a few must-read books about global climate change

THE CLIMATE REALITY PROJECT has a list of “Five Must-Read Books About the Climate Crisis” (October 29, 2019). According to the blurb on their website, “It’s the perfect time of year to curl up with a great new book, so be sure to add these climate must-reads to your list. Ready to put all that extra time spent inside to good use? Learn more about the ways this crisis is impacting the world around us—and what we need to do to fight back—with our list of five climate must-reads below.

The Uninhabitable Earth – Life After Warming

by David Wallace-Wells

This is easily one of the most talked-about books of the year, and its very first line puts the climate crisis into incredible perspective: “It is worse, much worse, than you think.” The author, a deputy editor and climate columnist at New York magazine, does not mince words on the challenges facing our planet—from the possibility of food shortages and refugee emergencies to climate-driven nation-state destabilization.

An Inconvenient Sequel – Truth to Power: Your Action Handbook to Learn the Science, Find Your Voice, and Help Solve the Climate Crisis

by Al Gore

A companion to Vice President Gore’s most recent documentary, this is a comprehensive how-to guide full of concrete, actionable ways you can join the movement for solutions and help turn the tide. It’s a powerful reminder of what can happen when people just like you take a stand – when you use your vote, your voice, and your choices to take action when it matters the most.

The Sixth Extinction – An Unnatural History

by Elizabeth Kolbert

As this New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winner details, the Earth has seen five landmark events in the distant past that wiped out most plant and animal life. But today, we’re witnessing a new phenomenon known to scientists as the “sixth extinction.” Unlike the five previous cataclysms, this sixth one is not a natural event. It’s human-made. And it’s happening right now. We know it as the climate crisis.

Drawdown – The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

by Paul Hawken (editor)

Editor Paul Hawken described the robust review process that went into every solution presented in the book: “We have 70 research fellows from around the world. Each of them took one or, in some cases, two solutions and wrote basically a master’s thesis on them. They did a literature review. There’s about 5,000 references for those 80 solutions. The methodology was a three-step review process. It’s reviewed internally, it’s reviewed by the advisors, then the model is reviewed by outside expert science reviewers.”

The Overstory

by Richard Powers

A work of incredible imagination sprawling across centuries and continents, The Overstory tells the, well, story of nine main characters, all existing at different periods of time. But the real protagonists of the novel are not men or women at all. They’re trees.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, and Chicago Tribune all named it among the best books of 2018.

To read the Climate Reality Project’s article in its entirety, click HERE.

FEATURED IMAGE: The photo at the top of this page was lifted from a review of The Overstory titled “A reminder that trees are alive” by Sarah Anjum Bari for The Daily Star. Here is Bari’s opening paragraph: “To call it ‘climate fiction’ would barely scratch the surface of what it really is. Richard Powers’ The Overstory—winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction—is an exhilarating glimpse into the majesty of plant life, and a humbling reminder of the fact that we humans aren’t the central characters in the story of this planet.”