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Climate Lyricism by
Climate Lyricism articulates a climate change-centered reading practice that foregrounds how climate is present in most literature.
Don't Even Think about It: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change by
Most of us recognize that climate change is real, and yet we do nothing to stop it. What is this psychological mechanism that allows us to know something is true but act as if it is not? George Marshall's search for the answers brings him face to face with Nobel Prize-winning psychologists and the activists of the Texas Tea Party; the world's leading climate scientists and the people who denounce them; liberal environmentalists and conservative evangelicals. What he discovered is that our values, assumptions, and prejudices can take on lives of their own, gaining authority as they are shared, dividing people in their wake. With engaging stories and drawing on years of his own research, Marshall argues that the answers do not lie in the things that make us different and drive us apart, but rather in what we all share: how our human brains are wired-our evolutionary origins, our perceptions of threats, our cognitive blindspots, our love of storytelling, our fear of death, and our deepest instincts to defend our family and tribe. Once we understand what excites, threatens, and motivates us, we can rethink and reimagine climate change, for it is not an impossible problem. Rather, it is one we can halt if we can make it our common purpose and common ground. Silence and inaction are the most persuasive of narratives, so we need to change the story. In the end,Don't Even Think About It is both about climate change and about the qualities that make us human and how we can grow as we deal with the greatest challenge we have ever faced.
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, nature, and climate change by
A new edition of the book that launched Elizabeth Kolbert's career as an environmental writer--updated with three new chapters, making it, yet again, "irreplaceable" (Boston Globe). Elizabeth Kolbert's environmental classicField Notes from a Catastrophefirst developed out of a groundbreaking, National Magazine Award-winning three-part series inThe New Yorker. She expanded it into a still-concise yet richly researched and damning book about climate change: a primer on the greatest challenge facing the world today. But in the years since, the story has continued to develop; the situation has become more dire, even as our understanding grows. Now, Kolbert returns to the defining book of her career. She has added a chapter bringing things up-to-date on the existing text, plus three new chapters--on ocean acidification, the tar sands, and a Danish town that's gone carbon neutral--making it, again, a must-read for our moment.
Learning to Die: Wisdom in the age of climate crisis by
"Truth-filled meditations about grace in the face of mortality." -Margaret Atwood In this powerful little book, two leading intellectuals illuminate the truth about where our environmental crisis is taking us. Writing from an island on Canada's Northwest coast, Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky weigh in on the death of the planet versus the death of the individual. For Zwicky, awareness and humility are the foundation of the equanimity with which Socrates faced his death: he makes a good model when facing the death of the planet, as well as facing our own mortality. Bringhurst urges readers to tune their minds to the wild. The wild has healed the world before, and it is the only thing that stands any chance of healing the world now -- though it is unlikely to save Homo sapiens in the process.
The Unreality of Memory by
"Terror, disaster, memory, selfhood, happiness . . . leave it to a poet to tackle the unthinkable so wisely and so wittily."* A literary guide to life in the pre-apocalypse,The Unreality of Memory collects profound and prophetic essays on the Internet age's media-saturated disaster coverage and our addiction to viewing and discussing the world's ills. We stare at our phones. We keep multiple tabs open. Our chats and conversations are full of the phrase "Did you see?" The feeling that we're living in the worst of times seems to be intensifying, alongside a desire to know precisely how bad things have gotten--and each new catastrophe distracts us from the last. The Unreality of Memory collects provocative, searching essays on disaster culture, climate anxiety, and our mounting collective sense of doom. In this new collection, acclaimed poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert explores our obsessions with disasters past and future, from the sinking of theTitanicto Chernobyl, from witch hunts to the plague. These deeply researched, prophetic meditations question how the world will end--if indeed it will--and why we can't stop fantasizing about it. Can we avoid repeating history? Can we understand our moment from inside the moment? WithThe Unreality of Memory, Gabbert offers a hauntingly perceptive analysis of our new ways of being and a means of reconciling ourselves to this unreal new world. "A work of sheer brilliance, beauty and bravery." *--Andrew Sean Greer, author ofLess
The Seasons Alter: How to save our planet in six acts by
As the icecaps melt and the sea levels rise around the globe--threatening human existence as we know it--climate change has become one of the most urgent and controversial issues of our time. For most people, however, trying to understand the science, politics, and arguments on either side can be dizzying, leading to frustrating and unproductive debates.Now, in this groundbreaking new work, two of our most renowned thinkers present the realities of global warming in the most human of terms--everyday conversation--showing us how to convince even the most stubborn of skeptics as to why we need to act now. Indeed, through compelling Socratic dialogues, Philip Kitcher and Evelyn Fox Keller tackle some of the thorniest questions facing mankind today:Is climate change real?Is climate change as urgent as the "scientists" make it out to be?How much of our current way of life should we sacrifice to help out a generation that won't even be born for another hundred years?Who would pay for the enormous costs of making the planet "green?"What sort of global political arrangement would be needed for serious action?These crucial questions play out through familiar circumstances, from an older husband and wife considering whether they should reduce their carbon footprint, to a first date that evolves into a passionate discussion about whether one person can actually make a difference, to a breakfast that becomes an examination over whether or not global warming is really happening. Entertaining, widely accessible, and thoroughly original, the result promises to inspire dialogue in many places, while also giving us a line of reasoning that explodes the so-far impenetrable barriers of obfuscation that have surrounded the discussion.While the Paris Agreement was an historic achievement that brought solutions within the realm of possibility, The Seasons Alter is a watershed book that will show us how to make those possibilities a reality.
The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change by
Everybody can be a thinking person when it comes to climate change, and this book is a perfect roadmap. Start a web search for "climate change" and the first three suggestions are "facts," "news," and "hoax." The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change is rooted in the first, up to date on the second, and anything but the last. Produced by one of the most venerable atmospheric science organizations, it is a must-read for anyone looking for the full story on climate change. Using global research and written with nonscientists in mind, the Guide breaks down the issues into straightforward categories: "Symptoms" covers signs such as melting ice and extreme weather, while "Science" lays out what we know and how we figured it out. "Debates" tackles the controversy and politics, while "Solutions" and "Actions" discuss what we can do as individuals and communities to create the best possible future. Full-color illustrations offer explanations of everything from how the greenhouse effect traps heat to which activities in everyday life emit the most carbon. Special-feature boxes zoom in on locations across the globe already experiencing the effects of a shifting climate. The new edition of The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change has been thoroughly updated, including content on new global record highs, new research across the spectrum, and the Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gases. This reference provides the most comprehensive, yet accessible, overview of where climate science stands today, acknowledging controversies but standing strong in its stance that the climate is changing--and something needs to be done.
