We’re compiling a personal ‘Essential Reading List’ on climate change to deepen our understanding of its science, causes, and responses. Based on our online research, we’ve created the list below and would love this community’s help in narrowing it down to the top 5-10 books/resources. With so many available, we’re sure we’ve missed some excellent ones. The list is in no particular order.
Various IPCC Reports, starting with AR5, www.ipcc.ch
Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, by Joseph Romm
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, by Naomi Klein
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, Edited by Paul Hawken
Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, by Bill McKibben
Dire Predictions, 2nd Edition: Understanding Climate Change, by Michael E. Mann
Field Notes from a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert
The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions, by Peter Brannen
Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet, by Gernot Wagner/Martin Weitzman
Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, by Andreas Malm
After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene, by Jedediah Purdy
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, by Amitav Ghosh
Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, by Gaia Vince
Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, by Preeti Simran Sethi
Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science, by Philippe Squarzoni
Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, by George Marshall
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, by Naomi Oreskes
Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, by Mark Lynas
What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice, by Wen Stephenson
The Discovery of Global Warming: Revised and Expanded Edition, by Spencer R. Weart
The Rough Guide to Climate Change: The Symptoms, The Science, The Solutions, by Robert Henson
Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action, by Daniel Abassi