I think I mentioned a few months ago that I was developing a climate change reading group. This is a service project I am doing to complete my Rutgers Environmental Steward certification. I looked through a lot of books and asked folks for suggestions. I considered doing books by historians only (since I am a historian). But I decided I wanted to feature talented writers from a variety of disciplines. After all, we really need diverse perspectives to mitigate climate change. I finally landed on eight books, which I think are a good mix of doom and hope…and old and new. I think they’re all good reads.

Want to read with me?

July: What if We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

August: The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben

September: Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard, by Doug Tallamy

October: Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler

November: This Changes Everything, by Naomi Klein

December: The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

January: Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait, by Bathsheba Demuth

February: An Environmental Leader’s Tool Kit by Jeffrey Hughes

The reading group is actually a Borough of Riverton Green Team initiative (I am the chair of the Green Team), which I’m really happy about. The first session went well—seven participants(!). I did consider several other books. If I continue the reading group, I may include some of these (divided by fiction and non-fiction and in no particular order):

Fiction

Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver

The Overstory, by Richard Powers

Playground, by Richard Powers

American War, by Omar Al-Akkad

A Half-Built Garden, by Ruthanna Emrys,

New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Termination Shock: A Novel, by Neal Sephenson

Non-Fiction

Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America, by Ted Steinberg

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, ed./by Paul Hawkin

Under the White Sky: The Nature of the Future, by Elizabeth Kolbert

Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, ed. by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua

Regensis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, by George Monbiot

Against the Grain: How Farmers Around the Globe Are Transforming Agriculture to Nourish the World and Heal the Planet, by Roger Thurow,

The New Economics: A Manifesto, Steven Keen

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, by Kate Raworth

Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea, Callum Roberts

Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World, by Walter Reid, Brian Walker, and David Salt

If you’re local and you want to join, send me an email.

Why a reading group?

Volunteer projects for this program really run the gamut. All must address climate change in some way. I read What if We Get it Right last fall and could not put it down. Around the same time, I read somewhere that well over half of climate action we can take can be done at the local and state level. That’s particularly important right now given what the U.S. presidential regime is doing to gut federal environmental expertise, funding, research, and monitoring. And I was also intrigued by the statistic in the Johnson’s book that “62% of U.S. adults say they ‘feel a personal sense of responsibility to help reduce global warming,’ but 51% say they do.’t know where to start” (201). Since I have lots of teaching and informal adult education experience, including with reading groups, rounding up more books on the topic and getting people together to exchange ideas seemed like a good fit.

Talking is just step one. If we’re not talking about it, we have no hope.

Additional Notes

Tyler and I recently visited the new Edleman Fossil Park and Museum in Sewell, NJ. (An embedded link does not seem to be working, so here you go: https://www.efm.org/. I recommend it highly. The primary message is actually about climate change and the 6th extinction (or the Holocene Extinction)…and what you can do about (such as planting native plants!). If you visit, you, too can come face-to-face with a dino.

Views my own