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Knowledge is power.
We have included links to where you can buy these books but our first option would be to get them at the library or passed on from a friend. If you do buy them, pass them on.
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Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published back in 1962 and altered the course of history. The outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land and water. Her book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement and is as relevant almost 60 years after its release as it was back then. You can buy it from Bookshop.org, or Amazon.
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global warming is a New York times bestseller edited by Paul Hawken. The book offers 100 of the 'most substantive solutions to reverse Global warming, based on meticulous research by leading policy makers around the world'. One hundred teqniques and practices that range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices to pull carbon out of the air. The book is a ray of light presenting solutions that exists and that are economically viable to not only stop, but also reverse, Global warming. You can buy the book from Bookshop.org or Amazon.
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Colbert doesn't sugar coat it. There has been five mass extinctions over the last half billion years. We are currently heading towards the sixth, and the most devastating since the dinosaurs were wiped out. Kolbert provides a 'moving and comprehensive account of the disappearance occurring before our very eyes. She shows that the sixth extinction is likely to be mankind most lasting legacy'. The book is as dark as entertaining with stories involved in the research of the book and descriptions of species already lost. You can find the book at Bookshop.org and Amazon.
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by one of the worlds most renowned economists, Jeffrey D Sachs, is a must read. Sachs marries vivid storytelling with rigorous analysis and offers an informed vision of the steps that can transform impoverished countries into prosperous ones. The book was initially published ten years ago but remains as relevant today. The 10th anniversary edition includes forwords by Sachs assessing the progress made in the last decade, the work that remains to be done and how each one of us can help. You can find the book on Bookshop.org, and Amazon.
Eating Animals
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer is part memoir and part investigative report. Jonathan spent most of his life oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian and it wasn't until he became a father that he started questioning his own dietary choices. Foer sets out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them. You can get the book from Bookshop.org or Amazon.
The Uninhabitable Earth-Life After Warming
David Wallis-Wells is not an environmentalist, he says he has never loved nature, or even had a pet. As a life long New Yorker he believed he lived outside of nature until he looked at the science and realized wherever you are in the world you are inside nature, and when nature changes, your life will change too. His point-no one can escape or avoid the impact of global warming. In his book 'The Uninhabitable Earth-Life After Warming' he gathers scientific research and data and paints a pretty harrowing picture of what the world will look like in a very near future, and in his own words "it is, I promise, worse than you think." Get it from Bookshop.org and Amazon.
Fashionopolis
Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas is 'an investigation into the damage wrought by the colossal clothing industry and the grassroots high tech international movement fighting to reform it. ' Tomas looks at the rise of fast fashion and the environmental and humane cost we've had to pay for it. She also introduces us to an alternative world which is still as fashionable but that takes responsibility to the earth that supples the material and the humans that make the clothing. You can get the book from Bookshop.org and Amazon.
Under a White Sky
Elizabeth Kolbert, The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it?
In Under a White Sky, Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a "super coral" that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world, now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face. Find it at Bookshop.org or on Amazon.
From the author of Losing Earth, a beautifully told exploration of our post-natural world that points the way to a new mode of ecological writing.
We live at a time in which scientists race to reanimate extinct beasts, our most essential ecosystems require monumental engineering projects to survive, chicken breasts grow in test tubes, and multinational corporations conspire to poison the blood of every living creature. No rock, leaf, or cubic foot of air on Earth has escaped humanity's clumsy signature.
In Second Nature, Nathaniel Rich tells the stories of ordinary people that make desperate efforts to preserve their humanity in a world that seems increasingly alien. Their stories-obsessive, intimate, and deeply reported-point the way to a new kind of environmental literature, in which dramatic narrative helps us to understand our place in a reality that resembles nothing human beings have known.
The question is no longer, How do we return to the world that we've lost? It is, What world do we want to create in its place? Find it on Bookshop.org or Amazon.
A practical and comprehensive guide to surviving the greatest disaster of our time, from New York Times bestselling self-help author and beloved CBS Sunday Morning science and technology correspondent David Pogue.
In Arizona, laborers now start their day at 3 a.m. because it's too hot to work past noon. Chinese investors are snapping up real estate in Canada. Millennials have evacuation plans. Moguls are building bunkers. Retirees in Miami are moving inland.
In How to Prepare for Climate Change, Pogue offers sensible, deeply researched advice for how the rest of us should start to ready ourselves for the years ahead. Pogue walks readers through what to grow, what to eat, how to build, how to insure, where to invest, how to prepare your children and pets, and even where to consider relocating when the time comes. (Two areas of the country, in particular, have the requisite cool temperatures, good hospitals, reliable access to water, and resilient infrastructure to serve as climate havens in the years ahead.) He also provides wise tips for managing your anxiety, as well as action plans for riding out every climate catastrophe, from superstorms and wildfires to ticks and epidemics. Find it on Bookshop.org and Amazon.
