith-in.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-stuff-of-journalism.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2019/03/in-praise-of-literary-magazines.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2019/03/what-does-brexit-tell-us-about-ourselves.htmlhttps://nomadron.blogspot.com/2023/02/bad-economics-and-journalistic.html

Looking for a positive purpose

I’m always on the lookout for books which challenge how we look at the world.  A few years back I read a really original book - The Puritan Gift (2003) – which told a powerful story of how and why American business had changed its values in the second half of the 20th Century. No less a figure than Russell Ackoff wrote a foreword calling it simply

“one of the best books I have ever read in my long life – a social history of the American nation which also doubles up as a commentary on managerial culture”

I blogged about it at the time but the book’s theme and message does deserve broadcasting….

It was written by two brothers (then in their 80s) who had migrated from Scotland in their youth and it argues that the mid-20th century strength of American business, and the prosperity and cultural confidence it created, was due to key characteristics inherited from the country's founding fathers, the Puritan dissenters. The authors list these characteristics as:

- a sense of moral purpose in life;

- a liking and aptitude for mechanical skills;

- collegiality, giving the group priority over individual interests; and organizational ability.

“The Puritan Gift is a rare ability to create organizations that serve a useful purpose, and to manage them well.”

Sadly but all too typically, the book seems to have been ignored by the management scribblers – although it is still in print. About the only person to review it seems to have been Diane Coyle to whose excellent blog I’m indebted for the following summary –

The book starts with a history of the early days and heyday of US corporations, using an Armory in Springfield, Massachussetts as a case study which illustrated the importance not only of technical know-how and innovation – but of good employer standards and collegiality – sharing know-how and best practice with other gun-makers.

One fascinating chapter describes the transplantation of this American approach to Japanese business through the actions of three communications engineers employed in the MacArthur occupation. The Japanese communications and electronics industry was remade in the image of the best of America, and the Hoppers attribute the success of the consumer electronics industry to the adoption of these management practices. A war-destroyed, impoverished country became the world's second biggest economy in the space of three decades.

Decay set in early, however, and the Hoppers' first villain is Frederick W Taylor. He started the process of turning efficient organisational structures into social hierarchies, with top managers increasingly less likely to be engineers or technicians working their way up from the shop floor.

Business schools continued this evisceration of the actual process of business, creating a professional cadre of managers, superior in status in pay, and with purely financial and abstract knowledge in place of the tacit skills and experience previously displayed by management cohorts. The downfall was completed by the steadily increasing celebration of greed, sucking the moral heart out of American capitalism.

Coyle completes her review by saying –

It's hard to disagree with the outlines of this argument, harder to know what to do about it. The final part of the book is a brief attempt to suggest some ideas, with a list of 25 principles of Puritan management. Most of these seem very sensible without setting the heart racing.

The key aspect of the Puritan Gift seems to be the sense of purpose. As John Kay has argued (in The Foundations of Corporate Success), a good business is one with a clear sense of purpose. The profits are a by-product, but without the core purpose there is no hope of sustained profitability.

Discussion about the purpose of companies ebbs and flows…..The notion of “stakeholders” was much discussed in the 1990s as a more useful concept than the much-criticised one of “shareholder value” which had emerged from the greedy 1980s. Such discussions do not these days attract much interest - but a much more interesting one hopefully got underway recently – partly sparked by talk of the “platform economy” and books such as Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations to which I dedicated a post a few months back.    

If I have one point to draw from my (relatively) long life, it is that we need to return to this fundamental question of purpose. And to take more seriously the question of the nature of the “good society”, the “good organisation”, the “good city”.

I know we get embarrassed by such phrases – so by all means let’s talk instead of the “healthy society”….. the “healthy organisation”……”healthy cities”…….(as did Robin Skynner and John Cleese in their 1990 book "Life - and How to Survive it!")

Update; apparently the British Academy started a new programme in 2017 on “the future of the corporation” I learned this from Paul Collier’s new book "The Future of Capitalism – facing the new anxieties” (2018) which, so far in my reading, I’m finding a very exciting read – imbued with a moral passion economists don’t normally like to display. Its opening pages use Jonathan Haidt’s analysis in “The Righteous Mind” to give one of the most incisive treatments of our present social malaise I have read in the past few decades.  

