Experts Tell Us the Best Books Explaining Climate Change

I found this a very readable and compelling summary. Anyone who is even remotely interested in climate change should ensure they read it or another one like it. I considered myself fairly well informed in general terms, but had never read one book that brought so many different angles together. It is alarming and I have questioned some of my long standing views and behaviours as a result.

When a book starts off with, Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?” you know you’re hooked. I transitioned from writing about issues like climate change at the BBC to starting my sustainable coffee business. A coffee business where I could empower people to make cafe-caliber coffee in their very own kitchen with their very own hands. I consider this a lesson in empowerment…small business over big business…personal over corporate. It’s true that the book, The Coffee Bean, caught my eye because of the title. I thought: “Are you telling me I can not only pump the magic liquid through my veins, I can actually BE a coffee bean? Sign me up!” As it turned out, the message resonated with me powerfully. It’s a short & illustrated fable on climate change & how to hear the call to action when life’s other priorities are deafeningly loud. It’s a story that both my son & I could understand & learn from together & separately—not an easy feat with that child-to-adult age gap. At any age, we need to keep things simple to understand them. Issues like global trends & eons of inertia seem too behemoth to fathom—easy to push aside as unfixable. Simple & illustrated fables, like this one, show us just how small a big problem can be. How we really can be something as simple as a coffee bean & reset our planet’s complex downward spiral.

I bought this book for my kids, and while this book is aimed at children to explain climate change I found it to be very informative, inspiring, and an educational experience. This beautifully illustrated book follows Greta Thunberg’s environmental fight when she learned about the climate crisis in the classroom and how she took action to bring about change. The book touches on how she went on strike, skipping school every Friday to sit outside of the Swedish Parliament building with a sign that read “School Strike for Climate.” Greta might have been the only one in the beginning, eventually, more and more students joined her until her protest sparked a worldwide student movement for action on climate change. I believe every parent has to teach their children about the climate crisis we face and the impact that they can have on the world. This book discusses the real issues of climate change and climate justice that are easy for children to understand and it is valuable in empowering children to make small changes in protecting our environment.

In How to Talk About Climate Change In a Way That Makes a Difference, social researcher Rebecca Huntley addresses the social and psychological factors that underpin how we respond to climate change so we can better persuade people to act. Whether you’re already alarmed and engaged with the issue, concerned but disengaged, a passive skeptic or an active denier, understanding our emotional reactions to climate change – why it makes us anxious, fearful, angry or detached – is critical to coping on an individual level and convincing each other to act. This is a must-read for anybody who wants to find their own motivation for change, or for those looking to understand how to motivate others into action.

As we face a global environmental crisis, The Eco Hero Handbook addresses all your eco-anxieties and dilemmas to empower you to become part of the solution. Looking behind the slogans and exploring the myths, this handy guide offers a clear and balanced exploration of the major eco-debates, enabling you to make decisions based on facts. Featuring practical steps for positive action in all areas of your life, find solutions to all your environment-related challenges. From recycling to eating sustainably, ethical fashion to being an eco-conscious tourist, this book is the essential guide to the little changes that will make a big difference.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is a detailed book that explains the driving factors behind climate change, how to measure them, and how to mitigate them. The book is persuasive and concise. It offers practical solutions for reducing greenhouse emissions. In his analogy, Bill Gates also recognize the challenges we’ll face if choose to go with his approach.

This book assumes that you know at least a little of the science behind climate change and instead opts to explain to us how the petrochemical industries, motor manufacturers and governments have known about the damage caused to the environment by their products, for decades, but have either done little about it, or actively concealed their findings in order to maximise profits. The somewhat obvious conclusion is that we all need to be open and honest about what action needs to be taken before it’s too late, but it makes for an informative and engaging read despite this.

Want to understand climate change? Read a novel about trees! Sometimes, when one wants to tackle a complex topic with deep socio-cultural roots (pun intended), only fiction will do! “The Overstory” is a great example of a novel sending out a much more powerful message than any essay or study could do. This is a novel with nine characters and life stories, yet its emotional, symbolic and narrative center are trees: trees of New York City, California, Oregon; trees of present and trees of the past. But even though humanity has endangered it, this magical species has an inherent potential for self-renewal and revival. While the book puts the devastating human impact at its narrative center, it refuses to be pessimistic. If anything, our destruction of nature is bound to backfire on us. Nature will survive, as it always does.

I recently completed my Master’s Degree in Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University, where we studied human’s effect on nonhuman animals– this was an assigned reading we read for a class. It really gets you thinking about evolutionary time and how homo sapiens, as a species, play a role in the modern climate. It is very easy and enjoyable to read, and gets you thinking about the BIG picture of the history and future of the earth, not just the tiny blip of time that humans have existed on this planet!

Our recommendation for the best book on explaining climate change would be The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen. This book tells us about how climate change has brought extreme changes in life on the earth. Be it Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, also along with this factor: this book has revealed a reason responsible for earth’s past mass extinctions. It tells us that: Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. This book will help you to explore earth past dead ends. It may responsible for a future cause also.