cloudy climate

Climate Books

Different readers want different books. Some wish to learn more science or history or dig into topics in depth or how climate change interfaces with economics or politics. Others are looking for solutions or actions taken. We also need hope and community.

This page includes the books in my November 2024 list (with asterisks), and others. I will add books periodically. [Placeholders and notes to myself are in brackets.] Last updated December 1, 2024.

General

  • *The Climate Book, created by Greta Thunberg (2023). This comprehensively surveys climate change in one package – the science, how it affects Earth systems and humans, what is being done, and what is needed – in chapters written by a who’s-who of subject matter leaders. Issues of equity and justice are not neglected. The multi-author approach occasionally obscures how the parts fit together and their relative weight, but this is a minor quibble. [I disagree with the methane chapter, also.] Greta Thunberg’s frank and fierce voice provides the framework.
  • *Regeneration (2021) and Drawdown (2017), both from Paul Hawken, are handsome compendia of climate solutions, perhaps better reference volumes than books to read through. I like the greater prominence of oceans, forests, wilding, and lands in Regeneration.
  • Not the End of the World: how we can be the first generation to build a sustainable planet, by Hannah Ritchie (2024) The author uses data to show where we are today on air pollution, deforestation, biodiversity loss, overfishing, and other topics. She suggests what to stress less about and what’s important. Along the way, she delves into statements such as “the Amazon rainforest is the lungs of the Earth” or “by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans.” I like the data-driven and optimistic approach. However, some issues are not addressed, if there is insufficient data, such as effects of plastics on humans, and I missed hearing from people directly living with or studying these issues.
    Hannah Ritchie’s work can be found online at Our World in Data. She gave a TED talk “Are we the last generation – or the first sustainable one?” in April 2023.

What should we do to address climate change?

  • What should we do to address climate change? *Electrify: An Optimist’s Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future, by Saul Griffith (2021), presents a blueprint for how to eliminate carbon emissions, by electrifying everything while shifting to clean energy sources of electricity. One insight is that by doing this we halve our energy needs. (A quarter of fossil fuel energy combusted to make electricity is lost as waste heat, additional savings come from the greater efficiency of electric cars and heating appliances, and energy no longer goes to mining and refining fossil fuels.) The author, an engineer and inventor, presents US energy flows in numerous spaghetti-like Sankay diagrams. You can find a free earlier version of this book online (“Rewiring America“) or watch a Saul Griffith video (one billion machines, 2021).
  • In How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (2021), Bill Gates writes clearly about climate change and offers his practical framework for evaluating needed innovations. However, we shouldn’t rely on breakthroughs to save us, and we don’t need a solution for cement to rapidly deploy solar and wind today.
  • Speed and Scale: an Action Plan for Solving our Climate Crisis Now, John Doerr (2021) is from the point of view of a venture capitalist, with business oriented vignettes. There is room for climate solutions from every perspective.

About the Grid

  • Our US electrical grid is both fragile and critical for expanding green energy. *The Grid, by Gretchen Bakke (2016), takes us through the history of the grid to explain its patchwork structure, along the way detailing the 2003 East Coast blackout, how wind turbines in the Altamont Pass came to be Danish and not American-made, the failed SmartGridCity of Boulder, Colorado, and more. The author, a Cultural Anthropologist interested in technological transitions, discusses current challenges and foresees a new kind of grid infrastructure that is “little, flexible, fast, adaptive, local,” the opposite of what we have now.
  • *Freeing Energy: How Innovators are using Local-scale Solar and Batteries to Disrupt the Global Energy Industry from the Outside In, by Bill Nussey (2021) is an enthusiastic pitch for local energy as a way to improve communities here and abroad. This means solar+battery, at the most basic level; other names include distributed energy resources or DER, non-wires alternatives, grid edge, grid defection. The author, a former tech CEO, goes through costs, utility pushback, role of ratepayers (us), examples, and innovators. I wished for more coverage of potential negatives and lessons learned from installations; have there been issues with maintenance?
  • California Burning: the Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric – and What it Means for America’s Power Grid, by Katherine Blunt (2022) is about California utility PG&E, but I lost interest when the focus shifted to legal wranglings.

