Smart Energy Cycle reviewed Global Warring and seemed to like it. An excerpt (for more click here):
Books about the environment are more often than not filled with exaggerations or filled with self-righteousness, but Cleo Paskal has provided one of the more comprehensive and balanced views on the real significance of environmental change.
Global Warring is a thought-provoking account into the future of international politics. We really need to wake up to the signs of impending change instead of taking our ecosystem for granted. It is important to note that Paskal frequently uses the phrase “environmental change,” presumably to convey an appropriately broader term than the oft-used “climate change” or “global warming.”
The reader gets a crash-course in geopolitics and views problems at both the micro- and macro- levels.
Trent Edwards of the Calgary Herald reviewed Global Warring and interviewed Cleo for the paper. An excerpt:
Cleo Paskal may be an academic, but her new book is frighteningly practical.
Frightening, because Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic And Political Crises Will Redraw The World Map (Key Porter Books, $32.95) rings the alarm for all of us about the environmental changes that have the potential to devastate the world during the 21st century....
Paskal, a Canadian geopolitics expert and foreign correspondent who lives in London, England, spent a decade researching her thought-provoking book.
In it, she shows just how interdependent countries have become, and how a fast-changing environment will test nations' ability to adapt, likely causing unexpected shifts in global economic, political and security landscapes along with the more obvious changes in the physical landscape.
She delves into problem areas that could start future conflicts, such as access to water and resources in Asia, economic trends that are shifting the balance of power (such as China's policy of nationalistic capitalism) and geopolitical realignments (such as the burgeoning strategic partnership between the U.S. and India)....
Paskal's book isn't all doom and gloom. She offers helpful advice for how to prepare for, mitigate and recover from the coming changes in the environment.
To read the rest of the review, and the interview, click here.
Andrew Krystal, in his in-depth column in the Nova Scotia Business Journal, explores the implications of nationalistic capitalism. An excerpt:
According to Cleo Paskal, the author of “Global Warring”, nationalistic capitalism, as practiced by China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), allows the Chinese state to use corporations in its sphere of influence to attain long-term strategic goals, like resource acquisition. These corporations appear, on the surface, to be like any other big multi-national. But they’re not. Says Cleo Paskal: “In China, the CCP calls the shots when it comes to who does business and how. The businesses should ideally make money, but always within the context of strengthening what the CCP deems in the best interest of China, and of itself.”
She continues: “Conversely, in the West, one of the post-Cold war challenges we face is the marked divergence of companies from national agendas. Increasingly, it seems as though businesses are caught up in short-term thinking. The privatization of critical national industries [Britain is kicking itself over the sell-off of North Sea oil, Paskal points out] contrasts markedly with the CCP approach in which China obtains assets and then uses them for national leverage.”
To read more, click here.
