100 books like An Inconvenient Truth

By Al Gore,

Here are 100 books that An Inconvenient Truth fans have personally recommended if you like An Inconvenient Truth. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Collapse

Jean-Martin Bauer Author Of The New Breadline: Hunger and Hope in the Twenty-First Century

From my list on fixing our broken global food system.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a teenager, I visited my uncle, who farmed rice in southern Haiti. I met a community that helped me understand that food is not just about dollars and cents—it’s about belonging, it’s about identity. This experience inspired me to become an aid worker. For the last 20+ years, I have worked to mend broken food systems all over the world. If we don’t get food right, hunger will threaten the social fabric.

Jean-Martin's book list on fixing our broken global food system

Jean-Martin Bauer Why did Jean-Martin love this book?

I found this book to be well-written and well-documented. While it does not focus solely on food systems, it does explain how a lack of food contributed to the demise of the societies explored in this book, such as the Greenland Norse and Easter Island. Diamond offers a stark warning about how a weak food system can undermine an entire civilization.

By Jared Diamond,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Collapse as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a visionary study of the mysterious downfall of past civilizations.

Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future.

What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island?
What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids?
Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the…


Book cover of The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change

Sumit K. Lodhia Author Of Mining and Sustainable Development: Current Issues

From my list on sustainable development is important to the planet.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Sumit Lodhia, a Professor of Accounting at the University of South Australia who has a primary research interest in sustainability accounting and reporting. Sustainable development is something that I am very passionate about, and I consider myself lucky enough to research in this area and to teach a course on this subject matter to third year undergraduate accounting students. I am a former resident of the beautiful Fiji Islands, and my lived experiences here and in my current country of residence, Australia, have shaped my worldview that focuses on equity, transparency, democracy, morality, and compassion.

Sumit's book list on sustainable development is important to the planet

Sumit K. Lodhia Why did Sumit love this book?

I found this book a significant contribution to the climate change debate at a time when the scientific consensus on climate change was not easily accepted by all. Written by an Australian, I found that this book provided a scientific explanation of climate change in very simple terms.

This was actually one of the first books that I read on climate change, and it opened my eyes to the seriousness of climate change and the scientific basis that provided evidence of climate change as a fundamental issue impacting future human survival on this planet. 

By Tim Flannery,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Weather Makers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Terrifying and inspiring, The Weather Makers is a page-turning epic that brings the most elusive and powerful of natural phenomena within our grasp.

Internationally acclaimed writer, scientist and explorer, Tim Flannery takes us on a journey through history and around the globe as he describes the wondrous diversity of the world's ecosystems and explains how 'the great aerial ocean' unites us. Along the way, we meet polar bears and golden toads, and travel from ocean depths to mountaintops, via desert, swamp and rainforest. Flannery reveals how the earth's climate has changed, across millennia and decades, and how the slightest imbalance…


Book cover of The Ninth Revolution: Transforming Food Systems For Good

Roger RB Leakey Author Of Living with the Trees of Life: Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture

From my list on making a healthier, fairer, and better planet.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a research scientist who has worked on the interface of many biological, environmental, social, and economic disciplines seeking more sustainable and yet productive forms of agriculture in the tropics and subtropics. With numerous colleagues, I've tried to find ways to right many of the wrongs that have affected the critical food and non-food needs of the world’s poorest and marginalized farmers. This also has the potential to heal much of the environmental degradation and social deprivation in our troubled and dysfunctional world. Along the way, I've had an unusual and privileged research career travelling in remote corners of the world and meeting the people most in need of help from international decision makers.

Roger's book list on making a healthier, fairer, and better planet

Roger RB Leakey Why did Roger love this book?

The crux of this book – ‘the need of the moment’ – focuses on the critical role of agrobiodiversity.

It recognizes that the current tendency to focus on only 30 out of 30,000 edible plant species has ignored many wonderful and locally popular foods that are also crucial for healthy and productive farming systems.

The book illustrates a ‘light bulb’ moment for the future of agriculture with the recognition of the numerous untapped benefits of edible plant species that have been overlooked by modern science.

By Sayed Nader Azam-ali,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ninth Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

We are at a critical point in human history and that of the planet. In this book, a world leader in agricultural research, Professor Sayed Azam-Ali, proposes a radical transformation of our agrifood system. He argues that agriculture must be understood as part of global biodiversity and that food systems have cultural, nutritional, and social values beyond market price alone. He describes the perilous risks of relying on just four staple crops for most of our food and the consequences of our current agrifood model on human and planetary health.In plain language for the wider public, students, researchers, and policy…


Book cover of The Challenge for Africa

Roger RB Leakey Author Of Living with the Trees of Life: Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture

From my list on making a healthier, fairer, and better planet.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a research scientist who has worked on the interface of many biological, environmental, social, and economic disciplines seeking more sustainable and yet productive forms of agriculture in the tropics and subtropics. With numerous colleagues, I've tried to find ways to right many of the wrongs that have affected the critical food and non-food needs of the world’s poorest and marginalized farmers. This also has the potential to heal much of the environmental degradation and social deprivation in our troubled and dysfunctional world. Along the way, I've had an unusual and privileged research career travelling in remote corners of the world and meeting the people most in need of help from international decision makers.

