September is the time many people start stockpiling their winter reading lists. We put together our favourite climate change titles (in no particular order) to help you get up to speed on the current state of the planet. We promise these titles will be scarier than a horror story and more dramatic than your favourite Harlequin Romance novel. Yup, our climate change picks guarantee a wild emotional ride and hopefully something you read will get you hot enough to start taking action around climate change.
Heat by George Monbiot
This is a great book for those who like their reality served up without any sugar-coating. This is not the book for those of you who want to pretend climate change isn’t real or that changing a few light bulbs will make it all go away. Heat: How To Stop The Planet From Burning pulls no punches in its damning account of the trouble we now face as a planet. Though, like most good climate change books, author George Monbiot offers practical solutions to reach seemingly unattainable global goals by carbon rationing, decarbonizing our energy supplies by utilizing alternative energy sources (wind, solar, etc.). Monbiot also proposes to reconfigure the transport system to include bus-based systems as opposed to individual car ownership, reduce or eliminate all air traffic and change the way we purchase most everyday products including food. A damn fine read: http://www.monbiot.com/
Weathermakers by Tim Flannery
An accessible account of the world’s future if we don’t get off our butts and do something about climate change. Flannery has written an authoritative book described as ‘…a global call to arms, laying out plainly what we know and what we can do to make a difference before it’s too late.’ We must confess that we are a bit partial to the Weathermakers: How We Are Changing The Climate And What It Means For Life On Earth, as we contacted the publisher a while back and asked for 7 gratis copies to give to our local Mayor and Council to help convince them climate change was real. The publisher sent us the books and our municipality became the first in BC to set up a climate change task force. Clearly, Weathermakers is a powerful read: http://www.theweathermakers.ca/
WorldChanging edited by Alex Steffen
I think we love this book because it is so hopeful. Rather than terrifying us with dystopian statistics and facts, WorldChanging: A Users Guide for the 21st Century, is a blueprint of both hope and innovation. Foreword author Al Gore describes the book as; ...a compendium of solutions, some little known but well proven, some innovative and new, some bold but as yet untried'. The definitive hopeful guide to our future: http://www.worldchanging.com
Stormy Weather by Guy Dauncey and Patrick Mazza
Stormy Weather is a must-have for any climate change aficionado (wait that doesn’t sound right…). Considered by many to be one of the more accessible and uplifting climate change books on the market, Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Climate Change carefully outlines the problems we face from global warming and then offers achievable solutions, many of which revolve around using renewable energy: http://www.earthfuture.com/
Stupid to the Last Drop by William Marsden
Aside from having one of the coolest book titles of all the climate change books (full title – Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta Is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada), Stupid to the Last Drop is a great expose into how piggy politicians are literally destroying Alberta, Canada, to get at gas and oil resources. Their relentless and stupid quest for fossil fuels is decimating the Boreal forest, wiping out water resources, destroying wildlife and belching out greenhouse gases like there is no tomorrow. Bloody riveting: http://www.randomhouse.ca/
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
No, we are not talking about the academy award winning movie, but rather the book that probably reached a much smaller audience – An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Published as a ‘companion’ to the film, the book offers more in-depth information, including some interesting bits not covered in the movie. Al Gore is certainly working his eco-ass off to reach as many people as possible and that moves us to recommend his books: http://www.climatecrisis.net/
The Last Polar Bear by Steven Kazlowski
Last, but not least we include a photograph-based book as one of our top climate change titles. We loved this beautiful book as it chooses to focus on the reluctant icon of climate change – the polar bear. Using stunning photography and compelling essays from Theodore Roosevelt IV, Richard Nelson, Nick Jans and others, The Last Polar Bear drives home visually just how much we stand to lose from climate change. Achingly poignant: http://www.mountaineersbooks.org/
Show/Hide comment form
