Suggested Reading

Highly Recommended Articles

Climate Change, Oceans, Economy, Emissions

World Ocean Review 7
The Ocean, Guarantor of Life
Sustainable Use, Effective Protection

Each volume of the World Ocean Review is peer-reviewed and has the volume, format and production value of a textbook. Small number of paper copies can be ordered free of charge with no questions asked. PDFs are available for free download as well.

About World Ocean Review 7

"The seventh edition of the »World Ocean Review« focuses on the effects of climate change on the physics of the ocean and on its biotic communities; the consequences of fishing, shipping, resource extraction, energy production, and marine pollution; and the questions of how active substances from the ocean can be used and how the ocean can be managed in the future in such a way that both its protection and the participation of as many people as possible in its services and goods are ensured." *

About World Ocean Review

Living with the seas - World Ocean Review: "Vast and inaccessible, the oceans are difficult to comprehend and are rarely at the centre of our attention. Nor do they have advocates or lobbyists. This is quite remarkable, since the oceans crucially determine our climate and are an increasingly important source of our food. In order to raise public awareness of the interrelationships in marine science and thereby contribute to a more effective protection of the seas, mareverlag founded the non-profit company maribus in 2008. Maribus's mission is to boost awareness of the oceans; it pursues no commercial interests. The "World Ocean Review" is a unique compilation presenting the state of our oceans and encapsulating cutting-edge science. It was made possible by the cooperation of various partners." **

* https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-7/

** https://worldoceanreview.com/en/about-us/

Highly Recommended Articles

Sunken Treasures: Sylvia Earle On Why We Need To Protect The Oceans by Michael Shapiro, The Sun Magazine Interview, July 2018

Earle: The ocean is the foundation of life itself — the living ocean. It isn’t just rocks and water; it’s this amazing collection of life. We had nothing to do with making it, but we are having a lot to do with destroying it. We are cutting great swaths through the fish populations, extracting 100 million tons a year or more.

The ocean is the circulatory system of the planet, and we are the beneficiaries of it. We think that all the ocean is good for is being a dump site and a place to extract minerals, or oil, or gas, or fish, or shrimp — you name it. Or we use the ocean for transportation or to wage war. But with every breath you take, the ocean assists you, wherever you are, even if you never see it. You never see your heart either, but I’ll bet you’re glad it exists.

[ excerpts non-sequential ]

The ocean really needs us to take care of it, which means we have to make choices. I wish we could have made these choices fifty years ago, but we didn’t know then what we know today. Fifty years from now, we likely won’t have the same choices. Think about the doors that are closing, the species that are being eliminated, the chemistry that is changing, the planet that is warming, the ice that is melting. We haven’t responded fast enough to hold the planet steady. Now is the time to act.

Argument, Reason, and Persuasion

Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking

by D.Q. McInerny

An interesting and readable book which does not resort to the pages of problems and strings of symbols that are typical of textbooks. I took 2 courses in logic in college, Introductory Logic and Symbolic Logic, around 2006-2007. It is not an exaggeration to say that they changed my life and helped me resolve some thorny problems. The stuff we covered in Introductory could, I believe, easily and profitably be taught in middle school around the same time as algebra is introduced. It seems to me that logic is more broadly applicable to thinking through everyday problems and reaching a sound understanding of facts than is arithmetic. Yet, our educational system relegates it to the departments of Philosophy or Computer Science at the university level rather than alongside the 5 paragraph essay and x + y = 11.

From the publisher's blurb:

Elegant, pithy, and precise, Being Logical breaks logic down to its essentials through clear analysis, accessible examples, and focused insights. D. Q. McInerney covers the sources of illogical thinking, from naïve optimism to narrow-mindedness, before dissecting the various tactics—red herrings, diversions, and simplistic reasoning—the illogical use in place of effective reasoning.

An indispensable guide to using logic to advantage in everyday life, this is a concise, crisply readable book. Written explicitly for the layperson, McInerny's Being Logical promises to take its place beside Strunk and White's The Elements of Style as a classic of lucid, invaluable advice.

Praise for Being Logical

“Highly readable . . . D. Q. McInerny offers an introduction to symbolic logic in plain English [...]”

— Detroit Free Press

Science

These are primarily not climate change books, instead they are books that I've found very helpful in forming a more complete picture of the world-as-it-is in general. The first one does discuss climate change in places, though. The second comprises a broader range of topics than just environmental sustainability as the title would seem to imply. Sustainability was neither a household name nor a buzzword in most regions in 2004...

• Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows and Diana Wright (2008). Some may be pleased to hear that there is no math whatsoever in the body of the book, but she provides an appendix describing the math and listing the equations used in constructing the text for those who wish to pursue them.
• The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living by Frtijof Capra (2004)
• Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick (1987)
• Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson (2001)

Culture, Media & Politics

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell (2019). How can we change our world from a state of continuous distraction and reactive behavior? In order to take coherent action, on either the personal or collective levels, it is necessary that we are able to slow down, pay attention, and concentrate well enough to bring our disparate parts into alignment. We can hardly expect to conceive and carry out effectual actions with our minds always disjointed and pointing in all directions. See the Excerpts Page for more detail in the authors own words.