Roger's book list on making a healthier, fairer, and better planet

Roger RB Leakey Why did Roger love this book?

Wangari Maathai was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her environmental activism with the Women’s Green Belt Movement.

Africa perhaps has more humanitarian, environmental, and political challenges than any other continent. Many of these arise from its colonial history and this book eloquently and forcefully presents the way this has hindered African development.

It then calls on Africans to develop and implement their own solutions rather than to have them imposed by outsiders who don’t understand the context of the continent.

By Wangari Maathai,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Challenge for Africa as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this urgent yet optimistic new work, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai provides a unique perspective on the fate of Africa. Informed by her three decades as an environmental activist and campaigner for democracy, The Challenge for Africa celebrates the enduring potential of the human spirit, and reminds us that change is always possible.


Book cover of The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It

Roger RB Leakey Author Of Living with the Trees of Life: Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture

From my list on making a healthier, fairer, and better planet.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a research scientist who has worked on the interface of many biological, environmental, social, and economic disciplines seeking more sustainable and yet productive forms of agriculture in the tropics and subtropics. With numerous colleagues, I've tried to find ways to right many of the wrongs that have affected the critical food and non-food needs of the world’s poorest and marginalized farmers. This also has the potential to heal much of the environmental degradation and social deprivation in our troubled and dysfunctional world. Along the way, I've had an unusual and privileged research career travelling in remote corners of the world and meeting the people most in need of help from international decision makers.

Roger's book list on making a healthier, fairer, and better planet

Roger RB Leakey Why did Roger love this book?

This ‘wake-up’ call to society about the food crisis already affecting one billion people provides both information and guidance about what needs to be done to avert disaster.

It is also full of important philosophy, such as “There can be no peace until people have enough to eat.” The book goes on to offer important insights into what needs to be done for humanity to live sustainably.

The task is enormous, but there is hope if we wake from our slumbers. 

By Julian Cribb,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Coming Famine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In "The Coming Famine", Julian Cribb lays out a vivid picture of impending planetary crisis - a global food shortage that threatens to hit by mid-century - that would dwarf any in our previous experience. Cribb's comprehensive assessment describes a dangerous confluence of shortages - of water, land, energy, technology, and knowledge - combined with the increased demand created by population and economic growth. Writing in brisk, accessible prose, Cribb explains how the food system interacts with the environment and with armed conflict, poverty, and other societal factors. He shows how high food prices and regional shortages are already sending…


Book cover of Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity

Hans Ohanian Author Of Einstein's Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius

From my list on the climate-change disaster and how to avoid it.

Why am I passionate about this?

Hans Ohanian is a physicist who has taught at several universities before retiring to engage in full-time research, writing, and acting as reviewer for several scientific journals. In one of his first books he included two chapters on “Energy, entropy, and environment” and “Nuclear energy.” This gave him valuable expertise for reviewing the five great books he recommends here.

Hans' book list on the climate-change disaster and how to avoid it

Hans Ohanian Why did Hans love this book?

James Hansen is our leading expert on climatology, whose research established that the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere arising from human activities forces the global temperature upward. He recounts his strenuous efforts to alert the public and our political leaders to the dangers of greenhouse gases.

For me, the most intriguing tale told by Hansen is the mysterious mass killing of life 55 million years ago. After much sleuthing, Hansen decided this was caused by an outburst of frozen methane accumulated in the ocean, which escaped into the atmosphere and forced the temperature catastrophically upward. He reckoned that a similar accumulation of methane in today’s ocean poses a similar risk. After discussions with Bill McKibble, he urged that we must decrease atmospheric CO2 to 350 parts per million to eliminate this risk and other oceanic risks.  

By James Hansen,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Storms of My Grandchildren as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In his Q&A with Bill McKibben featured in the paperback edition of Storms of My Grandchildren, Dr. James Hansen, the world's leading climatologist, shows that exactly contrary to the impression the public has received, the science of climate change has become even clearer and sharper since the hardcover was released. In Storms of My Grandchildren, Hansen speaks out for the first time with the full truth about global warming: The planet is hurtling even more rapidly than previously acknowledged to a climatic point of no return. In explaining the science of climate change, Hansen paints a devastating but all-too-realistic picture…


Book cover of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

Bruce E. Johansen Author Of Nationalism vs. Nature: Warming and War

From my list on climate change and how to deal with it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I retired in 2019 after 38 years of teaching journalism,  environmental studies, and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. About half of my employment time was set aside for writing and editing as part of several endowed professorships I held sequentially between 1990 and 2018. After 2000, climate change (global warming) became my lead focus because of the urgency of the issue and the fact that it affects everyone on Earth. As of 2023, I have written and published 56 books, with about one-third of them on global warming. I have had an intense interest in weather and climate all my life.

