I love reading lists. I love the connective tissue between the titles, and the way a reading list builds on itself. Outside of a formal education setting, a reading list by a qualified recommender is one of the best ways to educate yourself on a topic.
The five titles were influential in my journey to understand and visualize climate change. You may be surprised, since only two of them are explicitly about climate, while the others are about connected subjects. One of them is a novel, while the other four are non-fiction. I don’t think it is necessary to read them in any order, and you may have already read some of them. I offer them here as a suggestion, and hope they can enrich your understand of climate and the challenges we face, as well as how we can adapt.
1. Creating Climate Wealth by Jigar Shah
If I can recommend one book about climate, it’s this one. Shah is one of my personal heroes, he currently runs the lending program at the Department of Energy, and after reading this book I think you will understand why. The takeaway is that climate change is an enormous opportunity to create wealth, and to dramatically improve our society in ways we don’t really understand yet. By approaching it like an opportunity rather than a threat, we change the psychology of the issue. We can use climate investment to build wealth, bring people out of poverty, and raise the global standard of living.
2. Animal ,Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver is a novelist by trade, but this is a memoir. She and her family determined to grow their own food for an entire year, and she presents a funny, poignant and often difficult look at the challenges of doing so. This book is a must read for anyone who thinks they’re going to become more self-sufficient, particularly if they plan to grow their own food. As the climate becomes less stable, food resources may become more difficult, especially those that require specific climatic conditions to grow (like wine). Anyone with a plot of land may feel compelled to supplement their grocery budget with some home grown produce (or even meat, as Kingsolver did), I suggest they read this book before they do so.
3. The Grid by Gretchen Bakke
Bakke takes one of the driest and probably least sexy subjects around and makes it readable. This book is not exactly reassuring, and will have many readers wondering how they can secure their own access to electricity. As we’ve seen this year, extreme weather wrecks havoc on the grid, and long-term power outages will become more common. We will need heavy investment in the grid if we’re going to provide reliable acess
4. The Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson
This book really opened my eyes when I read it. Like most people these days, I was not very familiar with soil carbon. It turns out the precious topsoil that we’ve been losing at an alarming rate is also a major carbon sink. By implementing soil-saving, carbon-building practices, farmers can offset a significant amount of our carbon emissions. This would also have multiple benefits beyond reducing atmospheric carbon. If you want to understand the carbon cycle and the role that agriculture plays in climate stability, I’d highly recommend this book.
5. The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
This excellent novel by one of the best science fiction authors ever is far more complex than a typical post-apocalyptic story. What makes it interesting for us is that the apocalypse is not some surprise cataclysm like an alien invasion or a sudden catastrophe, the apocalypse is climate change. Butler presents a very realistic and vivid picture of what could very well happen in certain communities as the planet warms and the climate disabilizes. Issues of race, inequality, violence, and government neglect are presented in naked and at times gut-wrenching fashion. This book is well worth a read under its own merits, but for anyone who has trouble imagining what life might be like in a few decades, this work is a good place to start.
The Mangrove 