In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical--and accessible--plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal.
He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions. Find it on Bookshop.org and Amazon.
All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States-scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race-and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly and radically reshape society.
Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future. We must summon truth, courage, and solutions to turn away from the brink and toward life-giving possibility. Curated by two climate leaders, the book is a collection and celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save. Find it at Bookshop.org or on Amazon.
Hope Jahren is an award-winning scientist, a brilliant writer, a passionate teacher, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. In The Story of More, she illuminates the link between human habits and our imperiled planet. In concise, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions-from electric power to large-scale farming to automobiles-that, even as they help us, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like never before. She explains the current and projected consequences of global warming-from superstorms to rising sea levels-and the actions that we all can take to fight back. At once an explainer on the mechanisms of global change and a lively, personal narrative given to us in Jahren's inimitable voice, The Story of More is the essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it. Find it at Bookshop.org or Amazon.
A Life on Our Planet
In his 93 years, British broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of our planet and documenting the living world in all it's variety and wonder. In A Life on Our Planet he reflects on these moments and the devastating changes he has seen, calling the film his 'witness statement and his vision of the future'. The film grieves the loss of wild places and the damage humans have caused to this planet but it also offers us an alternative ending, if we make the right choices. Our Planet is available on Netflix.
An Inconvenient Truth
Made in 2006 An Inconvenient Truth is as inconvenient today as it was then, if not even more 14 years later. The Oscar winning documentary follows former Presidential candidate Al Gore on the lecture circuit trying to raise awareness of the dangers of Global warming- the cause, effect and history of it and also potential solutions. This film is as relevant today as it was when it was first released. You can watch it on Amazon Prime Video.
There's a Monster in My Kitchen
If you only have three minutes use them to watch Greenpeace International's 'There's a Monster in my Kitchen'. And if you have another one and a half then watch 'There's a Rang-Tang in my Bedroom' directly after. They are both two beautiful animations telling brutal stories. 'A Monster in my Kitchen' is narrated by Brazilian actor Wagner Moura (Pablo Escobar from Narcos) and tells us how industrial meat production is wrecking havoc on rain forests across south America. 'A Rang-Tang in my Bedroom' tells the story about palm oil production and the deforestation and the loss of natural habitat for orangutans that it leads to.
Food Inc.
Food Inc. looks at corporate farming in America and how most of our food is grown by a very small handful of corporate farms that have little to do with traditional farming. The film features interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits, commentary from food experts like Michael Pollan and unsettling footage shot inside large scale animal processing plants. Available on Amazon Prime Video.
Kiss the Ground
Narrated by and featuring Woody Harrelson, Kiss the ground is an inspiring and optimistic film about a potential solution to the climate Crisis-Soil. In particular soil rejuvenation through regenerative farming. Science experts and celebrity activists unpack the ways in which the earth's soil may be the key to combating climate change and preserving the planet. Kiss the Ground is available on Netflix.
The True Cost
The true Cost is film about the actual cost of fashion. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades but with that decrease and the increase of fast fashion we have also seen how the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost pulls back the curtain on the world of fashion and asks us to consider who really pays the price for our clothing. It is filmed all over the world and features interviews with Stella McCartney, Livia Firth and Vandana Shiva. You can watch it on Amazon Prime video.
Fantastic Funghi
Fantastic Funghi is a documentary by Louie Schwatrzberg, narrated by Brie Larsen. However kooky you may think the film is, mushrooms and mycelia are fascinating and may offer solutions to the climate crisis. The mushroom is the visible part of a mycelium-a vast network of cells that have been sharing nutrients and forming connections for billions of years. It is an interesting watch.
My Octopus Teacher
My Octopus Teacher was one of those movies that people told me to watch but I never got around to because I just couldn't see how it would be worth my time. When I finally watched it I couldn't believe it had taken me so long. The documentary tells the story about a diver and an octopus and the friendship they develop. It's beautiful and wonderful and it may make you question everything you think you know about animals and really think about a humans relationship to nature. Watch it on Netflix.
A Crash Course on the BoF Sustainability Index
The Business of Fashion has many podcasts related to sustainability and Fashion but this one is a must listen. BoF' London editor Sarah Kent and editor-in-chief Imran Amed delve in to the BoF Sustainability Index, measuring fashion's progress towards avoiding catastrophic climate change and achieving broader social imperatives by 2030. Find it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you usually listen.
Well Made
Well made is a podcast with the people and the ideas that are shaping our consumption towards the better. Hosted by Stephen Ango, co-founder of Lumi. He speaks to Guests like Jenna Lyon, founder of Loveseen and Danny Alexander, co-founder of Who Gives a Crap. You can find it on Apple Podcast or wherever you usually go for podcasts.