As a journalist who explores the intersection of human health and planet health, I've long been fascinated by how stepping outside into a healthy environment can boost our well-being. I also believe that we are more likely to take positive climate actions when we have a rich connection to the natural world around us, so a lot of my work focuses on helping people get out into nature—whatever that looks like for them.
This book exposes the troubling roots of the American conservation movement and explores how racism continues to keep people out of our public spaces. I’d consider it an illuminating must-read for anyone who loves this planet and its people and wants to usher us into a more inclusive era of outdoor exploration.
In this sweeping social history Dorceta E. Taylor examines the emergence and rise of the multifaceted U.S. conservation movement from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. She shows how race, class, and gender influenced every aspect of the movement, including the establishment of parks; campaigns to protect wild game, birds, and fish; forest conservation; outdoor recreation; and the movement's links to nineteenth-century ideologies. Initially led by white urban elites-whose early efforts discriminated against the lower class and were often tied up with slavery and the appropriation of Native lands-the movement benefited from contributions to policy making, knowledge about the…
I’ve travelled to the Pantanal and along the Amazon both ways from Brazil and Colombia while I was teaching English in Brazil and will never forget the destruction of the Amazon. A visit to the gaping hole of Serra Pelada, a gold mine, had a lasting effect on me as did the forest fires and scorched earth, devoid of any bird or animal apart from the skinny cattle grazing amongst the blackened trees, stretching for miles. A run-in with a hyacinth macaw egg thief, who was smuggling the beautiful birds into Europe, spurred my interest in writing a children’s series which touches on conservation, endangered species, and illegal wildlife trafficking.
This book does exactly what it says, although the chapter entitled "Eat Your Neighbours" did make me wonder if I was reading a different genre. Without being preachy, it gives kids 50 great ideas to help them make a difference to the environment including coming up against climate deniers, rewilding your garden (obviously without the bison, wolves, and wildcats), and buying less stuff including gadgets, clothes, and fast fashion (though I still have some way to go with a certain teenager). If you feel frustrated about how huge a problem climate change is and don’t know where to start, then the book will help you understand what fuels it and gives children some agency over how they choose to live their lives and make a difference.
Our planet is heating up, and it needs your help! If you want to learn to reduce your carbon footprint and cool the Earth, here are practical tips and projects that make a difference!
Are you concerned about climate change? The bad news is, global warming is a real problem that won't go away on its own. But the good news is, there are lots of easy ways you can get involved and make a difference! From swapping your stuff to assigning your school some eco-homework, helping to save the planet is within your reach. Arm yourself with info about…
I have been interested in the environment my entire life. I studied international environmental politics in college at the University of Michigan and in graduate school at MIT. I research and taught international environmental politics at the University of Massachusetts for 33 years. I have published extensively on global environmental governance, focusing on the role played by science, international organizations, transnational actors, and governments. I have consulted for the United Nations, and the governments of the USA, France, and Portugal.
Kate O’Neill’s The Environment and International Relations provides a thorough overview of the actors and processes involved in global environmental governance.
She deftly captures the political nature of global environmental threats, and looks at the roles of states and transnational actors in the governance of a variety of global environmental issues.
The new edition of this exciting textbook introduces students to the ways in which the theories and tools of international relations and other social science disciplines can be used to analyse and address global environmental problems. Kate O'Neill develops an innovative historical and analytical framework for understanding global environmental issues, integrating insights from different disciplines, and she identifies the main actors and their roles, thereby encouraging readers to engage with the issues and equip themselves with the knowledge they need to apply their own critical insights. Revised and updated, the new edition features new figures, examples, textboxes, and a new…
For the publication of our book, Climate Adaptation: Accounts of Resilience, Self-Sufficiency and Systems Change, I have worked closely with activists and academics from around the world, hearing more about the work they do and the unique and individual ways they have made adaptations within their communities. This experience has allowed me to have a deeper understanding of climate adaptation as a topic, both in a scientific and a cultural sense, thus meaning I have been more readily able to recognise the qualities of a great adaptation book!
Subtitled An Extinction Rebellion Handbook, this is a fascinating and informative read on how communities can come together to take action. Extinction Rebellion may have sparked controversy, but it is undeniable that their tactics have brought them to the forefront of news channels, ultimately bringing climate change into conversations more than ever before.
