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With the increasing popularity of environmentalism, it’s no wonder that books on climate change are becoming bestsellers. However, with so many titles to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to start.
In this post we will also include books that have a different view and lens on climate change that are worth reading as well. It is always important to look at both sides of the argument on how to move forward and how the future of our planet can be solved in multiple ways.
Here are a few tips on how to pick climate change books that are right for you.
Do Your Research
The first step in picking a climate change book is to do your research. Not all climate change books on the subject are created equal; some are better than others.
Talk to friends and family who might be interested in the same topic, and see if they have any recommendations.
Once you’ve compiled a list of potential titles, take some time to read reviews (both professional and customer) to get a sense of what others thought about the book.
Checking out multiple sources will help you narrow down your choices.
Choose a Format That Works for You
Another important factor to consider when choosing a climate change book is the format. Do you prefer reading physical books, or would you rather listen to an audiobook?
There are also many excellent eBooks available if you prefer reading from your computer or phone. Once you’ve decided on a format, you can start looking for specific titles that come in that format.
Find an Author You Connect With
When it comes to nonfiction books, the author’s voice is often as important as the content itself. After all, you’ll be spending a significant amount of time with this person’s words, so it’s important that you find an author whose style suits your preferences.
If you’re not sure where to start, look for authors who have been recommended by people whose opinions you trust. Once you’ve found an author whose work appeals to you, see if they have written any books on climate change—chances are good that they have!
Most of these have an audio option as well, so if you enjoy listening on the go the audio option works great.
Summary
When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that “the science is settled.” In reality, the long game of telephone from research to reports to the popular media is corrupted by misunderstanding and misinformation.
Core questions—about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts will be—remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, but the why and how aren’t as clear as you’ve probably been led to believe.
Now, one of America’s most distinguished scientists is clearing away the fog to explain what science really says (and doesn’t say) about our changing climate.
In Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Steven Koonin draws upon his decades of experience—including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration—to provide up-to-date insights and expert perspective free from political agendas.
About the Author
Dr. Steven E. Koonin is a University Professor at New York University, with appointments in the Stern School of Business, the Tandon School of Engineering, and the Department of Physics.
He founded NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, which focuses research and education on the acquisition, integration, and analysis of big data for big cities.
Dr. Koonin served as Undersecretary for Science in the US Department of Energy under President Obama from 2009 to 2011, where his portfolio included the climate research program and energy technology strategy.
He was the lead author of the US Department of Energy’s Strategic Plan (2011) and the inaugural Department of Energy Quadrennial Technology Review (2011).
Before joining the government, Dr. Koonin spent five years as Chief Scientist for BP, researching renewable energy options to move the company “beyond petroleum.”
For almost thirty years, Dr. Koonin was a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech. He also served for nine years as Caltech’s Vice President and Provost, facilitating the research of more than 300 scientists and engineers and catalyzing the development of the world’s largest optical telescope, as well as research initiatives in computational science, bioengineering, and the biological sciences.
Summary
Regeneration offers a visionary new approach to climate change, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, equity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation. It is the first book to describe and define the burgeoning regeneration movement spreading rapidly throughout the world.
Regeneration describes how an inclusive movement can engage the majority of humanity to save the world from the threat of global warming, with climate solutions that directly serve our children, the poor, and the excluded.
This means we must address current human needs, not future existential threats, real as they are, with initiatives that include but go well beyond solar, electric vehicles, and tree planting to include such solutions as the fifteen-minute city, bioregions, azolla fern, food localization, fire ecology, decommodification, forests as farms, and the number one solution for the world: electrifying everything.
About the Author
Paul Hawken has written eight books published in over 50 countries in 32 languages including five national and NYT bestsellers–The Next Economy, Growing a Business, The Ecology of Commerce, Blessed Unrest, Drawdown, and Regeneration.
His writings have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Resurgence, New Statesman, Inc, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, and Orion. He founded several companies including Erewhon, the first food company in the U.S. that relied solely on sustainable agricultural methods.
He has served on the board of several environmental organizations including Point Foundation (publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogs), Center for Plant Conservation, Trust for Public Land, Conservation International, and National Audubon Society.