What to Expect

  • Climate change has impacts on us. In *The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, by Jeff Goodell (2023), we learn how heat affects human bodies, that heatstroke can also strike the young and fit, the role of hydration, how heat can kill. His reporting on other heat-related topics, such as urban heat, effects on food, the spread of vector-borne infectious diseases, the blob (an ocean heat wave), air conditioning, and naming heat waves, is not in great depth, but enlivened by accounts of people and events, to make a collection these are not intended to be deep dives of very readable articles. Jeff Goodell also wrote, The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, 2017.
  • The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, by David Wallace-Wells (2019) is gripping and packs a punch, but is too dire to recommend.
    The original article in New York Magazine, Jul 2017. An annotated edition followed (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html; possible paywall).
    For scientists’ feedback, see Scientists explain what New York Magazine article on ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ gets wrong. Jul 2017. (https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/scientists-explain-what-new-york-magazine-article-on-the-uninhabitable-earth-gets-wrong-david-wallace-wells/)
  • [Fire Weather]

Other non-fiction

  • We know what to do about climate change and we have the tools we need to do it. Why isn’t it happening?  Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, by George Marshall (2014), examines the way we relate to climate change; how this is shaped by psychological, cultural, and social influences such as identity and group loyalty; how it is possible for people to know but not feel that climate change is a threat. This is an entertaining and thoughtful look at climate change from a different angle, helpful for times when it seems hard to understand people.
  • The Carbon Footprint of Everything, by Mike Berners-Lee (formerly titled “How Bad Are Bananas” in 2011, updated 2022), was written after the author walked around a UK supermarket wondering what should a carbon-conscious consumer buy. The full climate change impact of things is almost impossible to measure, but it’s worthwhile to go through the exercise. The carbon footprints of polyester, acrylic, and cotton pants, for example, are derived not just from production, but also useful life, laundering, landfill, and water costs. The numbers are less important than the perspective, scaling from very small (less than 10 grams of carbon dioxide equivalents) to very big (billions of tons). Enjoy the whimsical choices, such as a newspaper, a night in a hotel, and space tourism, and pick your battles.
    Alternate: Rough Guide, by Duncan Clark, 2009, also from UK perspective.
  • The Citizen’s Guide to Climate Success: Overcoming Myths that Hinder Progress, by Mark Jaccard (2020). This looks like a good book, dense, incorporating economics, policy, and psychology, to examine several proposed solutions in detail; for example, why climate action plans are inefficient or why pricing carbon is not needed. The author is an economist who helped design British Columbia’s carbon tax. I will have to re-read this after I pick up more background.

Activism and Hope

  • Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe (2021). This grew out of a 2018 TED talk, “The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it,” given by the author, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a Christian atmospheric scientist living in Texas. She offers tips on what works and what doesn’t (facts aren’t enough!) gleaned from meeting with oil and gas executives, chatting with local church members, and other climate conversations. She provides a brief overview of the science, what people are doing, and why action is important. Here is how one person is dealing with climate change in real life, admirably talking to people, seeking connection over division, building community. 
  • Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, Rebecca Solnit and Young-Lutunatabua, editors (2023). This is an anthology of essays, an occasional interview, quotes, and a climate victory timeline. The voices come from around the world to express grief and loss, dreams for the future, climate justice, ways forward.
  • The New Climate War: the Fight to Take Back Our Planet, by Michael Mann (2021).
    How industry fights dirty.

Plants, Food, Land, Oceans

  • We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, by Jonathan Safran Foer (2019)
  • Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, by George Monbiot (2022).
  • Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013).
  • [So far I have neglected this giant topic.]