Extinction Rebellion are inspiring a whole generation to take action on climate breakdown. Now you can become part of the movement - and together, we can make history.
It's time. This is our last chance to do anything about the global climate and ecological emergency. Our last chance to save the world as we know it.
Now or never, we need to be radical. We need to rise up. And we need to rebel.
Extinction Rebellion is a global activist movement of ordinary people, demanding action from Governments. This is a book of truth and action. It has facts to…
I spent the first decade of my journalistic career focused on calamity, malevolence, and suffering. By my early thirties, I wasn’t just struggling to feel happy about the world — I was struggling to feel anything at all. It was an encounter with awe — a visit to an aspen colony in central Utah that is the world’s largest known singular organism — that jarred me from this increasingly colorless world. As an author, teacher, researcher, and radio host, I strive to connect others with a sense of wonder — and I feel very fortunate that so many other science communicators continually leave me feeling awestruck for this amazing world.
It would be easy to pass off this work as a book about the environment for Muslims. And I suppose it is that—an Islamic analog for the growing list of books that implore Christians to view environmental stewardship as an essential tenet of their faith, from authors like Sandra Richter and Fletcher Harper.
Abdul-Matin's work struck me in another way: As an expanding aperture into the faith of billions of people across this planet. Reading it was reminiscent of my first experience with Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh, which similarly offered me an accessible entryway to a religion I'd previously known very little about, and which permitted me to then dive deeper through other, more challenging works. I read Hoff's book for the first time as a teen-aged sailor onboard an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, and I have read it several times since. I am certain that…
A Muslim environmentalist explores the fascinating intersection of environmentalism and Islam.
Muslims are compelled by their religion to praise the Creator and to care for their community. But what is not widely known is that there are deep and long-standing connections between Islamic teachings and environmentalism. In this groundbreaking book, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin draws on research, scripture, and interviews with Muslim Americans to trace Islam’s preoccupation with humankind’s collective role as stewards of the Earth.
Abdul-Matin points out that the Prophet Muhammad declared “the Earth is a mosque.” Using the concept of Deen, which means “path” or “way” in Arabic, Abdul-Matin…
I have been an educator for over 20 years teaching elementary-aged children. The environment is a passion of mine. After reading the book Plastic Ocean and meeting the author Charles Moore, I realized that the issues facing our environment are going to be best solved by the upcoming generation of children. They understand how important it is to preserve our planet. Combining my love of writing with my education background, I started writing books to teach children about the environment and inspire them to make lasting changes. I love recommending books that have the same mission. Small actions equal great changes!
This book is breathtakingly beautiful and illustrates the need for us to take care of our planet. The message is simple yet impactful. A great book to introduce young children to caring for our environment. Parents and teachers can initiate conversations without having to delve deeply into complicated issues. It’s one of my all-time favorite books even as an adult.
I’ve been a biblical scholar for over 35 years and have spent a lot of time reading and writing academic volumes, analyzing arguments, and teaching diverse audiences. However, some of my formative experiences were as a child on my grandparents’ North Carolina farm, to which I still feel an almost elemental connection. Perhaps that farm (and my vegetable gardening) first sparked my interest in the environment. My interest turned to advocacy through research, which set me on the path to grasping the urgency of the climate crisis and my conviction that everything must reflect this reality. I’ve poured over the scientific reports (such as by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and read lots of nonfiction.
I found this academic anthology helpful for grounding me in some of the more conceptual issues regarding how we think about Earth. How does it affect us, for example, to think about Earth as Mother or as a resource provided primarily for humans?
I appreciated the diversity of more philosophical explorations alongside some history of how different religious groups understand the environment. The chapter on American Evangelicalism was especially interesting. This wasn’t a short or easy read, but it was important for helping me focus on how we think about our planet and why that matters.