Summary
With clear-eyed realism and an engineer’s precision, Doerr lays out the practical actions, global ambitions, and economic investments we need to avert climate catastrophe. Guided by real-world solutions, Speed & Scale features unprecedented, firsthand accounts from climate leaders such as Laurene Powell Jobs, Christiana Figueres, Al Gore, Mary Barra, John Kerry, and dozens of other intrepid policymakers, innovators, and scientists.
In Speed & Scale, Doerr presents a compelling 10-step plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050–the global goal we need to reach to ensure a livable Earth for generations to come. From electrifying our energy grid to fixing our global food supply chain to capturing carbon from the air, Speed & Scale contains practical solutions for policymakers and entrepreneurs alike.
About the Author
John Doerr is an engineer, acclaimed venture capitalist, and the chairman of Kleiner Perkins.
For 37 years, John has served entrepreneurs with ingenuity and optimism, helping them build disruptive companies and bold teams. In 2018, he authored Measure What Matters, a handbook for setting and achieving audacious goals.
Through his book and platform, WhatMatters.com, he shares valuable lessons from some of the most fearless innovators of our time.
John was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than half a million jobs and the world’s second and third most valuable companies.
He’s passionate about encouraging leaders to reimagine the future, from transforming healthcare to advancing applications of machine learning.
Outside of Kleiner Perkins, John works with social entrepreneurs for change in public education, the climate crisis, and global poverty. John serves on the board of the Obama Foundation and ONE.org.
Summary
For decades, environmentalists have told us that using fossil fuels is a self-destructive addiction that will destroy our planet. Yet at the same time, by every measure of human well-being, from life expectancy to clean water to climate safety, life has been getting better and better.
How can this be?
The explanation, energy expert Alex Epstein argues in The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, is that we usually hear only one side of the story. We’re taught to think only of the negatives of fossil fuels, their risks and side effects, but not their positives—their unique ability to provide cheap, reliable energy for a world of seven billion people.
And the moral significance of cheap, reliable energy, Epstein argues, is woefully underrated. Energy is our ability to improve every single aspect of life, whether economic or environmental.
If we look at the big picture of fossil fuels compared with the alternatives, the overall impact of using fossil fuels is to make the world a far better place. We are morally obligated to use more fossil fuels for the sake of our economy and our environment.
Taking everything into account, including the facts about climate change, Epstein argues that “fossil fuels are easy to misunderstand and demonize, but they are absolutely good to use. And they absolutely need to be championed. . . . Mankind’s use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous—because human life is the standard of value and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it wonderful for human life.”
About the Author
Alex Epstein is a philosopher and energy expert who argues that “human flourishing” should be the guiding principle of energy and environmental progress. He is the author of the new book Fossil Future, the New York Times bestseller The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, and the creator of EnergyTalkingPoints.com -a source of powerful, well-referenced talking points on energy, environmental, and climate issues.
Alex has made his moral case for fossil fuels at dozens of campuses, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Duke (his alma mater). He has also spoken to employees and leaders at dozens of Fortune 500 companies.
Summary
The climate is the fundamental issue of our time, and now we face a critical decision. Whether to be optimistic or fatalistic, whether to profess skepticism or to take action.
Yet it seems we can barely agree on what is really going on, let alone what needs to be done. We urgently need facts, not opinions. Insights, not statistics. And a shift from thinking about climate change as a “me” problem to a “we” problem.
The Carbon Almanac is a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between hundreds of writers, researchers, thinkers, and illustrators that focuses on what we know, what has come before, and what might happen next.
Drawing on over 1,000 data points, the book uses cartoons, quotes, illustrations, tables, histories, and articles to lay out carbon’s impact on our food system, ocean acidity, agriculture, energy, biodiversity, extreme weather events, the economy, human health, and best and worst-case scenarios.
Visually engaging and built to share, The Carbon Almanac is the definitive source for facts and the basis for a global movement to fight climate change.
About the Author
THE CARBON ALMANAC NETWORK is a team of over 300 researchers, writers, artists, and chart specialists located in 40 countries, ranging in age from students to seniors.