Bruce's book list on climate change and how to deal with it

Bruce E. Johansen Why did Bruce love this book?

Very probably the world’s foremost organizer against global warming, Bill McKibben played a leading role in founding 350.org, a worldwide citizen-based, grass-roots solution for climate changes that already are well underway.

An eloquent writer and author of several other books that focus on humankind’s debt to nature, his role as an author on natural issues began in 1989 with The End of Nature. In October, 2009, McKibben took a leading role in organizing what CNN called “The most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.”  

By Bill McKibben,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Eaarth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Twenty years ago, with "The End of Nature", Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth. That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A…


Book cover of Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast

Bruce E. Johansen Author Of Nationalism vs. Nature: Warming and War

From my list on climate change and how to deal with it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I retired in 2019 after 38 years of teaching journalism,  environmental studies, and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. About half of my employment time was set aside for writing and editing as part of several endowed professorships I held sequentially between 1990 and 2018. After 2000, climate change (global warming) became my lead focus because of the urgency of the issue and the fact that it affects everyone on Earth. As of 2023, I have written and published 56 books, with about one-third of them on global warming. I have had an intense interest in weather and climate all my life.

Bruce's book list on climate change and how to deal with it

Bruce E. Johansen Why did Bruce love this book?

Archer, a computational ocean chemist at the University of Chicago, is best-known for his work on the carbon cycle and its interaction with global climate, past, present, and future.

While Archer’s credentials may have some readers thinking of a starchy academic paper, Archer’s book is quite accessible, and a very good start to understanding the science of climate change. Howard Falcon Lang of the University of Bristol calls it ”a tour de force of elegant exposition on one of the most important issues of our time.”

It is not only accessible, but also lucid and sometimes entertaining. 

By David Archer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Global Warming as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Based on the author's highly successful undergraduate course taught at the University of Chicago, Global Warming presents the processes of climate change and climate stability. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, this Second Edition not only summarizes scientific evidence, but also presents economic and political issues related to global warming.


Book cover of Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming

Bruce E. Johansen Author Of Nationalism vs. Nature: Warming and War

From my list on climate change and how to deal with it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I retired in 2019 after 38 years of teaching journalism,  environmental studies, and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. About half of my employment time was set aside for writing and editing as part of several endowed professorships I held sequentially between 1990 and 2018. After 2000, climate change (global warming) became my lead focus because of the urgency of the issue and the fact that it affects everyone on Earth. As of 2023, I have written and published 56 books, with about one-third of them on global warming. I have had an intense interest in weather and climate all my life.

Bruce's book list on climate change and how to deal with it

Bruce E. Johansen Why did Bruce love this book?

This book dissects the arguments of global-warming opponents through the scientific lens of Jim Hansen, who at the time it was published, directed the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

Hansen and Bowen finds the climate deniers’ opinions dangerous for their inaccuracies and ignorance of how the geophysical world works. For interpreting geophysical reality to those who didn’t want to hear it (or stood to lose money if such thinking became part of policy), Hansen became a target to some, and a hero to others.

It’s not a common event to see a renowned scientist carried away from a protest in handcuffs. Hansen got used to it. 

By Mark Bowen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Censoring Science as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Documents the Bush administration's censorship of a leading climatologist whose work demonstrated the significant dangers of global warming, in an account that explains the scientific principles behind global warming while identifying ways to prevent an imminent environmental disaster.


Book cover of The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review

Sumit K. Lodhia Author Of Mining and Sustainable Development: Current Issues

From my list on sustainable development is important to the planet.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Sumit Lodhia, a Professor of Accounting at the University of South Australia who has a primary research interest in sustainability accounting and reporting. Sustainable development is something that I am very passionate about, and I consider myself lucky enough to research in this area and to teach a course on this subject matter to third year undergraduate accounting students. I am a former resident of the beautiful Fiji Islands, and my lived experiences here and in my current country of residence, Australia, have shaped my worldview that focuses on equity, transparency, democracy, morality, and compassion.

Sumit's book list on sustainable development is important to the planet

Sumit K. Lodhia Why did Sumit love this book?

I found this to be a very informative book, which stated a simple but significant proposition–climate change impacts our future economic viability. While many texts have addressed climate change from a moral as well as a scientific perspective, the economic implications were not fully outlined.

As someone with a business background, more specifically an accounting background, I found this book very interesting, as I could use the arguments in it to justify why business needs to be involved in sustainable development.

By Nicholas Stern,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Economics of Climate Change as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There is now clear scientific evidence that emissions from economic activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels for energy, are causing changes to the Earths climate. A sound understanding of the economics of climate change is needed in order to underpin an effective global response to this challenge. The Stern Review is an independent, rigourous and comprehensive analysis of the economic aspects of this crucial issue. It has been conducted by Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the UK Government Economic Service, and a former Chief Economist of the World Bank. The Economics of Climate Change will be invaluable for all…


Book cover of Collapse
Book cover of The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change
Book cover of The Ninth Revolution: Transforming Food Systems For Good

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