Time to get the finger out

Last year I devoted a lot of time to trying to identify what we have learned from 50 years of trying to improve the operation of our public services.  In 1989 “the state” had crumbled – at least in eastern Europe – and a huge effort was put in by international bodies and consultancies to try to help countries in that area build on western experience and create effective state bodies which would be responsive to public needs  … But also to deal with the new socio-economic challenges which required dramatic changes in how all state bodies went about their business…

The Brits had started this fashion in the 1970s – when it was only of interest to oddities written off as  “anoraks”, But suddenly everyone wanted in on the act….

In the current draft of How did Admin Reform get to be so sexy? I suggest 15 questions as the best way into the most interesting (and extensive) writing on the matter and note that

- Different parts of the world have their own very different approaches and ways of talking about the reform of public services. English language material has tended to dominate the literature; but  

- Scandinavians, Germans and French let alone South Americans, Chinese and Indians have also developed important ideas and experience - of which English-speakers tend to be blithely unaware.

- We are overwhelmed by texts on reform experience but most written by academics – targeting their students and other academics. Where are the writers who can help the public make sense of it all?

- At least 8 very different groups have been active in shaping our thinking about “reform” efforts. These are - academics, politicians, think-tankers, global bodies, senior officials, consultants, journalists and an indeterminate group- each uses very different language and ideas

– with academics being the most prolific (but tending to talk in jargon amongst themselves; and therefore being ignored by the rest of us)- Some “old hands” have tried to summarise the experience for us in short and clear terms. The lesson, they suggest, is that little has changed…

- What is sad is how few “social justice” campaigners seem interested in this issue (Hilary Wainwright being an honourable exception….).

One of the few groups positioned to act as a bridge between the public and the (extensive but generally arcane) writing on the subject are journalists who choose, however, to titillate readers with tales of blunders and corruption which – far from arousing protest and activism - only serves to develop cynicism and fatalism

It’s interesting that the book which helped spark off the global interest in what became known as New Public Management – Reinventing Government (1992) - was written by a consultant and journalist (David Osborne and Ted Graeber respectively). 
It’s more than time for other journalists and consultants to get the finger out and follow suit

I've offered reading lists before on this subject - but this is my most up-to-date and considered shot yet....

The Best reading on the reform of public services

It’s remarkable how few titles are available to help the concerned citizen (or official) make sense of the “reforms” which have deluged the public sector in the past few decades – whether privatisation, restructuring or austerity. There are, of course, thousands of academic books – but they have a weird focus on arcane and incestuous matters and simply don’t ask the sort of questions most people are interested in….   

The following may appear a long list – of the generalist books from the past 30 years I would recommend to the activist - but the 15 books work out as one every 2 years!!

Dismembered – the ideological attack on the state; Polly Toynbee and D Walker (2017) a clear analysis by two british journalists

“The 21^st century public manager – challenges, people and strategies”; Z van der Wal (2017) An interesting-looking book written by a Dutch academic and consultant who has spent the past  7 years as a Prof at the University of Singapore

Reclaiming Public Services – how cities and citizens are turning back privatisation; TNI (2017) An excellent overview by the radical international think tank of this very welcome trend

How to Run a Government so that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers don’t go Crazy ; Michael Barber (2015). A clearly written and rare book about the approaches favoured by a consultant who became Tony Blair’s favourite "go-to" fixer

The Fourth Revolution – the global race to reinvent the state; J Micklewaithe and A Woolridge (2015) Editors of no less a journal than The Economist give us a breathless neoliberal analysis

The Tragedy of the Private – the potential of the public; Hilary Wainwright (PSI 2014) an important little pamphlet

Public Sector Reform – but not as we know it; Hilary Wainwright (Unison and TNI 2009) A rare readable case study (Newcastle) of a bottom-up  approach to reform. We need much more of this.....

Leadership for the Common Good; Crosby and Bryson (2^nd edition 2005) Probably the most comprehensive of the practical guides to getting the public services working well. Clicking the title gives the entire 500 pages!

The Essential Public Manager; Chris Pollitt (2003) A great and very practical analysis of the political and technical aspects of the search for effective public services

“The Values of Bureaucracy”; Paul du Gay (2003) Proceedings of an academic conference on du Gay's 2000 book which was a rare attempt to rescue aspects od this all-too-easilymaligned institution. You should be able to access the full book by googling the title – or try clicking this address blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=attachment&id=23845

“The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain; George Monbiot” (2000) A powerful critique of the nature and scale of corporate involvement in our public services which first alerted me to the nature of public-private partnerships

In Praise of Bureaucracy; weber, organisation, ethics; Paul du Gay (2000) It may be academic, but is clearly written and has become a classic defence of a much maligned institution. Well reviewed here

Change the World; Robert Quinn (2000) Simply the best analysis of the process of social and organizational change

Creating Public Value – strategic management in government; Mark Moore (1995) One of the few books which actually looks at examples of effective leaders in the public sector. Started a wave of (in-house) discussion which led to what could be the third stage of public admin

Reinventing Government; David Osborne and Graeber (1992) The book which started the New Public Management revolution.