In this unprecedented collaboration, a network of concerned citizens volunteered to work together to kickstart conversations about the most important issue of our time – climate change.
Their teamwork models the collaboration that they hope to see in the world: community-based efforts to save our planet that anyone can – and should – be a part of, regardless of political affiliation, age, profession, or geographic location.
About the Founding Editor: Seth Godin is the author of 20 international bestsellers that have changed the way people think about work and have been translated into 38 languages.
He writes the most popular marketing blog in the world and speaks to audiences around the world. He is the founder of the altMBA, the founder and former CEO of social media pioneer Squidoo, the former VP of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, and the founder of Yoyodyne, one of the first internet companies.
Summary
In a world of damaged ecological and social systems, with a fragile global economy and a rapidly changing climate, business as we know it must evolve or perish.
It is no longer acceptable to create financial profits by extracting the foundational living wealth of our lands and waters. Enterprises need a new model with which to interpret the world, and a new process for whole-systems design and decision-making.
The 8 Forms of Capital is that model. By articulating the multiple forms of capital with which we transact every day, it opens the door for an evolutionary approach to economics and profits.
Regenerative Enterprise defines the difference between degenerative, sustainable, and regenerative systems. It articulates the four factors of a regenerative enterprise, and the principles for designing regenerative enterprise ecologies.
The Regenerative Enterprise Institute also offers coaching and consulting services to enterprises and corporations that want to take the leap to regeneration.
About the Author
Gregory is co-founder and co-Chief Regeneration Officer of Regen Network.
Regen Network is land ecological commons management platform and the backbone for a new approach to ecosystem service markets based on verified ecological state.
Gregory Landua, co-author of the pioneering book, Regenerative Enterprise, the Levels of Regenerative Agriculture Whitepaper, and the Regen Network Whitepaper. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Terra Genesis International.
Terra Genesis International (TGI) is now lead by a dynamic global team of Permaculture and Regenerative Agriculture and Business practitioners and leaders working to support leading companies to transform their negative impact into regenerative effects, and leading cutting edge agro-forestry business planning around the world.
Gregory has studied marine and terrestrial ecology and evolutionary biology in the Galapagos Islands, translated for Amazonian rainforest guides, fought wildfires in the wilderness of Alaska, lived in established ecovillages, founded a successful work-live cooperative, and studied the nuances of ecology and ethics.
Gregory has B.S. in Environmental Science and Ethics from Oregon State University, and a M.Sc in Regenerative Entrepreneurship and Design from Gaia University.
Summary
Drought-hit regions bleeding those for whom a rural life has become untenable. Coastlines diminishing year on year. Wildfires and hurricanes leaving widening swaths of destruction.
The culprit, most of us accept, is climate change, but not enough of us are confronting one of its biggest, and most present, consequences: a total reshaping of the earth’s human geography.
As Gaia Vince points out early in Nomad Century, global migration has doubled in the past decade, on track to see literal billions displaced in the coming decades. What exactly is happening, Vince asks? And how will this new great migration reshape us all?
In this deeply-reported clarion call, Vince draws on a career of environmental reporting and over two years of travel to the front lines of climate migration across the globe, to tell us how the changes already in play will transform our food, our cities, our politics, and much more. Her findings are answers we all need, now more than ever.
About the Author
Gaia is a science writer and broadcaster interested in the interplay between humans and the planetary environment. Gaia has a chemistry degree and write’s for The Guardian, The Times, Scientific American, New Scientist and Nature.
In 2015, Gaia was the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize for her debut, ADVENTURES IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: A Journey To The Heart Of The Planet We Made.
Summary
How do you find the courage to choose positive change in uncertain times? How do you spread optimism to people concerned about the future but who feel too overwhelmed to know how to act?
Anne Therese Gennari has been seeking the answers to those questions most of her life, and in The Climate Optimist Handbook, she offers encouragement, wisdom, and practical tools to help us let go of fear and the dismal truth of today to build toward a world that can be better and more beautiful than anything we’ve yet seen.
That future starts with shifting the narrative on climate change so we can act from courage and excitement, not fear.
