Peer-reviewed and Working Papers
Artico, D. et al. (2023, June 1). Beyond being analysts of doom: scientists on the frontlines of climate action. Frontiers in Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2023.1155897
Bilal, A. & Känzig, D.R. ( 2024, May). The macroeconomic effects of climate change.” National Bureau of Economics Research working paper. Not yet peer-reviewed.
** pair with Roberts, M. (2024, June). Fixing the planet: it just ain’t profitable. Michael Roberts is a Marxist economist whose blog posts are typically well-supported by climate economics research.
** pair with DePillis, L. (2024, June 21). Even as climate risks rise, short-term thinking prevails. The New York Times. (online title: Dilemma on Wall Street: Short-term gain or climate benefit?) Overviews another NBER working paper, Moore F.C. et al (June 2024), Synthesis of evidence yields high social cost of carbon due to structural model variation and uncertainties.
Buch-Hansen, H., Nesterova, I., and Nielsen, P. (2025, March). Envisioning an academia for degrowth transformations. Globalizations.
Dablander, F. et al (2024, Aug). Climate change engagement of scientists. Nature Climate Change. From the authors: “Climate change is one of the biggest threats to humanity. Scientists are well positioned to help address it beyond conducting academic research, yet little is known about their wider engagement with the topic. We investigate scientists’ engagement with climate change using quantitative and qualitative analyses of a large-scale survey (N = 9,220) across 115 countries, all fields and all career stages” — including what facilitates/impedes scientific activism.
** The full thread by lead author Fabian Dablander on X is here.
** pair with Wyatt, Thierry, and Gardner (2024). Actions speak louder than words: The case for scientific activism in an era of planetary emergency. Royal Society (perspective). Makes the case that teaching and research is not longer enough– especially given that fossil fuel companies and their allies have so massively tilted the political and social playing fields in their own favor, including spreading climate misinformation — X thread here;
** pair with Capstick, Thierry, Cox, Berger, Westlake, and Steinberger. (2022, Aug). Civil disobedience by scientists helps press for urgent climate action. Nature Climate Change.
Dyke, J.G. and Monbiot, G.(2024) What is the role of universities at a time of ecological and social crisis? Geography and Environment. Abstract: This paper presents a dialogue between a writer and an academic about the roles and responsibilities of universities with respect to the climate and ecological crisis. The discussion addressed six priority issues: education; student protest; academic objectivity; student debt and financing; fossil fuel funding; consensus and risks. In considering these issues, the importance of interdisciplinarity was stressed. This included fostering inclusive approaches beyond natural sciences while recognising the importance of different perspectives on environmental challenges. The role of universities as a locus of social change was emphasised. An exploration of opportunities and barriers towards facilitating such perspectives within higher education was discussed.
Filho, Walter Leal et al. (2023, Nov.). Towards a greater engagement of universities in addressing climate change challenges. Nature.
Gardner, C.J., Thierry, A., Rowlandson, W., and Steinberger, J.K. (2021). From publications to public actions: The role of universities in academic advocacy and activism in the climate and ecological emergency. Frontiers in Sustainability.
Gentile, Giuliana and Gupta, Joyeeta. (2025, April). Orchestrating the narrative: the role of fossil fuel companies in delaying the energy transition. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
Herranen, O. (2023, June). Understanding and overcoming climate obstruction. Nature Climate Change.
Hickel, J. – see Kallis, G. below.
Hiltner, Eaton, Healy, Scerri, Stephens, and Supran. (Sept 2024). “Fossil fuel industry influence in higher education: A review”. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews.
Judd, Emily J. et al. (2024, September). A 485-million year history of Earth’s surface temperature. Science. This major paper, which relies on plate tectonic data and various physical and biological proxies to offer the longest-yet reconstruction of the planet’s paleoclimate, highlights the terrifying power and danger of rapid CO2 intensification. Real Climate’s overview is here, and Bill McKibben sums up the takeaways in his very accessible blog.
Kallis, G., Hickel, J., et al. (2025, Jan.). Post-growth: The science of well-being within planetary boundaries. The Lancet Planetary Health. Ecological economist Giorgos Kallis is a luminary in the Degrowth field, and a comprehensive listing of economic anthropologist Jason Hickel’s research on the intersections of racism/climate change vs equity/degrowth is here (Hickel also has a blog, podcasts, popular press articles, and other resources on this site).
