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Ashley Dawson - Extreme Cities (2nd Hand Paperback)
SKU B003108
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Original price
£3.70
Original price
£3.70
£3.70
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£3.70
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£3.70
Synopsis
Subtitled : The Peril & Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change.
A cutting exploration of how cities drive climate change while being on the frontlines of the coming climate crisis.
How will climate change affect our lives? Where will its impacts be most deeply felt? Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from the coming chaos?
In Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion’s share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels.
Today, the majority of the world’s megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk when water levels rise.
In Extreme Cities, Dawson offers an alarming portrait of the future of our cities, describing the efforts of Staten Island, New York, and Shishmareff, Alaska residents to relocate; Holland’s models for defending against the seas; and the development of New York City before and after Hurricane Sandy.
Our best hope lies not with fortified sea walls, he argues. Rather, it lies with urban movements already fighting to remake our cities in a more just and equitable way. As much a harrowing study as a call to arms Extreme Cities is a necessary read for anyone concerned with the threat of global warming, and of the cities of the world.
Details
- Format : Standard 2nd Hand Paperback
- Condition : Very Good
- Category : Non-Fiction - Geography, Earth Sciences & Space
- Published : 2017 (This Edition 2019 - Verso)
- ISBN : 9781784780395
- SKU : B003108
- PPC : SP400gm
- RRP : £11.99
- Quantity Available : 1 only.
External Reviews
"Books on climate change are a dime a dozen now, but few, if any, truly reckon with the potential scale of the disasters that await. Dawson reveals the inadequacies of current plans to deal with the problems that cities around the world will face. Forget such buzzwords as 'green cities, ' 'resilience, ' and 'sustainable development' - the age of 'disaster communism' is here." - Publishers Weekly ("Best Books 2017" - Top 10).
"Extreme Cities is a ground-breaking investigation of the vulnerability of our cities in an age of climate chaos. We feel safe and protected in the middle of our great urban areas, but as Sandy and Katrina made clear, and as this fine book reveals anew, the massive shifts on our earth increasingly lay bare the social inequalities that fracture our civilization." - Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.
"The way we design and live in cities will determine humanity's ability to avoid an anthropogenic mass extinction event in the coming century. Dawson makes this vividly clear in Extreme Cities, laying out in detail the nature of the problem and some possible positive actions we can take. Crucial to his argument is the fact that technological solutions will not be enough, so that we need to drastically reform the capitalist economic system to properly price and value the biosphere and human lives. His point that social justice is now a necessary survival strategy makes this not just a meticulous history and analysis of our situation, but also an exciting call to action." - Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Red Mars Trilogy and New York 2140.
"Cities both in the North and the South are already suffering the effects of climate change. Government and business fitfully recognize and respond, but in ways that reinforce existing injustices and as often as not make things worse. Dawson shows how social movements have combined action on disaster relief with forms of equitable common life to produce models for radical adaptation from which we can all learn. This is a brilliant summation of what we know and what we can do build a new kind of city in the ruins of the old." - McKenzie Wark, author of Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene.
"A powerful argument in a dire situation: that we revise our cities to the new game changer, or climate change will revise urban existences as we know it." - Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, director-general of Bengal Institute of Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements.
"A sophisticated and provocative exploration of the unfolding impact of climate change on urban environments." - Christoph Lindner, Professor of Urban Theory and Visual Culture, University of Oregon.
"A sobering account of how planetary urbanization has put us on a collision course with the natural world." - Jonathan Hahn, Sierra Magazine.
The Author
Ashley Dawson is Professor of Postcolonial Studies in the English Department at the College of Staten Island and at the Graduate Centre / City University of New York. His latest books include People’s Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons (O/R, 2020), Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), and Extinction: A Radical History (O/R, 2016). An anti-pipeline activist with the No North Brooklyn Pipeline campaign, a member of Public Power NY, and the founder of the CUNY Climate Action Lab, he is a long-time climate justice activist. He is currently at work on a book entitled Environmentalism from Below, and is co-editing a volume called Decolonize Conservation!