Historians for the right to work: We demand a continuing supply of history

History Workshop Journal

Volumn 67, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 69-81

  Levene, Mark ^a  

^a Department of Comparative History   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 64749099630     PISSN: 13633554     EISSN: 14774569     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hwj/dbn063     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. See IPPC 4th assessment report (AR4), 2007 www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ ar4-syr.htm for the current consensual scientific position on global warming. For a more radical systems dynamic approach with a consequently much more catastrophic forecast see David Wasdell, 'Beyond the Tipping Point: Positive Feedback and the Acceleration of Climate Change', www.meridian.org.uk/Resources/global%20Dynamics/TippingPoint/index.htm. Thanks, too, to my colleague, David Cromwell in the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), Southampton, for discussion on the latest state of the science.
2. Lester Brown, Plan B 2.0, Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, New York and London, 2006, p. 5.
3. Colin Feltham, What's Wrong with us? The Anthropathology Thesis, Chester, 2007.
4. See E. P. Thompson and Dan Smith, 1980, pp. 9-61. I possess a copy of Edward's original typewritten manuscript.
5. See Edward Thompson, 'Notes on Exterminism, the Last Stage of Civilisation', in Exterminism and Cold War, ed. New Left Review London, 1982;
6. Raymond Williams, 'The Politics of Nuclear Disarmament', in Exterminism, p. 68.
7. For my own commentary, see Mark Levene, 'Battling Demons or Banal Exterminism? Apocalypse and Statecraft in Modern Mass Murder', Journal of Human Rights 3: 1, 2004, pp. 74-5.
8. Quoted in Paul Laity, 'Uncomfortable Truths', Guardian Weekend, 17 May 2008.
9. Arnold Toynbee, Mankind and Mother Earth: A Narrative History of the World, New York and Oxford, 1976.
10. Gabrielle Walker and David King, The Hot Topic: How to Tackle Global Warming and still Keep the Lights On, London, 2008.
11. See Oliver Burkeman, 'Science Chief: Greens Hurting Climate Fight', reproduced as 'The War on Hot Air', 13 Jan. 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/12/ climatechange.carbonemission.
12. E. P. Thompson, Witness against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law, New York, 1993, pp. 108-9.
13. Thompson, Witness against the Beast, p.108.
14. Mayer Hillman, with Tina Fawcett, How We Can Save the Planet, London, 2004, p. 11;
15. David Adam, 'World Carbon Dioxide Levels Highest for 650,000 years, says US report', Guardian, 13 May 2008.
16. See E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common, esp. 'Customs, Law and Common Right', London, 1993; Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, chap. 14, 'An Army of Redressers', London, 1963.
17. Making of the English Working Class, p. 13.
18. It is indeed to reiterate what I said in Mark Levene and David Cromwell, 'Introduction: Survival Means Renewal', in Surviving Climate Change: the Struggle to Avert Global Catastrophe, ed. Cromwell and Levene, London, 2007, p. 13.
19. The term was coined by the atmospheric chemist, Paul Crutzen, to denote a new period of geological time as determined by major anthropogenic changes in the atmosphere beginning in the late eighteenth century. See www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/aair/anthropocene.
20. Thompson, Witness, p. xiv.
21. Burkeman, 'War on Hot Air'.
22. Thompson, Witness, p. 193.
23. My thanks for the discussion with Colin Richmond for clarification on this point.
24. See Patrick Wintour, 'Rebels Defeated on Planning Bill Reforms', Guardian, 26 June 2008.
25. 'Contraction and convergence' offers an international framework in which greenhouse-gas emissions world-wide can both 'contract' and 'converge'. It operates, on the one hand, on the basis of the precautionary scientific principle as to what are safe limits on ghg emissions; on the other, on the principle of equity, that is, in terms of counting people's rights under these limits.
26. For more see Aubrey Meyer, 'The Case for Contraction and Convergence', in Cromwell and Levene, Surviving; and www.gci.org.uk.
27. Quoted in Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, Dartmouth, Devon, 2008, p. 17.
28. See www.transitiontowns.org.