The Climate Change Optimist Handbook will guide you through that shift to become your own source of optimism.
You will learn the psychological reasons we aren’t acting more on climate change and gain tools and mindset tips to model positive change in your community and home.
A grounded and resilient leader is waiting to be born inside you—one who doesn’t just believe a better world is possible, but who is eager and excited to do everything possible to make that world a reality.
About the Author
Anne Therese Gennari is a TEDx speaker, podcaster, workshop host, and educator on climate change. For more than a decade she has been promoting climate optimism to help people cope with climate change and make decisions to create the climate-just future she believes awaits us.
She has brought her message to schools, companies, and organizations, including City College of New York, Columbia University, the Fashion Institute of Technology, BMW, and Tetra Pak.
Anne Therese hopes The Climate Optimist Handbook will be a gateway for people everywhere to step into the empowered roles we ought to play during our time here on Earth.
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Summary
A climate catastrophe can be avoided, but only with a rapid and sustained investment in companies and projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To the surprise of many, this has already begun.
Investors are abandoning fossil-fuel companies and other polluting industries and financing businesses offering climate solutions. Rising risks, evolving social norms, government policies, and technological innovation are all accelerating this movement of capital.
Bruce Usher offers an indispensable guide to the risks and opportunities for investors as the world faces climate change. He explores the role that investment plays in reducing emissions to net zero by 2050, detailing how to finance the winners and avoid the losers in a transforming global economy.
Usher argues that careful examination of climate solutions will offer investors a new and necessary lens on the future for their own financial benefit and for the greater good. Companies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions will create great wealth, and, more importantly, they will provide a lifeline for humanity.
Grounded in academic and industry research, Usher’s insights bring clarity to a complex and controversial topic while illuminating the people behind the numbers. This book sets out a practical and actionable plan for investors that will alter the course of climate change.
About the Author
Bruce Usher is a Professor at Columbia Business School, where he teaches on the intersection of financial, social and environmental issues, and is a recipient of the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence. Professor Usher is also affiliated with the Columbia Climate School and on the Executive Committee of the Earth Institute.
He chairs Columbia University’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, advising the university trustees on ethical and social issues that arise in the management of investments in the university’s endowment.
Prior to joining Columbia University, Professor Usher was CEO of EcoSecurities Group plc, which developed greenhouse gas emission reduction projects in developing countries. EcoSecurities was acquired by JPMorgan in 2009.
He was previously the co-founder and CEO of TreasuryConnect, which provided electronic trading solutions to banks and was acquired in 2001. Prior to that, he worked in financial services in New York and Tokyo.
Professor Usher is an active investor and advisor to entrepreneurial ventures focused on climate change and clean energy, and is Chair of the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures. He earned an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.
Summary
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—suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise.
As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.
Summary
A Brief History of the Earth’s Climate is an accessible myth-busting guide to the natural evolution of the Earth’s climate over 4.6 billion years, and how and why human-caused global warming and climate change is different and much more dangerous.
Richly illustrated chapters cover the major historical climate change processes including evolution of the sun, plate motions and continental collisions, volcanic eruptions, changes to major ocean currents, Earth’s orbital variations, sunspot variations, and short-term ocean current cycles.
As well as recent human-induced climate change and an overview of the implications of the COVID pandemic for climate change. Content includes:
A Brief History of the Earth’s Climate is essential reading for everyone who is looking to understand what drives climate change, counter skeptics and deniers, and take action on the climate emergency.
About the Author
Steve Earle, PhD, has worked in the Earth Sciences, has developed and taught university Earth Science courses for almost four decades and is author of the widely used university textbook, Physical Geology, now in its second edition, and another text Environmental Geology.
He participates in climate change research and community engagement with climate change solutions including low-carbon transport initiatives, energy systems, heating systems, and land stewardship. He lives with his family on a sustainable farm on Gabriola Island, Canada.
Summary
The ex-Unilever CEO who increased his shareholders’ returns by 300% while ensuring the company ranked #1 in the world for sustainability for eleven years running has, for the first time, revealed how to do it.
