Now or never

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Ross Gelbspan

In The Heat Is On, Ross Gelbspan exposes the deliberate campaign by oil and coal interests, teamed with conservative politicians, to confuse the public about global warming and the disruptive weather patterns that mark its initial stages. He shows how these fossil fuel proponents have supported the efforts of a small but highly vocal group of "scientific skeptics" whose statements distort the nature of scientific debate, raising doubts in the public mind about this threat which is, in fact, a matter of solid scientific consensus. Gelbspan sets the record straight with contributions from four of the world's leading climate scientists. Ironically, The Heat Is On also shows that the news about climatic change is now so bad that it may well help to save us as it brings the worldwide insurance industry, saddled with billions in unprecedented claims from weather-related damage, into the battle against fossil fuels. The book explains what this emerging alliance among the insurance industry, environmentalists, and a number of the world's most vulnerable nations must do to save the planet. Capturing both the global scope and the historical uniqueness of our dilemma, it shows that the price of inaction may extend well beyond flood-prone lowlands and drought-prone agricultural lands. One casualty could be democracy itself as nations faced with weather-related destabilization resort to totalitarian measures to control their populations.

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in chief, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

This volume presents the most recent findings from the leading international scientists that attended the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change conference in 2005 hosted by the UK Government. The topics addressed include critical thresholds and key vulnerabilities of the climate system and impacts on human and natural systems.

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Nicolas F. Diebold

"The principle of non-discrimination is fundamental to the regulation of international trade in goods and services. In the context of trade in goods, the concept of 'like products' has become a key element of the legal analysis of whether a trade obstacle violates GATT non-discrimination obligations. The equivalent concept of 'like services and service suppliers' in GATS rules on non-discrimination has received little attention in WTO jurisprudence. In light of the remaining uncertainties, Nicolas Diebold analyses the legal problems of the GATS 'like services and services suppliers' concept using a contextual and comparative methodology. The 'likeness' element is not analysed in isolation, but in context with 'less favourable treatment' and regulatory purpose as additional elements of non-discrimination. The book also explores how far theories from non-discrimination rules in GATT, NAFTA, BITs and EC as well as market definition theories from competition law may be applied to 'likeness' in GATS"--

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A. Dirk Moses

" ...Often new, probing and rich examinations of the takeover of a continent by white Anglos and the long-term impact ...the book is replete with detailed and meticulously sourced information on the scope, scale and persistence of the cruelty and violence involved - actual and structural - over a 200-year period...there is a great deal in this excellent volume that demands grounds for deep reflection on how Australia came to be what it is." * Patterns of Prejudice "The value of this stimulating collection of historical essays is that it points to both the usefulness of a transnational framework for analysing race thinking and the necessity for close attention to the historical specificity of particular moments and places." * Australian Book Review "[This volume] is an outstanding collection, a challenging conversation between differing viewpoints where discussion is ongoing and cooperative." * Australian Historical Studies Colonial Genocide has been seen increasingly as a stepping-stone to the European genocides of the twentieth century, yet it remains an under-researched phenomenon.This volume reconstructs instances of Australian genocide and for the first time places them in a global context. Beginning with the arrival of the British in 1788 and extending to the 1960s, the authors identify the moments of radicalization and the escalation of British violence and ethnic engineering aimed at the Indigenous populations, while carefully distinguishing between local massacres, cultural genocide, and genocide itself. These essays reflect a growing concern with the nature of settler society in Australia and in particular with the fate of the tens of thousands of children who were forcibly taken away from their Aboriginal families by state agencies. A. Dirk Moses teaches European History and comparative genocide Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is editing another volume in this series entitled Genocide and Colonialism.