Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine didn’t just knock a major climate report out of the news cycle, it sparked a major new disinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry and its defenders.
In its new version Energy Independence promo, the American Petroleum Institute warns against “import[ing] energy from unstable regions” and “depend[ing] on foreign governments for our natural gas and oil” – a message echoed by a conservative blog claiming President Biden “single-handedly [brought]The US energy independence comes to a screeching stop.” An editorial in the conservative Washington Examiner scolds, “Yes, Biden’s climate policies empowered Putin.” And earlier this month, fossil fuel flacking U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) were sneering about “climate elites” and climate idolaters.
Climate activists and communicators took a long time to respond. They eventually retracted the charges, arguing that it was the right thing to do. Fossil fuel addictionThat The West and the U.S. were weakened. New investments in oil-and-gas Others added) will not have any effect on the outcome of the current conflict. They will only become stranded when their logic dictates that fossil fuels will eventually be outcompeted and replaced by renewable energy.
The volleys go on.
This bookshelf contains recently published titles that examine the interconnections between climate change, conflict, oil, and other factors. (11 of the 12 titles on this bookshelf were published or updated after 2020.
The last takeaway? The final takeaway? Climate, conflict, oil, and all other variables can make the world more volatile.
As with every feature, the titles’ brief descriptions are drawn from the copy provided by the publishers. If there are two publication dates listed, the first is for the release date of the paperback edition.
All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, by Michael T. Klare (Macmillan/Picador Books 2019/2020, 304 pages, $18.00 paperback)
The military now regards climate change as one of the top threats to American national security – and is busy developing strategies to cope with it. Michael T. Klare, a well-known security expert, shows that the U.S. military considers climate change to be a threat to the country on multiple fronts. Droughts and food insecurity are fuelling conflicts within ethnically divided countries. The melting Arctic is opening up new seaways to protect. Rising seas are threatening American cities and military bases. While many people continue to debate the causes of global climate change, the Pentagon is focusing on its effects. Its response demonstrates that climate change has a huge impact.
The Origins of the Syrian Conflict – Climate Change and Human SecurityMarwa Doudy, 264 pages, $29.99 Paperback, Marwa Daoudy
Climate change was the cause of the uprising in Syria? This claim has been made by some academics and policymakers. This study offers a new conceptual framework for evaluating it. Contributing to scholarship in the fields of critical, environmental security, and human security, Marwa Daoudy prioritizes non-Western perspectives to make sense of Syria’s place in this international debate. Designing an innovative multidisciplinary framework, Daoudy uses extensive field research and her own personal background as a Syrian scholar to present interviews with Syrian government officials and citizens, as well as the research of Syrian experts, to provide a unique insight into Syria’s environmental, economic and social vulnerabilities leading up to the 2011 uprising.
Updated Edition: Unstable Ground: Climate Change and Conflict, as well as Genocide, by Alex Alvarez (Rowman and Littlefield 2017/2021 232 pages, $27.00 Paperback)
Unstable Ground looks at the human impact of climate change and its potential to provoke some of the most troubling crimes against humanity – ethnic conflict, war, and genocide. After a brief overview of climate science, Alex Alvarez discusses how the warming world will affect societies and increase the risk of mass violence. His book examines the complicated intersections of violence and climate change, drawing on several historical examples, such as Darfur, Syria, or the current migration crisis. Research shows that climate changes will continue and accelerate. Understanding how they might contribute to violence is key to understanding how we can prevent it.
The Power of Deserts – Climate Change, Middle East and the Promise of a Post-Oil Era, by Dan Rabinowitz, Stanford University Press 2020, 184pp, $14.00 paperback
The Middle East could soon experience climate change that will exacerbate food and water scarcity, aggravate social inequality, and drive displacements and political instability. As renewable energy surpasses fossil fuels, the wealth of oil-rich countries in the Middle East could shrink. Alternatively, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or the UAE might harness the region’s immense potential for solar energy and emerge as vanguards of global climate action. The Power of Deserts highlights this potentially brighter future – evidenced by a recent shift across the Middle East toward renewable energy. Dan Rabinowitz’s deep knowledge of the region makes him a sober but surprisingly optimistic examination of opportunities that arise from a looming crises.
Climatet: Russia in the Age of Climate ChangeThane Gustafson (Harvard University Press, 2021, 336 Pages, $39.95).
Russia is more dependent economically on exporting hydrocarbons than any other major power. But the decline of fossil fuel use is already underway, and restrictions on hydrocarbons will only tighten, cutting fuel prices and slashing Russia’s export revenues. Yet Russia has no substitutes. Russia is not prepared for the global transition to renewable energy. Russian leaders continue to invest their national wealth in oil and natural gas, while ignoring the promise of postcarbon technologies. The state has not done anything to mitigate the damage that climate change will cause within the country. Lucid and thought-provoking, Klimat shows how climate change is poised to alter the global order, potentially toppling even great powers from their perches.