Teaming up with Andrew Winston, one of the world’s most authoritative voices on corporate sustainability, Paul Polman shows business leaders how to take on humanity’s greatest and most urgent challenges—climate change and inequality—and build a thriving business as a result.
In this candid and straight-talking handbook, Polman and Winston reveal the secrets of Unilever’s success and pull back the curtain on some of the world’s most powerful c-suites. Net Positive boldly argues that the companies of the future will profit by fixing the world’s problems, not creating them.
Together the authors explode our most prevalent corporate myths: from the idea that business’ only function is to maximise profits, to the naïve hope that Corporate Social Responsibility will save our species from disaster.
These approaches, they argue, are destined for the graveyard. Instead, they show corporate leaders how to make their companies “Net Positive”—thriving by giving back more to the world than they take.
Net Positive companies unleash innovation, build trust, attract the best people, thrill customers, and secure lasting success, all by helping create stronger, more inclusive societies and a healthier planet. Heal the world first, they argue, and you’ll satisfy your investors as a result.
Summary
Hurricanes batter our coasts. Wildfires rage across the American West. Glaciers collapse in the Artic. Politicians, activists, and the media espouse a common message: climate change is destroying the planet, and we must take drastic action immediately to stop it. Children panic about their future, and adults wonder if it is even ethical to bring new life into the world.
Enough, argues bestselling author Bjorn Lomborg. Climate change is real, but it’s not the apocalyptic threat that we’ve been told it is. Projections of Earth’s imminent demise are based on bad science and even worse economics. In panic, world leaders have committed to wildly expensive but largely ineffective policies that hamper growth and crowd out more pressing investments in human capital, from immunization to education.
False Alarm will convince you that everything you think about climate change is wrong — and points the way toward making the world a vastly better, if slightly warmer, place for us all.
About the Author
Dr. Bjorn Lomborg is an academic and the author of the best-selling “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool It”. He challenges mainstream concerns about development and the environment and points out that we need to focus our limited resources and attention on the smartest solutions first.
He is a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School, and president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center which brings together top economists, including seven Nobel Laureates, to set data-driven priorities for the world.
Lomborg is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media, for outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, CNN, FOX, and the BBC. His monthly column is published in 19 languages, in 30+ newspapers with more than 30 million readers globally.
Summary
We are exhausted. There’s so much to do, and way too much to buy. Whether it’s through late night TV ads, social media, or other sources of influence, we seem to be addicted to buying and then storing things.
Sometimes we consume with no regret and other times we realize that we’re doing more harm than good to our wallets and our homes.
It’s a constant cycle – one that many are longing to break. Who wants their hard-earned money to go toward something that soon ends up in a landfill?
We have an abundance of things. Manufacturing “stuff” exploits Earth’s precious (and finite) resources. And then there’s the harsh reality of where it all goes.
Our discarded possessions ultimately head to landfills and contribute to environmental pollution, releasing greenhouse gases during breakdown and decomposition.
Sustainable minimalism is the solution overworked people are seeking but can’t seem to find in any store.
This book empowers readers to incrementally incorporate the tenets of sustainable minimalism into their homes and lives. You will master the easiest tasks first and build upon your successes-a practical and stress-free process. Now that’s sustainable.
Summary
What do Brazil’s top beauty brand, America’s second-fastest-growing restaurant chain, and the world’s third best-selling car have in common? They are shattering the myth that acting sustainably and building a billion-dollar business are mutually exclusive.
Green Giants examines nine companies that are merging social responsibility with wild profitability – and reveals the six factors responsible for their success, including: iconoclastic leadership fueled by deep conviction and a rebellious streak; disruptive innovation that uses sustain ability to spur the development of radically better products and services; and a higher purpose that ignites the company – when the mission leads, profits follow.
Mainstream appeal with positioning and packaging stripped of the crunchy cliches that alienate the average customer: This new breed of billion-dollar business proves it’s possible to achieve enormous success while implementing sustainable principles that help consumers live better lives.
Ranging from start-ups to business lines incubated within major multi nationals, these companies collectively represent over $60 billion in revenue. What’s more, many command wider profit margins and are growing faster than their conventional counterparts.
