Islands are back in vogue. It’s not that they ever disappeared but climate change in particular has brought islands to the fore of a global conversation on the way we think about human development. Cast as the canaries in the global climate coal mine – ironically, as the author of Islands at Risk? John Connell points out, as they have neither canaries nor coal – the vulnerability of islands has been ‘rediscovered’. This reawakening is, however, largely misguided. In the short term, he argues, the vulnerabilities that islands face are not those commonly associated with climate change and sea level rise but are in fact much closer to home. [read more…]
John Connell (2013) Islands at risk? Environments, economies and contemporary change. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. hbk. ISBN: 978-1-78100-350-3. x+337pp (of which 74pp are references) + index.
Jack Corbett is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, ANU.