More specialist recommended reads

Supporting small steps – a rough guide for developmental professionals (Manning; OECD 2015)

A Governance Practitioner’s Notebook – alternative ideas and approaches (Whaites et al OECD 2015)

Rethinking policy and politics – reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies ed C Ayres (2014)

Reinventing Organisations; Frederic Laloux (2014)

People, Politics and Change - building communications strategy for governance reform (World Bank 2011)

Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions – citizens, stakeholders and Voice (World Bank 2008)

The 21^st Century Public Servant; C Needham and Mangham (undated) Results of a British research project

The Blacksburg Manifesto and the postmodern debate about PA; Marshall and White (1990)

Public service trade unions

The International Trade Union Confederation

European Trade Unions (ETUC)

https://publicservices.international/resources/publications

Public Services International

TUC (Trade Union Council) UK

Long Live the King!

So the UK now has a new Prime Minister – if one viewed by the world (and most of Britain) as a total – if charming - clown. But this seems to be part of a world-wide trend (eg Italy, US, Ukraine) which has seen celebrities ascend to such heights…

Johnson is actually brainer than he lets on – his buffoonery is a carefully cultivated act he has been honing since childhood, when he first realised that it made people laugh and like him. Most men, when appearing on television for example, will comb their hair – Johnson does the opposite, ruffling it to ensure he retains his trademark image of disorganisation…. John Oliver captures this well with this short sequence.
And this extensive article from the LRB places Johnson firmly in the tradition of British satire. 

Here’s a youtube discussion Boris Johnson took part in a few years back (2016?) with an Oxbridge Professor on the merits of Greeks and Romans - which gives a measure of that bit of the man… 

How did it happen?

Appointed to his position by a curious system created by the Conservative party (some 20 years ago) but used rarely for the appointment of the country’s Prime Minister, Johnson was the clear favourite from the start – but attracted the support of a bare majority of Conservative MPs. And was then subject (along with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt) to a fortnight of debate within the membership (of 160,000) Conservative party members.

From this he emerged last week with the support of 66% of Conservative party members – and was duly anointed by the Queen on Friday.

What did he then do?

Under the (unwritten) UK constitution, this is enough to allow him to appoint a Cabinet – which he duly did over the weekend. 

It’s been called the most right-wing cabinet ever seen in the UK – and it is certainly one being readied for another election in the autumn – only some 2 years after the last one called by his predecessor Theresa May who had inherited a good majority but lost it in that gamble. 

And he has appointed as one of his key advisers Dominic Cummings - who figured in the film I blogged about earlier in the year

But Johnson and his government are highly vulnerable to any vote of confidence – a bye-election this week could see the government’s theoretical majority reduced to one! And it is clear that there is no majority in the current Parliament for a no-deal Brexit…

As usual, the Brexit blog gives the pithiest summary of the situation….And Richard North’s EUReferendum blog gives us this assessment of the No-Deal option.

So now what? The Institute of Government Think Tank has just published a briefing on the issues which confront him and his government. What is very clear is that Theresa May did her best to keep the UK within the ambit of the EU and that we now have a government which is determined to take the country out of Europe "lock, stock and barrel"!

A Pause for reflection

With my usual serendipity, I had plucked a rather worn-looking book from the library over the same weekend – Timothy Garten Ash’s “Facts are Subversive- political writing from a decade without a name” (2010) - one of whose essays bears the title “Is Britain European?”, written in 2001) and is one of the best things I have read on the subject, taking me back to the series of posts I did on British (or English) identity I did earlier in the year……This is one of the last of about a dozen posts on the subject I did then……

Garten Ash’s article has also got a great set of references – including the name of a historian I hadn’t heard of Jeremy Black  who has just produced Britain and Europe – a short history (2019)

A lot of us are looking to historians to help us make sense of this moment in the history of a country about which a lot of us grew up being very ambivalent…

As a Scot with a Scottish father and English mother - and educated in a state school - I didn’t absorb much English history so come fairly fresh to the stuff flowing from sophisticated English nationalist academics such as this first part of a series which is presumably being written to put Brexit in "proper" context. Jonathan Storey is a retired History Professor (from the Insead Business School in France) and runs a blog which offers thought-provoking views of the UK and Europe - in posts which are even longer than mine! . 