Kopp et al. (Sept 2025). Higher education institutions can accelerate societal climate action. BioScience.
Lachapelle, P. et al. (2024, Feb). Academic capture in the Anthropocene: A framework for assessing climate education in higher education. Climactic Change.
Liuzzo, C. (2025, July). Beyond the neoliberal straitjacked: Degrowth pedagogy framework (DPF) for business schools. International Journal of Management Education.
Mbah, M. (2024, April). Discrepancies in academic perception of climate change and implications for climate change education. npj Climate Action.
Millward-Hopkins, J. (2022, Dec). Why the impacts of climate change may make us less likely to reduce emissions. Global Sustainability 5.
Molthan-Hill, P., Blaj-Ward, L., Mbah, M.F., and Ledley, T.S. (2021). Climate change education at universities: Relevance and strategies for every discipline. In Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. Eds. Lackner, M., Sajjadi, B., and Chen, W.Y. Springer.
Moreno-Cruz, J, McEvoy, D.M., McGinty, M., and Cherry, T.L. (2024, Dec.) The economics and governance of solar geoengineering. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy.
Nelson, M. et al. (2024). The wins of the grassroots climate movement in the University of California: Never doubt that a small group of the committed can change the world. PsyArXiv Preprints.
Ostarek, M., Simpson, B., Rogers, C., and Ozden, J. (2024, Oct.). Radical climate protests linked to increases in support for moderate organizations. Nature Sustainability.
Overland, I. and Sovacool, B.K, (2020). The misallocation of climate research funding. Energy Research and Social Science 62.
Racimo, F., et al. (2022). The biospheric emergency calls for scientists to change tactics. eLife (Featured article). DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.83292 On the successes and potential of Scientist Rebellion.
Ripple et al. (2023, Oct.) The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory. Bioscience.
Ripple et al. (2024, Dec.) The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth. Bioscience.
Rowland, H., Morio, G., Tanner, D., and Manning, C.D. (2024). Predicting narratives of obstruction in social media advertising. ACL Anthology.
Sokol, M. and J.C. Stephens (2025, July). “Universities, Polycrisis, and Regional Distribution: The Need for Radical Transformation.” Review of Regional Research.
Stechemesser, A. et al. (2024, Aug.). Climate policies that achieved major emissions reductions. Science. From the editor’s summary: Stechemesser et al. evaluate 1500 climate policies that have been implemented over the past 25 years and identified the 63 most successful ones. Some of those successes involved rarely studied policies and unappreciated combinations. This work illustrates the kinds of policy efforts that are needed to close the emissions gaps in various economic sectors.
Stein, S. et al. (2023). Beyond colonial futurities in climate education.Teaching in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives 28:5, Higher Education Teaching of Environmentally Just Sustainability Available from Taylor & Francis via UCSC library.
Stewart, Diana; Gunderson, Ryan; and Petersen, Bryan. (2025, Jan). Is a new economic system necessary to address climate change? Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. Accessible overview of reasons for and possible pathways to transitioning to an alternative, post-capitalist economic system.
Supplemental reading: Degrowth can work: Here’s how science can help (2022). Nature. Another accessible overview by Degrowth luminaries Jason Hickel, Giorgos Kallis, Juliet Schor, Julia Steinberger, and others.
Supplemental reading: https://degrowth.info/degrowth – includes a library of scholarly articles on the subject.
Supplemental reading: Liuzzo, Carla. (2025, July). Beyond the neoliberal straitjacked: Degrowth pedagogy framework (DPF) for business schools. International Journal of Management Education.
Stephens, J. (2024). Climate justice and the university: Shaping a hopeful future for all. Johns Hopkins UP. Open access. Jennie Stephens overviews this text in this Campus Climate Network webinar; she also offers a short version of her argument in the Times Higher Education article that follows.
Stephens, J. (2025, 9 Jan). On climate change, are universities part of the problem or part of the solution? Times Higher Education.
Thierry A., Horn L., von Hellerman P., Gardner C.J. (2023, Oct.). No research on a dead planet: Preserving the socio-ecological conditions for academia. Frontiers in Education.
Vallée, M. (2023). How and why universities fail to impact environmental literacy to all students. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Urai, A. and Kelly, C. (2023, Feb), Rethinking academia in a time of crisis. eLifeSciences.
Wolfe, S. et. al. (2025, Mar). Scientists’ warning on fossil fuels. Oxford Open Climate Change.