Climate Fiction

  • Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver (2012), tells the story of Dellarobia, a housewife in Appalachia, who sees a lyric vision, a “lake of fire.” What this turns out to be relates to climate change and brings visitors to town. Dellarobia contrasts the outsiders’ lives with her own and becomes more aware of the wider world. Changes in Dellarobia’s life are tied to the changing planet.
  • The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020). After a horrific opening, we see people taking action, to form a ministry, to slow the melting of Antarctic glaciers, to create a carbon coin. Stories from around the world, musings on economics and ethics, and even non-human voices help convey the scope of climate change. The solutions are not just science fiction, but reflect and salute the work being done today by many different groups. Some readers might find the disparate threads disruptive or dry, but everything comes together to build a vision of a climate change future in which we are able to work together on what needs doing.
    I also enjoyed the much lighter New York 2140 by the same author (2017) and the Green Earth trilogy [years & titles]
  • No More Fairy Tales: stories to save our planet, edited by DA Baden (2022) is a pleasant way to read about climate solutions. Some of the thrutopian short stories are from science fiction authors (including excerpts from The Ministry for the Future). For others, experienced writers were teamed up with climate experts, with enjoyable to earnest results.
    No More Fairy Tales came out of The Green Stories Project, which seeks to create works that entertain and inform about green solutions, inspire green behavior, and raise awareness of the necessary transformations towards a sustainable economy.

Fiction About Trees

  • The Overstory: A Novel, by Richard Powers (2018), makes trees significant in several storylines. A chestnut tree watching over four generations of a farm family gives us a sense of the different timescales lived by trees and humans. We share a character’s horror at the stumpy desolation of a clear-cut national forest. Atop a giant redwood, two human tree-sitters experience the ethereal (“Fog coats the canopy…. the tufted spires of nearby trunks stand swirled in the gauze of a Chinese landscape.”), find balance (she leans and he tips to compensate), and feel the interconnection of living things. Stop and see the trees, they are wondrous and mysterious and worth fighting for.
    • “You and the tree in your backyard come from a common ancestor. A billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways. But even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes.”
  • Barkskins, by Annie Proulx (2016). The story of North American forests in a big, long, multi-generational saga. The early days are especially vivid. As we follow the huge family tree, some characters are more sketchily drawn, some stories more melodramatic. Indigenous Peoples are appropriately a part of the narrative, but I wondered whether their perspective was accurately presented.
  • Damnation Spring, by Ash Davidson (2021). Here the focus is narrower, on how one family is affected by logging in the Pacific Northwest.

Notes on Climate Narratives

Fiction allows us to imagine how climate change might unfold for another person in another place.

Utopia means “no land.” Utopias don’t exist; they are unrealistic. Depressing dystopias depict too much doom and gloom. The term “thrutopia” has been coined for envisioning how to get from here to there.
[Thrutopia: why neither dystopias nor utopias are enough to get us through the climate crisis, and how a ‘thrutopia‘ could be. Rupert Read, 2017

There’s also a “Possitopian” approach, going beyond both probable, bad scenarios and preferable, ideal scenarios to explore the realm of the possible. The Voros cone of possible futures is invoked.
[Utopia/Dystopia is too binary. Bridget McKenzie suggests a ‘Possitopia’, and Rupert Read a ‘Thrutopia’. Bridget McKenzie, 2022]
[Explaining Possitopia, Bridget McKenzie, 2020]

In an interview, Kim Stanley Robinson says, “In Ministry, I set out to imagine a positive history that gets us to a better state. It’s possible that utopia is not the right word here. Joanna Russ made up the term ‘optopia’, which denotes not a perfect society, but the optimum society, the best one possible given where we are now. Joanna Russ made up the term “optopia”, which denotes not a perfect society, but the optimum society, the best one possible given where we are now.”
[How to create an optopia? -Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Ministry for the Future’ and the politics of hope. A Mikes and S New, 2023 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10564926231169170)]

“It’s hard to find the individual story lines that sufficiently tell the story of climate change, which in many senses always happens somewhere else. [If] It happens to you, you’re in a disaster movie, not in a climate change movie…. The moments where slow violence turns into fast violence or complete catastrophe, those are cinematic and comprehensible as stories. But the ordinary story of climate change that your bills are higher, you’re more uncomfortable, how do you narratize that, how do you make that into exciting film. It’s not so easy…. So it isn’t like this stuff is completely non-dramatic, but it is difficult to find the plot, to find the right characters, to find the right moments.” Kim Stanley Robinson, BBC The Climate Question, podcast 28 Jul 2024.