KPU instructor and graduate co-author book about climate change

Understanding Human Security and Climate Change details the impacts of climate change across eight countries through case studies, extensive research, and interviews with experts from around the world. 

Kwantlen Polytechnic University Political Science Department Chair and instructor Ross Michael Pink co-authored the book with KPU alumnus Luthfi Dhofier.

This is Pink’s third book, and it was released last month by U.K.-based Edward Elgar Publishing. The book came to be after Patrick James, Pink’s former professor at McGill University who now teaches at the University of Southern California, approached him to write a book on climate change and human rights last year.

“Human security is a really remarkable vision of human rights that was created by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 1994,” Pink says. “It basically says that people in developing countries, and sometimes in developed countries, … face seven threats.”

These threats affect one’s community, environment, food supply, health, personal well-being, politics, and economy.

“I thought that would be an excellent foundation to write a book about climate change because essentially my view and my philosophy is that climate change is always about human rights.”

People — often marginalized and impoverished — in developing countries face about 91 per cent of the negative impacts of climate change, Pink says. 

Since Dhofier is involved in many other projects and guest lectures in foreign countries, Pink says he decided to invite him to co-author the book. The duo also founded the Vancouver-based educational non-profit Global Water Rights in 2013.

The book includes chapter profiles of Canada, Thailand, India, China, the United States, Indonesia, Egypt, and South Africa, accompanied by a series of expert interviews from each country. Some experts interviewed for the book include 2015 Stockholm Water Prize laureate Rajendra Singh, Lori Idlout, an MP who has represented Nunavut in the House of Commons since 2021, and Niall O’Connor, director of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in Bangkok. 

Pink says the countries were chosen to provide international, cultural, regional, and climate diversity and profile varying levels of prosperity. 

Having worked and written about water and child rights, human security, and environment for many years, Pink says it was an honour to talk about the human security paradigm in his book. 

“I am really grateful because there was no proposal for this book, it’s basically based on my previous two books,” Pink says. 

He authored Water Rights in Southeast Asia and India, which was released in 2015, and The Climate Change Crisis: Solutions and Adaption for a Planet in Peril, which came out in 2018. 

Pink says it is important to start with facts to understand the reality of climate change as well as being cognizant of the innovations, which provide successful solutions. 

“I always emphasize there’s a lot of exciting and wonderful innovations that we can achieve as a collective society. You don’t need to be rich and famous to make change in the world. If everybody does a small part, then major change in the world will happen.”

A book launch for Understanding Human Security and Climate Change will be organized at KPU. At the time of publication, more details had yet to be finalized. Copies of the book are available to rent at KPU’s Surrey and Richmond campus libraries.