** You can sign on to the scientist warning here, and learn more at this website created specifically for the publication and sign-on process.
** Press release: “Research: Top Scientists Issue Urgent Warning on Fossil Fuels”
On the emotional toll of climate research, activism:
Bercht & Sandner Le Gall (2025): The emotional toll of fieldwork. Nature.
Schipper, Maharaj & Pecl (2024): Scientists have emotional responses to climate change too. Nature.
Key Climate Science Papers
Beaulieu, C. et al. (2024, Oct.). A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet. Nature.
Cenozoic CO2 Proxy Integration Project Consortium. (2023, Dec.) Towards a Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2. Science. Available through UCSC Library. UCSC News Center article here.
Hansen, J.E. et al. (2022, Dec). Global warming in the pipeline. Preprint. Oxford Open Climate Change. (Other papers and videos on Hansen’s personal webpage, and you can subscribe to his newsletter..)
Ke, P. et al. (2024, July). Low latency carbon budget analysis reveals a large decline of the land carbon sink in 2023. Preprint. ArXiv Physics. Ky et al. suggest that in a warming world, earth’s carbon sinks are declining: at Mauna Loa in 2023 (the hottest year on record so far), excess CO2 in the atmosphere grew from 2.48 +/- .08 ppm average 2003-2022 to a startling 3.37 +/- .11 ppm. Because global emissions themselves grew only .6 +/- .5% relative to 2022, this jump in CO2 growth implies “an unprecedented weakening of land and ocean sinks.” While acknowledging that it’s too soon to know if the decline in these sinks is “durable,” the authors conclude:
** “The observation that 2023 had an exceptionally weak land sink despite being only a moderate El Niño constitutes a test bed for Earth System models which lack processes causing rapid carbon losses, such as extreme fires and climate-induced tree mortality in their projections, and may thus be too optimistic for estimating remaining carbon budgets[34]. If very high warming rates continue in the next decade and negatively impact the land sink as they did in 2023, it calls for urgent action to enhance carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gasses emissions to net zero before reaching a dangerous level of warming at which natural CO2 sinks may no longer provide to humanity the mitigation service they have offered so far by absorbing half of human induced CO2 emissions.”
Good overview in Peter Sinclair’s “This Is Not Cool” blog, which tracks breaking climate news and papers.
Parker, K.M.A. and Mainelli, M.R. (2024). What happens if we “burn all the carbon”? Carbon reserves, carbon budgets, and policy options for governments. Environmental Science: Atmospheres (#4 2024).
Shows how, in a scenario where “fossil fuel consumption [continues] at current rates until 2100 with carbon sinks maintaining their efficiency… ‘business as usual’ carbon dioxide emissions are likely to produce atmospheric CO2 levels in 2100 exceeding, at best, 620 ppm. If carbon sinks become less effective, we could see that rise to around 860 ppm. Even if carbon sinks continue to function as at present, there is sufficient CO2 from proven reserves to maintain current rates of fossil fuel consumption, taking the world past RCP 4.5 and towards RCP 6.0.
Steffen, W., Rockström, J., Richardson, K., Schellnhuber, H.J. (2019). Trajectories of the Earth system in the Anthropocene. PNAS. Abstract: We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced. Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene. We examine the evidence that such a threshold might exist and where it might be. If the threshold is crossed, the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System—biosphere, climate, and societies—and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values.
See also:
Anderies et al. (2022, April). Conceptualizing World-Earth system resilience: Exploring transformational pathways to a safe and just operating space for humanity. ArXiv Physics and Society. Focuses not just on the problem but on “pathway resilience.”
Rockström, J., et al. (2023, May). Safe and just Earth system boundaries. Nature 619. On assessing the interdependence of human and Earth systems, and the intertwined risk to both from exceeding planetary boundaries like available nitrogen, surface water, ground water, etc.
Rockström, J., et al. (2021). Identifying a safe and just corridor for people and the planet. Earth’s Future. Assesses the recent Earth Commission targets for shared planetary risks, benefits, responsibilities.
Xu, C, Kohler, T.A., Lenton, T.M., Scheffer, M. (2020). Future of the human climate niche. PNAS. Summary: We show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earth’s available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 °C. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. We demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y. Absent climate mitigation or migration, a substantial part of humanity will be exposed to mean annual temperatures warmer than nearly anywhere today.