Vasseur, Liette

English

North Georgia College & State University: Digital Commons

Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship 
Volume 13 
Issue 3 Climate Change Knowledge Translation Article 13 
March 2021 
From the Book Review Editor of the Special Issue on Climate 
Change 
Liette Vasseur 
Brock University 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/jces 
Recommended Citation 
Vasseur, Liette (2021) "From the Book Review Editor of the Special Issue on Climate Change," Journal of 
Community Engagement and Scholarship: Vol. 13 : Iss. 3 , Article 13. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/jces/vol13/iss3/13 
This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository. It has 
been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship by an authorized editor of 
Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository. 
SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 2, 2021—JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SCHOLARSHIP—Page 140
From the Book Review Editor of the Special Issue on Climate 
Change
Climate change is affecting the lives of 
many communities and how to prepare for these 
changes is not always easy to define. To enhance 
community engagement in both mitigation and 
adaptation to climate change, there is a need to 
better assess how the complexity of climate change 
is affecting not only humans but the ecosystem 
where they live and the interactions among nature 
and people. This means also understanding how 
politics, policies, and other issues may help (or 
not) to improve engagement of communities in 
moving from discourse to action. 
At Brock University’s master's program in 
Sustainability Science, graduate students have the 
opportunity to take a course on climate change 
where various aspects, including community 
engagement, are discussed. During their semester, 
they also have the opportunity to critique a book 
that they have selected. In this special issue, we 
offer a selection of four book reviews that were 
completed by students in the program in 2019 
and 2020. These books bring various perspectives 
of how different approaches can be taken to 
enhance knowledge mobilization and community 
engagement and move forward to define solutions 
to the climate crisis. 
The first review, by Meredith DeCock-Caspell, 
examines Climate Change and Natural Disasters: 
Transforming Economies and Policies for a 
Sustainable Future by Vinod Thomas. This book 
is a good introduction to the issues of climate 
change, and explains how to deal with the fact that 
disaster risks management must involve all levels 
of governance, from local to national, in order to 
be prepared for the extreme weather events and 
disasters that have been linked to climate change.
In The Politics of Green Transformations, 
Pulkit Garg explains how political challenges make 
it difficult to take action at the community level. 
The various levels of government and governance 
may limit the capacity of people to move forward 
toward a green economy to reduce the impacts of 
climate change.
Sam Gauthier, in her case, presents the 
edited book entitled Coastal Zones: Solutions 
for the 21st Century, where different authors 
summarize their perspectives on how to find 
solutions regarding the impacts of climate 
changes, and especially natural hazards and sea 
level rise that can concern coastal communities. 
 
1
Vasseur: From the Book Review Editor
Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2021
SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 2, 2021—JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SCHOLARSHIP—Page 141
Liette Vasseur
Editor, Professor of biological  
sciences, UNESCO chair in  
Community Sustainability, 
member of the Environmental 
Sustainability Research Centre  
at Brock University
Finally, Conner Thompson summarizes 
an interesting book, Don’t Even Think About It: 
Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate 
Change, that may initially be a little off path 
regarding community engagement. However, 
understanding the challenges to communicate 
climate change to people is one of the first major 
roadblocks to overcome to get people to take 
action regarding change. Especially in coastal and 
rural communities, climate change deniers can be 
quite present and have in many cases the capacity 
to derail any public engagement and action. 
I believe these books are of interest to anyone 
trying to work with communities or who is 
interested in developing action research projects 
that require communication, knowledge transfer, 
and activities directly in communities. Climate 
change is a wicked problem that is complex 
to communicate and bring people to see the 
importance to implement solutions. Learning 
from others can be a right step to engage with local 
communities where much work needs to be done 
as most climate change action, especially in the 
sphere of adaptation, needs to be developed and 
implemented at the community level.
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Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, Vol. 13, Iss. 3 [2021], Art. 13
https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/jces/vol13/iss3/13


From the Book Review Editor of the Special Issue on Climate Change

https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1498&context=jces

From the Book Review Editor of the Special Issue on Climate Change

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