Five Books to Read Before You Die (Or the Planet Does)

Do you know enough about global warming? Are you frightened to even start your own reasearch on the climate crisis? Or are you wondering what are some actual steps you can take in order to prevent an ecological catastrophe?

These are only a few of the burning questions a lot of us are faced with while browsing the news or getting the latest information on yet another natural disaster that shook the planet. In order to lower your anxiety or maybe just slowly introduce you to one of the world’s most important current topics, here are five books you can pick up right now in order to tackle going green. Let’s hopefully stop the worst possible outcome, and getting you ecologically conscious in the process.

The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis – Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac

As its own subtitle suggests, The Future We Choose is a stubborn optimist’s guide to the climate crisis. Written by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, the co-hosts of the ’Outrage + Optimism’ podcast, focusing on the challenges, frustrations and genuine outrage we need to face when it comes to the question of global warming, this book is separated into three parts, each of which has the goal to slowly introduce you to the most important aspects of this topic.

This well researched and heavily referenced piece of non-fiction, takes a realistic yet positive approach, offering small and large scale solutions that can be implemented right now to ensure a better and greener future. Furthermore, Figueres was one of the many people who spearheaded the Paris agreement and is one of the leading experts on the climate crisis, making this book a perfect option to help you dive your toe into a subject as complex as this. 

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast – Jonathan Safran Foer

Aside from the bestselling novel Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, as well as various other books, Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of some of the most digastable climate change centered non-fiction works published in the past few years. Following his succesfull memoir Eating Animals, which looked at veganism as an ecological tool, in 2019 Foer tackled the topic of human-caused global warming in his piece We Are the Weather.

Instead of only giving us dire predictions for the future supported by scientific research, Foer opts for a more personal angle when it comes to discussing the fate of the world through the perspective of a soon-to-come ecological crisis. We Are the Weather focuses on individual actions we can take to cause a global movement, taking into account that, while there is no perfect solution, there is an imperfect way to fix the mistakes of previous generations and save the world they have left us with. 

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming – David Wallace-Wells

Sometimes we need to approach heavy topics gently. Other times, we need a true wake up call in order to take action. David Wallace-Wells’ Uninhabitable Earth would fall into the latter category. 

In only 310 pages, this American author manages to capture the harrowing and deeply troubling fate the Earth can expect unless we change sometheing immediately. By painting the picture of a planet that could be unlivable in only a few couple of years, supported by real evidence you can find cited at the back of the book, Wallace-Wells shows us the worst possible outcome that might be waiting around the corner. As difficult as it might be to process, it’s a must read when it comes to raising awareness on the effects global warming.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate – Naomi Klein

Journalist, filmmaker and political activist Naomi Kline is possibly best known for her essays on capitalism. In 2014 she continued her deep dive into this social concept, exploring it for the firs time from an ecologically conscious perspective. 

Set up as a rather provocative piece on environmentalism, Klein’s book This Changes Everything approaches the subject from the perspective of the economic market. By arguining that it’s exactly there that we need to look for when it comes to solutions, this prolific author suggests that chaning the world for the better might be easier than it seems.

All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis – edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Keeble Wilkinson

Published in 2020, the essay, art and poetry collection titled All We Can Save might in itself represent a kind of revolution. Consisting of pieces written by over 50 different women at the forefront of the eco-movement, this book is a true representation of feminist solution-oriented writing created in a time of need. 

With a rigor, courage and the unstoppable desire to find out the truth, this anthology of thoughts about our environment illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States – scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race. All We Can Save is a tour de force coming to you from a compilation of voices with the goal to talk about the next step forward we have to take as a society.

Picture: Shutterstock / ID: 172545956

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