Description

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Climate change is the hottest topic of the twenty-first century and the climate movement a significant global social movement. This book examines the broad context of Australian climate politics and the place of the climate movement within it.
Acting 'from above' are the most powerful forces—corporations and governments, both Labor and Coalition—with the media framing the issues. Climate movement actors 'in the middle' include the Australian Greens, major environmental and climate organisations, public intellectuals, think-tanks, academics and the union movement. Acting 'from below' are the numerous local climate action groups and various regional and national networks. This lowest level is the primary location of the climate movement: and grassroots mobilisation the source of its vitality.
Burgmann and Baer's study offers a vision for an alternative Australia based upon the principles of social equity and environmental sustainability.

About the Author

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Verity Burgmann is a Professor of Political Science in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She has published widely in the area of the history and politics of radical movements, both labour movements and new social movements such as the green movement. Her 11 books include Revolutionary Industrial Unionism (1995), Green Bans, Red Union (1998), Unions and the Environment (2002), Power, Profit and Protest (2003) and Changing the Climate (2011).

Hans A Baer, an anthropologist and development studies specialist at the University of Melbourne, has published 18 books and some 170 book chapters and journal articles on a variety of topics, including Mormonism, African American religion, socio-political life in East Germany, critical medical anthropology, and the Australian climate movement. He is the co-author, along with Merrill Singer, of Global Warming and the Political Ecology of Health (2009). Baer also authored Global Capitalism and Climate Change (2012).