Further references
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/the-empty-promise-of-boris-johnson - the most powerful expose I’ve seen
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/boris-johnson-profile/594379/ - another devastating psychological profile

http://kyq4.blogspot.com/2019/07/from-attlee-to-boris-integrity-to-post.html - my friend Keith’s great summary of the man the country has allowed to become PM

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/27/boris-johnson-no-10-pericles-greek-hero

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/29/no-deal-brexit-tory-joke-boris-johnson-economic-britain

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/29/jacob-rees-mogg-language-rules

https://storybookreview.wordpress.com/2019/07/26/brexit-and-the-british-constitution-part-i-the-roots-of-the-old-constitution/

https://infacts.org/

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n13/james-wood/diary

Brexit: Behind Closed Doors, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvKGWQXi3rM

What is wrong with us?

This blog has recorded 1360 posts in the past decade – mostly on serious social matters. One issue has, however, been curiously absent – namely climate change.  There was, admittedly, a brief reference earlier in the year to The Club of Rome’s report - Come On! Capitalism, short-termism, population and the destruction of the planet; (2018) (superbly summarized in this article in the fascinating Cadmus journal).

But it is all of 5 years since I last did an extended post on the issue – when I summarized a great book with the title “Why we Disagree on Climate Change”

A short, vivid article in the current issue of the New York Review of Books had me pulling some books off the shelves and wondering about this gap in the blog’s musings. It starts by recognizing a twofold problem which confronts those who write about climate change –

First, how to overcome readers’ resistance to ever-worsening truths, especially when climate-change denial has turned into a political credo and a highly profitable industry. ….

Second, in view of the breathless pace of new discoveries, publishing can barely keep up. Refined models continually revise earlier predictions of how quickly ice will melt, how fast and high CO2 levels and seas will rise, how much methane will be belched from thawing permafrost, how fiercely storms will blow and fires will burn, how long imperilled species can hang on, and how soon fresh water will run out (even as they try to forecast flooding from excessive rainfall). There’s a real chance that an environmental book will be obsolete by its publication date.

The article looks at two recently-published books on the ecological crisis – the first The Uninhabitable Earth based on an article which had attracted the usual criticism for scaremongering when it appeared in 2017

Its critics have largely been subdued by infernos that have laid waste to huge swaths of California; successive, monstrous hurricanes—Harvey, Irma, and Maria—that devastated Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico in 2017; serial cyclone bombs exploding in America’s heartland; so-called thousand-year floods that recur every two years; polar ice shelves fracturing; and refugees pouring from desiccated East and North Africa and the Middle East, where temperatures have approached 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and from Central America, where alternating periods of drought and floods have now largely replaced normal rainfall.

“The Uninhabitable Earth” has become a best seller – and taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. This book is meant to scare the hell out of us, because the alarm sounded by NASA’s Jim Hansen in his electrifying 1988 congressional testimony on how we’ve trashed the atmosphere still hasn’t sufficiently registered. “More than half of the carbon exhaled into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels has been emitted in just the past three decades,” writes Wallace-Wells, “since Al Gore published his first book on climate.”

How many warnings do we need? It’s 30 years since the American Congress received that warning from James Hansen; and almost 50 years since the Club of Rome’s “The Limits to Growth” explosive report in 1972. I had thought that was the first such warning but a book I’ve just been reading (“The Wizard and the Prophet”) tells me that 1948 saw the publication of no less than 2 prescient books – “Our Plundered Planet” by F Osborn and “Road to Survival” by W Vogt (who figures as the “prophet” in the book (see list below)

Naomi Klein is a well-known Canadian journalist who, like most of us, had tended to hide her head in the sand on this issue – with justifications that equally explain my own blog silence on the issue - that
- it was too complex; 
- others were dealing with it; 
- technical change would sort things out; or 
- a few personal changes in life-style could at least salve the conscience….

In 2009 a chance encounter changed that – and she started to write This Changes Everything which became a bestseller in 2014.  A couple of reviews give excellent and detailed summaries which will help you select the most appropriate part of this rather sprawling book (the link in the title gives the entire text). I had read the book a few years ago but have now gone back to it to read more carefully – along with the second book on the reading list I’ve developed below. And here's an update 

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2022/05/climate-change-emergency-who-is-to-blame 

Hopefully this goes some way to make up for my failure to give this life-and-death issue the priority it warrants…..

