Climate Change Books
Climate Books of All Types
This page is the answer to the age-old question — what do I read when I go to the beach? Except this one has a twist — what do I read when I want to save the planet?
Because there are actually books that help you do that.
The list below comes from conversations within our Climate Steps Facebook group and with my new friends in the Climate Reality Leaders‘ group, as we sought books to (1) help libraries build themed displays/collections about climate change, and (2) help provide fascinating reading for bookclubs.
(For those not in the know of what a bookclub is, it is a get-together of folks to discuss books. Usually dinner is involved, and in my last bookclub the topic often wandered towards men, but, hey, we did read books!)
One of the best steps you can take for fighting climate change is help other people understand it. Climate-related books can help — via talking libraries into have climate-themed collections at the front door, through gifting to a friend, by talking about in bookclubs, and by building a mini-lending library outside your house, etc.
So here is an initial list – I will list no more than ten under any one category, as we’ll work to build a spreadsheet over time that people can download.
Books on How You Can Change the Planet
Project Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, by Paul Hawken (Editor), 2017. This books tops my list for a book that provides carbon-equated actionable items. The book covers actions at all levels of society – government to individual, but the website has additional, individual behaviors.
Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution, by Peter Kalmus, 2017. All about personal behavioral changes, and chock full of good information about climate change in general – from a NASA climate scientist. Recommended as a bookclub book by two Climate Steps members as life-changing! (Disclaimer: I am working with Peter on an app, EarthHero.org, so may be a little biased here.)
Atmosphere of Hope: The Search for Solutions to the Climate Crisis by Tim Flannery
Climate of Hope by Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope
The Future Earth by Eric Holthaus
Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World by Bill Nye
The Hard Work of Hope: Climate Change in the Age of Trump by Robert William Sandford and Jon O’Riordan
Give a Sh*t: Do Good. Live Better. Save the Planet. by Ashlee Piper
Filled with How-tos under different categories such as In Your Kitchen, In Your Closet, and In the Wild.
Inspiring Books On Transformation
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013) by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Highly recommended by two Climate Reality Leaders – Ethyl and Kim. I haven’t read, but it was noted in a review that it ties what can be learned from plants to an awareness of ecology and the planet.
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way we Make Things (2002) by Robert William Sandford and Jon O’Riordan is a book about the much-needed circular economy and is highly recommended by my Climate Reality tablemate and friend Callie.
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (2017) by Kate Raworth
A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life (2018) by Hunter Lovins, et al.
This Changes Everything:Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014) by Naomi Klein. A favorite of Kat’s and umpteen other people.
No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference (2019) by Greta Thunberg
Great Tide Rising (2016) by Kathleen Dean Moore
The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture (2013) by Mary Pipher
Changing Lands and Environmental Justice
The Right to be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic, and the Whole Planet (2015) by Sheila Watt-Cloutier
“It talks about climate change, environmental protection, education, indigenous rights and culture, national and international politics, and more – all with the voice of an Innuit woman.” (Comments by Steph Aay, Climate Reality Leader). Another person mentioned the book is organized in a non-linear fashion, but it is worth sticking with.
What We’re Fighting for Now is Each Other (2016) by Wen Stephenson. A call for American radicalism regarding environmental justice.
Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, a treatise to fight climate change, spends a substantial proportion of the book focused on environmental justice, notes Jessica.
All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (2020) by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Katharine K. Wilkinson, et al.
Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi)
Stuart, a Climate Reality Leader, recommends two sci-fi classics by JG Ballard – The Drought and The Drowned World, 1692. and 1963, respectively. These books just celebrated their 50th anniversary, by strangely becoming nonfiction.
Ministry for the Future, by the well-know sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson – “This has the best take I’ve read about how we might get from where we are today to getting on serious track to stop climate change” says Ali Vora, a CSteps member.
Carbon Diaries 2015, and Carbon Diaries 2017, by Saci Lloyd. Two young adult books, published in 2009, about a member of a band and how life changes due to the climate crisis. Recommended by a Climate Steps member for book club.
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi, 2011. A+ young adult novel.
A Changing World
Books to read only in broad daylight, where you can immediately follow up with action to fight any despair.
- Winner of the Pulitzer Prize is The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert, 2014. (Recommended by Stuart)
- Of course, there’s a book that helped start off the popular movement against climate change: An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, by Al Gore, 2006.
- Michael Mann, climate scientist, has a large number of books, which look scary to read, although one purports to be funny. https://www.michaelmann.net/content/books. (Boy, do I have some reading to do.)
- A Climate Reality Leader mentioned that Nancy Sokal Green wrote a book in 1991 that was life-changing, called Poisoning Our Children.
- The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben, 1989, was a transformative book, and has been re-released since then with some additional content. Plus he’s written many other well-known books: http://billmckibben.com/end-of-nature.html.
- The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming, by David Wallace-Wells, 2019. Called painful by this review (“read one chapter at a time”), but also highly recommended (nybooks).
- The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption, by Dahar Jamail, 2019.
- From LynMarie, Climate Reality Leader: “The best book I’ve read on climate change! David W. Orr addresses the complexity of climate change, and within the context of economy, social justice, agriculture, etc., His book, “Dangerous Years: Climate Change, The Long Emergency, and the Way Forward” is a must read.” 2016.
- Losing Earth: A Recent History, by Nathanial Rich, 2019.
- The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, by Jeff Goodell, 2017. Recommended by two Climate Reality Leaders and lots of folks on Amazon.
Jessica, a Climate Steps FB member who researched her local library for this question, also found “46 books under “sustainable living,” including: The Green Guide, Living Green, the Eco Chick Guide to Life, Go Green Live Rich, The Heart of Simple Living, How to Give Up Plastic, How Bad are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything, The Carbon-free Home, True Green Home, Food Matters, Lucid Food, Generation Green (for teens), and Confessions of an Eco-sinner, Renewable Energies for your Home, as well as books for child-rearing, various hobby books (more food/kitchen, decorating, knitting, holidays, gardening/foraging, homesteading, animals, and DIY). One book was The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions can make our Energy and Climate Problems Worse (As Jessica says, “sounds really motivating, that one.”) Thank you, Jessica!
But remember, please, the best thing to do with these books is to not only read them yourself, but to talk to your library about adding a collection, to gift them, to have a book discussion party, and to spread the word. Literally.
Additional climate-related book lists:
Children’s Books
- The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, of course! 1971. Book or animation.
- Michael Mann, the most well known (of those not yet retired) climate-change scientist, known for the original hockey stick graph, co-authored a children’s book with Megan Herbert in 2018 that promises that having a tantrum will save the world. The award-winning book has a new edition coming in spring 2022. Pre-order at World Saving Books.
- Lynne Cherry is a well-known children’s author about environmental topics, and I happen to have a book on my dining room table to read, called How We Know What We Know About Or Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming, 2008. Oh, and congratulations Lynne, on 30 years since your awareness-raising book The Great Kapok Tree, and the release of a 30th Anniversary paperback edition! http://www.lynnecherry.com/.
- And via our CS Facebook group, we learned of Nick and his two other submarine engineer friends (three best friends, known as The3Engineers – oh! I just got the The 3 Musketeers reference!), and the rhyming environmental children’s books they’ve been writing, illustrating, publishing, and then narrating. Check them out at: https://instagram.com/the3engineers.