Chapter 1 sets out the foundations of the book, beginning with a basic discussion of what is climate change and the global climate crisis. The chapter then moves on to the important Global North-Global South colonial context and the fundamental issues of environmental justice, climate justice and carbon colonialism. From there, the discussion ventures into an overview of who bears the brunt of climate change, concluding in a final section on the calls for a gender-based approach to solving the global climate crisis and the rationale for the book.

Chapter 5 explores women’s substantive representation in the MENA. Whereas most previous studies have focused predominantly on what portfolios female politicians have been offered, the analysis here centres on which policy areas female parliamentarians in the MENA have pursued with a view to uncover the factors behind such choices. In other words, do female parliamentarians pursue portfolio areas based on their own gender and the presumed gendering of the portfolio area? According to their own experiences, does the number of women in parliament, women’s status in politics and women in central positions within the party leadership play a role in what policy areas they themselves pursue and are offered? Do they think the electoral system plays a role and, if yes, how? Are they attracted to the climate (or environment) portfolio? And what role do factors such as geography, qualifications and expertise play?

The Introduction sets the stage for ‘Computational Mineral Physics’, providing a concise overview of key topics. We start with the Earth’s internal structure, highlighting its core, mantle, and crust. Next, we touch on thermodynamic concepts like enthalpy, free energy, and the phase rule, crucial for interpreting phase diagrams. “Some Notions of Crystallography” introduces symmetry, direct and reciprocal space, and their significance in crystal structure analysis. Tensors are briefly discussed, essential for studying anisotropic properties. Last, we mention basic Linux/Unix commands for efficient data handling.

We introduce the concept of molecular dynamics. We explore the different possible ensembles and the properties that can be revealed. We discuss various technical aspects.

Chapter 4 considers a variety of legal theories that have been applied to protect the rights of wildlife. In recent years, the protection of wildlife has been enhanced by extending gains secured in strategic litigation to protect the rights of nature in Latin America. Beyond the cases that leveraged rights of nature, however, many of the creative theories seeking to protect the rights of wildlife in captivity, such as habeas corpus, have not been successful in courts in the United States, whereas a few such cases outside the United States have been successful. The obstacle in most of these cases is the courts’ reluctance to interpret the term “person” to extend to non-human animals. The chapter lays a foundation to explore the troubling dichotomy of how the law is more ambitious in protecting non-human elements of nature through a variety of legal mechanisms, addressed in Chapter 5, than it is in protecting non-human animals, addressed in the cases in Chapter 4.

We discuss magnetic properties in the context of electronic band theory. We present the different types of magnetic materials, talk about magnetic hysteresis, and explain how ab initio simulations help interpret palaeomagnetic data.

We end with a few short words about supercomputing centres and we discuss the future of atomistic simulations in light of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Chapter 1 introduces the plight of future generations, wildlife, and natural resources as voiceless communities that are disproportionately vulnerable in the face of the climate crisis. It explores the troubling gridlock in international climate diplomacy and recent backsliding of ambition in domestic environmental law in the United States and Europe. It also recognizes that a shift towards an ecocentric governance paradigm is underway in many nations, which would provide greater protection for these voiceless communities. Despite this recent progress, the chapter acknowledges that much work remains in this transition.

We analyse the energy derivatives in terms of atomic displacements. We derive the interatomic force constants tensor, and from there we obtain the dynamical matrix. We introduce the phonons as quanta of atomic motion in crystals. They are obtained by diagonalization of the dynamical matrix. To comprehensively grasp phonons, we employ the quasiharmonic approximation, limiting energy development to second-order terms. Phonons are defined by their wavevectors and frequencies, governing their orientation and energy, respectively. Unlike particles, they are quasi-particles and follow Bose–Einstein statistics as bosons.

We extract a large amount of information from the molecular dynamics simulation using statistical physics. Thus, we define a comprehensive set of structural, transport, and thermodynamic properties.

Chapter 3 centres on case selection and methodological considerations. The discussion opens up with a brief analysis that details how the MENA is understudied from both a climate and gender representation perspective, before moving on to a discussion of why it is important to study representation and climate change in authoritarian settings, i.e., not only in the MENA, but broadly speaking. The discussion in the first part of the chapter also covers the status of the MENA as a so-called ‘climate change hot-spot’. A considerable section of the case selection rationale in chapter 3 is dedicated to the study of gender and climate change within the MENA, which illustrates how the MENA case aligns with studies elsewhere in the Global South, i.e., focusing on women at the micro level and their vulnerability. The final (second) part of the chapter goes into detail with the methodology after briefly outlining the approaches favoured in the extant academic literature, coving both qualitative and quantitative methods.