Packed with eye-opening research, exclusive interviews, and enlightening examples from Chipotle, Toyota, Unilever, Tesla, General Electric, and more, Green Giants serves as a blueprint for sustainable success that anyone can follow.
The Upcycle is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Cradle to Cradle, one of the most consequential ecological manifestoes of our time.
Now, drawing on the green living lessons gained from 10 years of putting the Cradle to Cradle concept into practice with businesses, governments, and ordinary people, William McDonough and Michael Braungart envision the next step in the solution to our ecological crisis:
We don’t just use or reuse and recycle resources with greater effectiveness, we actually improve the natural world as we live, create, and build.
For McDonough and Braungart, the questions of resource scarcity and sustainability are questions of design.
They are practical-minded visionaries: They envision beneficial designs of products, buildings, and business practices―and they show us these ideas being put to use around the world as everyday objects like chairs, cars, and factories are being reimagined not just to sustain life on the planet but to grow it.
It is an eye-opening, inspiring tour of our green future as it unfolds in front of us.
The Upcycle is as ambitious as such classics as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring―but its mission is very different.
McDonough and Braungart want to turn on its head our very understanding of the human role on earth: Instead of protecting the planet from human impact, why not redesign our activity to improve the environment? We can have a beneficial, sustainable footprint. Abundance for all. The goal is within our reach.
Summary
Called “one of the nation’s most effective communicators on climate change” by The New York Times, Katharine Hayhoe knows how to navigate all sides of the conversation on our changing planet.
A Canadian climate scientist living in Texas, she negotiates distrust of data, indifference to imminent threats, and resistance to proposed solutions with ease.
Over the past fifteen years Hayhoe has found that the most important thing we can do to address climate change is talk about it—and she wants to teach you how.
In Saving Us, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation. We need to find shared values in order to connect our unique identities to collective action.
This is not another doomsday narrative about a planet on fire. It is a multilayered look at science, faith, and human psychology, from an icon in her field—recently named chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy.
Drawing on interdisciplinary research and personal stories, Hayhoe shows that small conversations can have astonishing results. Saving Us leaves us with the tools to open a dialogue with your loved ones about how we all can play a role in pushing forward for change.
About the Author
Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist and chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy. She is also the Endowed Professor in Public Policy and Public Law and Paul W. Horn Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University. She has been named a United Nations Champion of the Earth and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, and serves as the climate ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance.
Katharine was a lead author for the US Second, Third, and Fourth National Climate Assessments, hosts the PBS digital series Global Weirding, and has written for The New York Times. Her TED Talk “The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Fight Climate Change: Talk About It” has been viewed over 5 million times. She has a BSc in physics and astronomy from the University of Toronto and an MS and a PhD in atmospheric science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change.
One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of.
They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air.
The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth’s warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline.
These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being—giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world.
About the Author
Paul Hawken has written eight books published in over 50 countries in 32 languages including five national and NYT bestsellers–The Next Economy, Growing a Business, The Ecology of Commerce, Blessed Unrest, Drawdown, and Regeneration.
He has appeared on the Today Show, Larry King, Talk of the Nation, Charlie Rose, Bill Maher and been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Washington Post, Business Week, and Esquire.
His writings have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Resurgence, New Statesman, Inc, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, and Orion. He founded several companies including Erewhon, the first food company in the U.S. that relied solely on sustainable agricultural methods.
He has served on the board of several environmental organizations including Point Foundation (publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogs), Center for Plant Conservation, Trust for Public Land, Conservation International, and National Audubon Society.
Summary
In “This Changes Everything,” Naomi Klein argues that climate change is not just an environmental issue, but a political and economic one as well. She discusses how those in power have used the issue of climate change to further their own agendas, often at the expense of those who are most vulnerable to its impacts. She calls for a radical transformation of our political and economic systems in order to avert disaster.
About the Author
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author. She is Senior Contributing Writer for The Intercept. In 2018 she was named the inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair at Rutgers University and is now Honorary Professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers.
In September 2021 she joined the University of British Columbia as UBC Professor of Climate Justice (tenured) and co-director of the Centre for Climate Justice.
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