Planetary Specters: Race and Migration in the Twenty-First Century, NeelAjuha (University of North Carolina Press 20,21, 224 Pages, $27.95 paperback).
Neel Ahuja says that to understand the causes of displacement and migration, it is important to reframe climate catastrophe as interconnected with capitalism’s history and the global politics on race.Ahuja examines the role of the oil industry in transforming the economic and geopolitical forces that lead to displacement, using theories of racial capitalism. Ahuja also studies the impact of Asian trade, finance, labor connections and war on race, borders, warfare and capitalism since the 1970s. Ahuja believes that it is only by acknowledging how climate change arises from longer histories of colonialism, race, and capitalism that we can build a sustainable, just future for those most affected.
Energy Without Conscience: Oil and Climate Change, and Complicity, by David McDermott Hughes, Duke University Press 2017, 208 Pages, $24.95 Paperback
In Energy without Conscience David McDermott Hughes investigates why climate change has yet to be seen as a moral issue. He examines the forces which make the use of fossil fuels commonplace and thus exempted from ethical evaluation. He draws parallels between the 18th- and 19th-century slave labor energy economies and the modern oil industry. Hughes shows that both forms of energy are dependent upon a complicity which absolves consumers and producers from acknowledging each other’s immorality. Only by rejecting the argument that oil is necessary for economic, political, and technological reasons, and acknowledging our complicity with an immoral system can we stop the damage being done.
The Oil Wars Myths: Oil and the Causes Of International Conflict, by Emily Meierding (Cornell University Press 2020 256 pages, $39.95).
Challenging conventional wisdom, The Oil Wars Myth argues that countries do not launch major conflicts to acquire petroleum resources. Meierding notes that the costs of foreign invasion, territorial occupation, international retaliation, and damage to oil company relations deter even the most powerful countries from initiating “classic oil wars.” Examining a century of interstate violence, she shows that countries have only engaged in mild sparring to advance their petroleum ambitions. Meierding then explains the reasons why oil war assumptions are so widespread. Since conceptions of oil wars combine need and greed – two popular explanations for resource grabs – they are easy to believe in. The Oil Wars Myth will engage anyone interested in oil, war, and the narratives that connect them.
Carbon Criminals, Climate CrimesRonald Kramer (Rutgers University Press 2020), 300 pages, $32.95 Paperback
Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes analyzes the looming threats posed by climate change from a criminological perspective. It begins by explaining what corporations in the fossil fuel sector did and didn’t do in relation to global warming. It then integrates theory from a variety different disciplines to analyze four specific state and corporate climate crimes. These include continued extraction of fossil fuels, rising carbon emissions, political failure in mitigating these emission; socially organized climate denial; and climate crimes and empires that include militaristic adaptations to climate disruption. The final chapter examines policies that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to climate change, and achieve climate justice.
The New Map: Energy, Climate, the Clash of Nations, by Daniel Yergin, Penguin Random House 2020/2021 512 pages, $18.95 Paperback, with a new epilogue
The global crisis wrought by energy, climate change and the clashing power between nations is causing great disruption. The “shale revolution” in oil and gas – made possible by fracking technology, but not without controversy – has transformed the American economy, ending the “era of shortage.” Yet concern about energy’s role in climate change is challenging our economy and way of life, accelerating a second energy revolution in the search for a low carbon future. The coronavirus pandemic, and the economic darkness it has caused, have made all of this more urgent and clearer. A master storyteller and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin takes the reader on a riveting journey across the world’s new map. He asks the big questions in this era of political turmoil and points out the challenges ahead.
No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum In A Warming WorldDeborah Gordon (Oxford University Press 2021), 368 pages, $39.95
Deborah Gordon’s book No Standard Oil demonstrates that there is no one oil or gas that is environmentally identical. Each oil or gas has a unique, quantifiable impact on the climate. All pollute, but some are more harmful than others. Gordon explains in simple language the results of the Oil Climate Index Plus Gas model, which estimates global oil and gas emissions. Gordon identifies which oils and gases are most harmful to the planet and suggests innovative ways to reduce them. Climate stabilization can’t wait for oil and natural gas to run out. No Standard Oil This video demonstrates how we can take practical steps in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry while still making steady progress towards a carbon-free future.
Grand Transitions: How to Make the Modern World, by Vaclav Mil (Oxford University Press, 2021, 384 Pages, $34.95)
What is the secret to making the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four “grand transitions” of civilization: population, agriculture, energy, and economics. Vaclav Smil explores the complex interactions that these transitions create. He argues that the moral imperative to share modernity’s benefits has become more acute with increasing economic inequality, but addressing this imbalance would make it difficult to make the changes necessary for the long-term preservation of the environment. Thus, managing the fifth transition – the environmental changes that result from natural-resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and global warming – will determine the success or failure of the grand transitions that made the world we live in today.