Climate Change Resource
TheUninhabitable Earth – life after warming; David Wallace-Wells (2019) This highly readable book from a journalist who has compressed his extensive reading into a series of short, very punchy chapters can be accessed by clicking the title. 

https://www.catherineingram.com/facingextinction/ - written by someone who believes we really are nearing the end... 

Change – why we need a radical turnaround; Graham Maxton (2019). Written to try to persuade the ordinary citizen of the need to take this issue more seriously – and therefore without the copious referencing of an academic book. Would be even better with a few carefully-chosen references..Full access the usual way  

Come On! Capitalism, short-termism, population and the destruction of the planet; Club of Rome (2018). This is the definitive text (in full here) for anyone who wants an up-to-date overview of the point we’ve reached. These are the people who first alerted us in 1972 and were pilloried mercilessly by the corporate elites for their audacity.

The report probably falls into the category of “not give up hope completely” and the technical options described in detail in the last part of the book do give the impression that things might still be fixed….But the politics suggests otherwise  

Drawdown – the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warning; ed Paul Hawken (2017). The title may be a bit over the top but the scale of research undertaken for  a superbly-designed book was impressive 

This Changes Everything – capitalism v the climate;  Naomi Klein (2014). 

This book by the Canadian journalist is written for those who are already convinced about the need for urgent action. Those new to the issue should first read books such as “The Uninhabitable Earth” and Lynas to get a sense of how bad things are. 
A couple of reviews give excellent and detailed summaries which will help you select the most appropriate part of Klein's book (the link in the title gives the entire text).  The first is here. The second review gives a useful summary of the scientific issues at stake and then of each chapter. Another review gives a more selective summary

Part 1,“Bad Timing,” explores the political context in which the battle against climate change has been fought, and the political dimensions and implications of climate change policy. The “bad timing” she is referring to is the way that the need for collective action on climate change came into public awareness at almost exactly the same time as neoliberalism become the dominant political force on the planet.

Part 2, “Magical Thinking,” explores the various attempts to address climate change that Klein argues haven’t worked: large green groups partnering with big business to find market-based solutions; billionaires and philanthropists attempting to solve the problem on their own terms; and geo-engineering and imagined future technology. This is what Klein refers to as “magical thinking.”

Part 3, “Starting Anyway,” contains six chapters that explore forms of grass-roots resistance to the expansion of the fossil-fuel industry, and community-led solutions to climate change.  

The Wizard and the prophet – science and the future of our planet; Charles Mann (2014)

A detailed study by a journalist of two figures at opposite ends of the climate debate.

“The Carbon Crunch; how we’re getting climate change wrong – and how to fix it”; Dieter Helm (2012). This by an economist – and the subtitle is the giveaway to his optimism

Why we Disagree on Climate Change – understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity; Mike Hulme (2009). An environmental scientist Professor takes a rare and deep look into our cultural disagreements – using anthropological insights

 “Storms of my Grandchildren – the truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity”; James Hansen (2009). A powerful story of how one scientist has tried to warn us

Blessed Unrest - how the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice and beauty to the world; Paul Hawken (2007); Beautifully-written history of the environmental movement, with particular emphasis on the contemporary aspects. Very detailed annex.

“Six Degrees – our future on a hotter planet”; Mark Lynas (2007) A detailed examination by an environmental journalist of what happens when the planet heats up – one degree at a time. Bear in mind that our present increase of 1.5 degrees is already causing havoc – and that reputable organisations such as the World Bank predict a 4 degree increase

“The revenge of Gaia – why the earth is fighting back – and how we can still save humanity”; James Lovelock (2006). One of our most famous scientists (just turned 100) who coined the Gaia concept

“The Carbon War – global warming and the end of the oil era”; Jeremy Leggett (1999) from an entrepreneur and writer passionately committed to alternative energy

“Slow Reckoning; the ecology of a divided planet”; Tom Athanasiou (1996) by an activist and writer. Still worth reading 20 years on for the breadth of its references

“The End of Nature – humanity, climate change and the natural world”; Bill McKibben (1989). McKibben was one of the early environmental writers – and this is his classic book

Update; https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/the-politics-of-climate-change-is-this-time-different/