Engaging the public with climate change: Behaviour change and communication is a book edited by Lorraine Whitmarsh, Saffron O'Neill and Irene Lorenzoni, with a foreword by Susanne Moser.   Details as follows “Despite increasing public awareness of climate change, our behaviours relating to consumption and energy use remain largely unchanged. This book answers the urgent call for effective engagement methods to foster sustainable lifestyles, community action, and social change.

This paper, Gilbert P, Thornley P and Riche A B (2011).  The influence of organic and inorganic fertiliser application rates on UK biomass crop sustainability Biomass and Bioenergy, in press, highlights firstly, the GHG reduction potential of producing biomass (willow or miscanthus) as a substitute for natural gas and secondly, the need to consider environmental impacts other than just GHGs (in this case eutrophication and acidification).   The study finds that there are substantial GHG benefits to be had from growing biofuels as a substitute for gas.

Carbon Brief, a new online project has recently been launched.  Its focus is not just on providing information about climate change (or rather signposting you to that information) but about how climate change science and stories are communicated.

Allied Bakeries have carbon footprinted three of their Kingsmill range of bread loaves.  In this article they say that the process has helped them reduce emissions - that they also feel positive that while the buying public don’t yet understand carbon labels, the lables act as a pointer that a company is actually doing something, and that in itself is good for competitive advantage.  

Defra has just published the findings of research, undertaken by the Agriculture and Environment Research Unit (AERU) at the University of Hertfordshire, in collaboration with the Policy Studies Institute (PSI) and the Food Ethics Council (FEC), titled Effective approaches to environmental labelling of food products - FO0419.  

Details and abstract follow of a paper written by FCRN mailing list member, Chris Smaje, entitled Industrial or agro-ecological farming: performance indicators in the UK (2011).   Abstract This paper examines the performance of conventional, high-input ‘industrial’ farming and agro-ecological smallholding across seven different indicators of performance: Productivity per unit area. Productivity per unit cultivated area. Nutritionally necessary productive capacity. Productivity per unit labour.

Mehta L (ed). 2011. Taking the scarce out of scarcity: Contesting the politics of allocation Earthscan, UK The summary below is from the Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN) newsletter: