ABSTRACT
Who can doubt that the world is in unprecedented ecological, economic, social and political crisis? Cities and regions all over the planet now regularly experience weather extremes so statistically improbable that they simply cannot be dismissed as ‘normal variation’ (see Hansen et al., 2012). Climate science tells us that even if current mitigation strategies are implemented the world is headed for a catastrophic 4°C increase in mean global temperature by late century, an eventual several metres of sea level rise and even more extreme an hazardous weather events (Anderson and Bows, 2008; World Bank, 2012). This would gradually flood coastal plains destroying major cities and changing much of the rest of the world into uninhabitable desert – which would, in turn, generate hundreds of millions (or billions?) more climate refugees, all clamouring for access to the still liveable parts of the planet. Meanwhile, poverty is a persistent problem in much of the developing world and is increasing even in many industrialized nations as the rich-poor income gap increases, social tensions increase and population health deteriorates (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009).