This book charts a new direction in humanities scholarship through serious engagement with the geopolitical concept of the Anthropocene. Drawing on religious stwhatudies, theology, social science, history and philosophy, and can be broadly termed the environmental humanities, this collection represents a groundbreaking critical analysis of diverse narratives on the Anthropocene. The contributors to this volume recognize that the Anthropocene began as a geological concept, the age of the humans, but that its implications are much wider than this. Will the Anthropocene have good or bad ethical outcomes? Does the Anthropocene idea challenge the possibility of a sacred Nature, which shores…
As a leader of mountaineering and field science programs, I learned that Mother Earth knows a thing or two about magic. When I see the magic of nature under attack, I have the same response as when witnessing a helpless person being bullied: I want to join the fight. As a writer, my most powerful weapons are my words. And the best use of my words is in the telling of riveting stories—that both entertain and educate—in defense of the wild.
Abby’s best novel is the primer, the bible, the fountainhead of fiction addressing the destruction of nature for profit. In this case, damming the Colorado River. In fact, “monkeywrenching,” as a verb defining an action in defense of nature, has a much broader current applicability thanks to Abbey’s novel.
'Revolutionary ... An extravagant, finely written tale of ecological sabotage' The New York Times
Audacious, controversial and hilarious, The Monkey Wrench Gang is Edward Abbey's masterpiece - a big, boisterous and unforgettable novel about freedom and commitment that ignited the flames of environmental activism.
Throughout the vast American West, nature is being vicitimized by a Big Government / Big Business conspiracy of bridges, dams and concrete. But a motley gang of individuals has decided that enough is enough. A burnt-out veteran, a mad doctor and a polygamist join forces in a noble cause: to dismantle the machinery of progress through…
As a science journalist I have concentrated on the consequences of climate change. It´s the most frightening as fascinating experiment, we conduct with our planet. In 2018 I wrote a book on extreme weather together with climate scientist Freddy Otto from the University of Oxford (Angry Weather). After this I got immersed in a different climate consequence: How it is affecting biodiversity and with it the foundation of our societies. But what I also love is good storytelling. I quickly get bored with texts that have no dramaturgy or that don't give the reader any pleasure—unlike the fantastic and highly relevant books on this list.
I have to start with a confession: I buy many books on the climate and biodiversity crisis—as this is my main focus as a science journalist—but in many cases, I have to quit reading after several chapters. Even if they are of relevance—they often are simply too depressing and a mere accumulation of horrible facts.
This does not apply to the books of Elizabeth Kolbert—which is all the more amazing as her topic is hard stuff: How men alter and destroy nature, which we depend on. But nonetheless: I can´t stop reading it. Kolbert travels far and takes her readers to magical places that appear to be from a different planet. And by this she pulls one deeper and deeper into complicated issues, she manages to explain in a fascinating and readable way.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • 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?
RECOMMENDED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND BILL GATES • SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Esquire, Smithsonian Magazine, Vulture, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “Beautifully and insistently, Kolbert shows us that it is time to think radically about the ways…
I consider myself a topologist of story, ever fascinated by the shapes stories take, and how those underlying forms—as much as their specific content—guide our reactions and our emotions. In a social-media-saturated age, it’s more important than ever that we practice the skills of comprehending story landscapes so that we can understand who benefits from them—and who doesn’t. Ditch the GPS: whether memoir, reportage, or fiction, these books showcase some of the map-and-compass skills we all need to navigate a complicated new era.
A book for those whom the psychologist Robert Jay Lifton termed “prospective survivors,” this book is unsparingly honest in taking a hard look at our likely climate future—and moving from close examination to action rather than despair. By combining deeply personal reflections with broad-based scholarship, millennial Wray establishes a broad foundation for how to psychologically approach climate breakdown. Her overall analysis is highly readable, while her lists of action items that close out every chapter comprise a ready how-to guide suitable for taping up on your solar-powered fridge.
FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD
"A vital and deeply compelling read.” —Adam McKay, award-winning writer, director and producer (Don’t Look Up)
“Britt Wray shows that addressing global climate change begins with attending to the climate within.” —Dr. Gabor Maté, author of The Myth of Normal
"Read this courageous book.” —Naomi Klein
An impassioned generational perspective on how to stay sane amid climate disruption.
Climate and environment-related fears and anxieties are on the rise everywhere. As with any type of stress, eco-anxiety can lead to lead to burnout, avoidance, or a disturbance of daily functioning.
