How We Can Save the Planet Penguin Books, 2004 (with Tina Fawcett)

The Suicidal Planet: How to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe St. Martin’s Press, 2007 (with Tina Fawcett and Sudhir Chella Rajan)

Afterword: Where do we go from here? in Surviving Climate Change: The Struggle to Avert Global Catastrophe (eds. David Cromwell and Mark Levine), Pluto Press, 2007

These publications set out why climate change is the single biggest problem that humankind has ever had to face, as we continue with lifestyles that are way beyond the planet’s limits. They explain the real issues that must be focused on: what role technology can play, how individuals and their communities can make changes, and why governments must take the lead and act now to protect our planet for later generations. They also call for the latent cross-party consensus to ensure that progress is not impeded by conventional politics. And they propose the introduction of a radical rationing scheme to reduce individual carbon outputs to a fair and ecologically safe level. The books include helpful guidelines for the home, travel, and leisure.

Towards the next environmental white paper, Policy Studies, Spring 1991

This article put forward the concept of the Conserver Gains Principle to complement the Polluter Pays Principle. Included in it was the calculation that to meet the recommended IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) global cut of carbon dioxide emissions on an equity base, emissions per capita in the UK would have to be reduced from their then current level of just under ten tonnes to less than one tonne. It therefore proposed a strategy in which individuals would be allocated a basic annual ration together with a second level of coupons to be traded on the open market. As an outcome of this article, my subsequent research and many papers since 1990 have pressed the case for carbon rationing as the only realistic way for the world’s population to prevent serious damage from climate change. These have discussed the implications for future policy on public health, planning, construction, transport, aviation and international tourism.