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“... Edward I knew a thing or two about coal. He hated its stink, and in 1306 banned the burning of it in his kingdom, threatening offenders with ‘great fines and ransoms’. There are even records of coal-burners being hanged, tortured or decapitated (sources don’t agree on the punishment: it’s possible all three were applied). After reading Barbara Freese’s book, you get the feeling that vigorous punishments may again be inflicted on coal-burners, for their impact on both human and planetary health is becoming dire ...”

“... On 25 January 1788, HMS Supply eased her way between the imposing sandstone cliffs that mark the entrance to Port Jackson and into a waterway that John White, the First Fleet’s surgeon, proclaimed as ‘the finest and most extensive harbour in the universe’. The hyperbole was perhaps understandable, for the Britons were seeing Sydney Harbour through eyes wearied by months at sea, and this was to be their new home ...”

“... Can you imagine a winter so cold that the sea is frozen over all the way from Norway to Denmark? Not even the last Ice Age saw such a thing, for then the sea level was lower, and all of Scandinavia was joined together by dry land. Yet in 1837-38 the Norwegians survived such a season. And what of having to watch as every day the sea rises another 15 centimetres, until after two years what was your home lies 150 metres below the waves? This may be unimaginable to coastal dwellers today, but it was the fate of a dense population of farmers living 7500 years ago around what is now the Black Sea ...”

“... our surroundings ‘Europe’?Maybe so. Defining Europe at all is ‘a slippery undertaking’, Tim Flannery writes at the start of Europe, ‘its diversity, evolutionary history and shifting border make the place almost protean.’ But definitions can be found, and for natural history purposes Europe’s rocks provide a baseline: in strictly ...”

“... Examples of the opposite – adaptation without mitigation – are easier to come by. In 2004, Tim Flannery said that ‘there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis’ because of the threat to its freshwater supply. The capital of Western Australia has since then opened one desalination plant, powered by wind ...”

“... in Oxford out of term.One black mark against Larkin is that he no more cares for the work of Flannery O’Connor than Amis did: ‘The day didn’t get off to a very good start by my reading some stories by “Flannery O’Connor” in the bath … horribly depressing American South things.’ This is October 1967. I ...”

“... 2006, 978 0 231 13710 2) The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change by Tim Flannery (Allen Lane, 341 pp., £20, March 2006, 978 0 713 999 21 1) State of the World 2006: The Challenge of World Sustainability by the Worldwatch Institute (Earthscan, 244 pp., £14.99, January 2006, 978 1 8440 7275 0) Global Catastrophes: A Very ...”

“... tinged with the grotesque, that owes something to Anderson’s successors – early Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, Faulkner. In the 1980s, short fiction established itself as a form appropriate to their subject matter: broken homes, failed marriages, second wives, second chances, missed opportunities and short-term jobs. It exploited the lack of a wider ...”

“... postwar period “self-commodify” in this sense,’ McGurl continues, inviting us to ‘think of Tim O’Brien and his lifelong use of nine months in Vietnam.’ Indeed, think of Tim O’Brien. As a White Person, he couldn’t write about most of his life experience, which was probably just like Father Knows ...”