The Climate Reading List
… by 350 Local group leader across the country…
Blog Post #2 is a reading list for climate action, especially for those new to it. The concept for this was originated by 350 Bay Area Legislative Committee member Katy Gurin. 350 group leaders across the country put in their suggestions. The below list of over 80 entries is the result. This is also posted to a Google Drive Sheet, where you can leave comments and suggestions.
Notes: The Category column is a loose grouping, as the line between Climate Advocacy and Climate Science is hard to draw. We have included the broader aspect of social transformation under the Category of “Change”. The Featured * indicates entries highlighted for their notoriety and/or oomph, per the editor. DISCLAIMER: These suggestions were crowdsourced and not vetted or sanctioned by any individual or group. Their utility and resonance will vary by user. We are sure you will find many resources that you can use!
Thanks to the leaders contributing to the list, who include: Jack Lucero Fleck, Christine Gauvreau, Pam Dehmer, Rosemary Dreger Carey, Mimi Bluestone, Molly Ornati, Rich Grant, Sandy Spears, Rosemary Dreger Carey, Chris Tandy, Judy Pope, Mark Schaeffer, S.K. “Sunny” Sun-Downer, David Camp, Patrick Mazza, Elizabeth K Williams, Mary-Alice Shemo, Ginger Storey-Welch, Alec Connon, and Rand Wrobel.
| Category | Type | Featured | Item | Comment |
| Climate Advocacy | Article | In 2014, Americans Feared Walking Alone at Night. Now They’re Worried about Government Corruption | THIS Poll Is VERY Telling… Especially re; “Climate Change=Nuclear War Fear %” ETC..! | |
| Climate Advocacy | Articles | * | Mark Hertsgaard at The Nation | A lot of climate and progressive political articles |
| Climate Advocacy | Book | * | Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything. | |
| Climate Advocacy | Book | * | Anything by or edited by Bill McKibben | |
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Ian Angus, Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Ian Angus, Facing the Anthropocene | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Anything by John Bellamy Foster | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | * | No is not enough by Naomi Klein | |
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Climate of Hope by Bloomberg and Pope | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | New Slow City by William Powers | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | The Rights of Nature by David Boyd | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnik | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods | For parents & educators: | |
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver | Fiction | |
| Climate Advocacy | Book | What We’re Fighting for Now is Eachother — Wen Stephenson | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Don’t Even Think About It — George Marshall | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Book | The Winning of the Carbon War by Jeremy Leggett | can be downloaded for free at http://www.jeremyleggett.net/latestbook/. | |
| Climate Advocacy | Book | Organizing Cools the Planet by Hilary Moore and Joshua Kahn Russell | Booklet PDF on Organizer tools and methods by climate organizer vets | |
| Climate Advocacy | Film | * | Merchants of Doubt DVD | |
| Climate Advocacy | Film | * | An Inconvenient Truth | |
| Climate Advocacy | Film | * | An Inconvenient Sequel | |
| Climate Advocacy | Film | Before the Flood | ||
| Climate Advocacy | Web | * | Hell and High Water. Joseph Romm | |
| Climate Advocacy | Web | https://sites.hampshire.edu/popdev/ | Any of the White Papers or “Different Takes” found on the website of the feminist climate think tank at Hampshire College | |
| Climate Advocacy | Web | http://unionsforenergydemocracy.org/ | Any white papers or videos by Trade Unionists for Energy Democracy: | |
| Climate Advocacy | Youth Book | Boy Who harnessed the Wind by Wm. Kakambua | an excellent read for middle school & up. | |
| Climate Advocacy | Youth Book | Ms Frizzle & Co, The Magic Schoolbus and the Climate Challenge. | For younger kids (but actually great for any age) check out | |
| Climate News | Web | Joseph Romm’s blog, Climate Progress, Now ThinkProgress | Politics and Climate | |
| Climate News | Web | http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment | Esp. any article by David Roberts at Vox | |
| Climate News | Web | * | Grist.org | A nonprofit news org for people who want a planet that doesn’t burn and a future that doesn’t suck. |
| Climate News | Web | * | http://www.dailyclimate.org/ | 1. For a climate news round-up — |
| Climate News | Web | * | http://www.carbonbrief.org/ and | For climate science-focused news – |
| Climate News | Web | * | http://www.climatecentral.org/ | For climate science-focused news – |
| Climate News | Web | * | http://insideclimatenews.org/ | For investigative reporting – |
| Climate News | Web | * | https://www.desmogblog.com/ | For investigative reporting – |
| Climate News | Web | For business/economics-focused news – https://www.bloomberg.com/climate-changed | ||
| Climate Science | Book | * | Hansen, James, Storms of my Grandchildren, Bloomsbury, NY, 2009, | A good book on climate science: |
| Climate Science | Book | * | The Sixth Extinction — Elizabeth Kolbert | |
| Climate Science | Book | * | Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Lynas) | |
