Kate ErvineCarbon

Books in Review Sinan Antoon 81 The Book of Collateral Damage Jacob M. Appel 101 Amazing Things Are Happening Here Chloe Aridjis 107 Sea Monsters Marcelo Báez Meza 98 Nunca más Amarilis: Bioficción definitiva de Márgara Sáenz Esthela Calderón 90 Los huesos de mi abuelo / The Bones of My Grandfather Chen Qiufan 95 Waste Tide Mona Dash 111 A Roll of the Dice Julie Delporte 104 This Woman’s Work Selahattin Demirtaş 89 Dawn Kate Ervine 78 Carbon Agustín Fernández Mallo 96 The Nocilla Trilogy Andrzej Franaszek 108 Herbert: Biografia Heike Geissler 105 Seasonal Associate Han Kang 79 The White Book Christopher Hull 109 Our Man Down in Havana: The Story behind Graham Greene’s Cold War Spy Novel Jamie James 106 Pagan Light: Dreams of Freedom and Beauty in Capri Biljana Jovanović 98 Dogs and Others Nyla Ali Khan 102 Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s Reflections on Kashmir Kim Yideum 82 Hysteria Dorianne Laux 92 Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems Erik Martiny 111 Ne soyez pas timide Maria Matios 91 Sweet Darusya: A Tale of Two Villages Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 80 Minutes of Glory and Other Stories Yoko Ogawa 84 The Memory Police Pola Oloixarac 87 Dark Constellations Hai-Dang Phan 100 Reenactments Zahia Rahmani 93 “Muslim”: A Novel Reimagining a Place 87 for the Wild Rodrigo Rey Rosa 90 Chaos: A Fable Renato Rosaldo 88 The Chasers Guillermo Saccomanno 84 77 Adam Ehrlich Sachs 110 The Organs of Sense Virve Sammalkorpi 102 Children of the Cave Samanta Schweblin 103 Mouthful of Birds Mahtem Shiferraw 80 Your Body Is War Mahmoud Shukair 94 Praise for the Women of the Family Emily Skaja 83 Brute: Poems Katherena Vermette 104 River Woman Joost de Vries 106 The Republic Xuan Juliana Wang 86 Home Remedies G. Willow Wilson 83 The Bird King Christine Wunnicke 96 The Fox and Dr. Shimamura Sinan Antoon Braces for Damage Yoko Ogawa’s Disappearing Present Digging up Bones with Esthela Calderón Chen Qiufan’s Tide Comes In 81 84 90 95 WORLDLIT.ORG 77 Books in Review Kate Ervine Carbon Cambridge, UK. Polity Press. 2018. 222 pages. The problem of carbon is challenging every aspect of society today, and there are no easy answers. Kate Ervine, a faculty member in the International Development Studies Program at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia , tackles the complexity of the issue with an in-depth analysis of the environmental, economic, and sociological consequences of the use of fossil fuels. Her solution, which she describes as “democratic ecologies,” involves social justice, ethics, and technology , countering the “luxury ecologies” accessible by the privileged few. While they are not described in-depth, “democratic ecologies” do seem to be our only path forward to achieve lower carbon usage and more equitable access to clean resources and economic participation. Carbon does not start out with a solution; instead, it approaches the question, “What is carbon?” with a lengthy description of its unique chemical properties that make it possible to have so many different structures , allowing for long, complex chains and rings with single, double, and triple bonds. Ervine’s narrative is of transformation and the miracle of life; however, she points out that the same element, carbon, that is a building block of life, is, when misused, the vector of extermination of life on earth. Carbon becomes weaponized as carbon dioxide (CO2 ) and becomes the primary greenhouse gas, responsible for climate change and the acidification of the oceans. When Ervine begins to discuss the impact of the byproducts of the consumption of carbon and a carbon-based economy, her narrative turns resolutely apocalyptic, as we find ourselves on a trajectory toward a dead planet. And thus, the central problem of carbon narratives is exposed; they can be nihilistic, selflimiting , and subvert science. Thereiscertainlynothingnewininforming us about extinctions and contamination. However, Ervine evaluates the strategies of carbon capture and storage (CCS), carbon offsets, and cap and trade. CCS is a technological approach that purports to be able to take the CO2 produced by manufacturing and to either inject it innocuously into porous underground geological formations or to inject it into partially

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