| Climate Science | Book | * | Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Plant (Wagner & Weitzman) | |
| Climate Science | Book | * | Merchants of Doubt (Oreskes & Conway) | |
| Climate Science | Book | Earth in Human Hands by David Grinspoon. | Highly readable, full of fascinating info. Written by an astrobiologist, so you know he takes the long view as well. Pondering probable evolution of intelligent life in our galaxy ( billions of planets) he turns his eye on the predicament we find ourself in, the fundamental interconnectedness of Earth’s biosphere and geologic evemts. Wonderful book. | |
| Climate Science | Book | Deep Future by Dr. Curt Stager, Paul Smiths College. | He is a paleo-climatologist who looks backwards at past epics to make predictions about what’s ahead. He says we are changing the earth profoundly at a geological level.. | |
| Climate Science | Book | * | Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth. By Mark Hertsgaard | |
| Climate Science | Film | Chasing Coral on netflix | ||
| Climate Science | Film | * | Chasing Ice | |
| Climate Science | Film | * | Merchants of Doubt | |
| Climate Science | Film | * | Years of Living Dangerously (Nat Geo Channel series) | |
| Climate Science | Film | What’s Up With the Weather? (PBS NOVA & Frontline show) | ||
| Climate Science | Film | Chasing Coral | ||
| Climate Science | Web | The Debunker’s Handbook | which is a free download, only six pages of text, specifically targeting climate myths. An excellent summary is here: http://getenergysmartnow.com/2011/11/29/debunk-me-lean-mean-and-easy-to-read/ | |
| Climate Science | Web | * | https://climate.nasa.gov/ | |
| Climate Science | Web | www.climatecentral.org/ | ||
| Climate Science | Web | https://www.c2es.org | ||
| Climate Science | Web | * | http://www.ipcc.ch | |
| Climate Science | Web | https://www.carbontracker.org/ | ||
| Climate Science | Web | * | http://www.skepticalscience.com | Over 100 climate myths debunked |
| Climate Science | Web | http://www.realclimate.org | ||
| Climate Science | Web | https://robertscribbler.com | and politics | |
| Fossil Resistance | Book | Frackopoly by Wenonah Hauter | ||
| Fossil Resistance | Book | A Field Philosophers Guide to Fracking” by Adam Briggle. | It’s the non-fiction story of how a relatively small town (Denton, TX) stood up to the fossil fuel industry. It’s funny enough to stay interesting, provides a lot of useful tips, and lays out the ethical case for why it’s worth doing. I’ve given several copies of the book away to friends, and also an elected official or two. | |
| Politics | Book | Richard Smith, Green Capitalism: The God that Failed | ||
| Politics | Book | Paul Burkett, Toward a Red and Green Political Economy | ||
| Politics | Book | Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams: Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation | ||
| Politics | Web | For tracking Executive and Congressional branch activities – http://www.politico.com/morningenergy/ | ||
| Politics | Web | Dailykos.com for progressive politics and climate. Anything by Meteor Blades or RL Miller, and these groups: Climate Action Hub, Climate Change SOS, Climate Hawks, DK GreenRoots, EcoJustice | ||
| Solutions | Articles | http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/sunniest-climate-change-story-ever-read.html | If one article, the 9/7/2015 New York Magazine’s “This is the year humans finally got serious about saving themselves from themselves” by Jonathan Chait. | |
| Solutions | Articles | * | Anything by Mark Z Jacobson, PhD | Stanford Professor:Jacobson has also developed roadmaps to transition the world as a whole,all 50 U.S. states, and 139 countriesto 100% clean, renewable wind, water, and solar (WWS) energy for all energy purposes. |
| Solutions | Book | ** | Drawdown (ed. Paul Hawken, 2017). | If one book, read tbis. What with the pace of climate change as well as the quantity of climate actions and attempts to stop or delay them, books are becoming out-of-date more quickly. |
| Solutions | Web | For energy efficiency — http://aceee.org/blog | ||
| Solutions | Web | For EV news – http://insideevs.com/ | ||
| Solutions | Web | For grid news — http://www.greentechmedia.com/ | ||
| Solutions | Web | https://www.facebook.com/groups/1083994271692891/ | renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles | |
| Solutions | Web | https://twitter.com/RE_EE_EVnew | renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles | |
| Change | Book | This is An Uprising by Mark and Paul Engler | (if you only go for one from this list, I would go for this.) | |
| Change | Book | Strategy and Soul by Daniel Hunter | ||
| Change | Book | Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky | ||
| Change | Book | Rules for Revolutionaries by Becky Boyd | ||
| Change | Book | Blueprint for Revolution by Srdja Popovic | ||
| Change | Book | Doing Democracy by Bill Moyer | ||
| Change | Book | anything by Gene Sharp and Francis Fox Piven | are important for understanding how power works. | |
| Change | Book | Re-inventing Organizations | maybe not for newbie volunteers but for those of y’all figuring out your organizational structures — is a really great read.. | |
| Change | Youth Book | The Lorax – Dr. Seuss | The list wouldn’t be complete without Dre. Seuss. is the source of the so-apropos quote: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better, it’s not”. | |
