Best Books about Climate Change
Liberty We Enjoy
Our time is a singularly interesting one. For starters, most of the world – though, of course, never all of it – has a lot of leisure and a lot of freedom. With our leisure and the liberty which we enjoy, we tend not to be wary or careful of the detriments that inadvertently come forth from this same leisure.
Indifference
We drive cars that, though they look fantastic and get us where we need to be in record time, propagate pollution; we cut down the trees from the rainforests so that we can feel warm, or so that our home can be furnished in a fashionable manner. We litter and throw garbage in an undistinguished spot even though a can is never further than fifty feet away from us; and so on, and so forth.
Massive Changes
Because of this unwariness at the things we cause, the climate has begun to change. Surely, one thinks, the Earth goes through periods of global warming and climate change, but the scale at which the changes in the climate have been during the last few decades is a wholly worrisome and dreadful thought. Never before has the world been altered in such a way with a single species being the cause. As such, we are going to take a look at what the best books about climate change are.
The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells
Expansion
ExpansionDavid Wallace-Wells is a distinguished climate change activist, and a prominent journalist, whose work predominantly concentrates on the effects of climate change and global warming.
The Uninhabitable Earth initially began as an essay, published in 2017, and because of the positive reception, it was expounded into the book, which was released in the year of 2019.
Down to Business
Wallace-Wells’ work is outstanding, to say the least. David dissects what the term climate change entails, how it comes to occur, and what its products and results eventually are.
David doesn’t waste time with telling us what we already know about climate change. He immediately gets down to the nitty gritty and paints a picture of the scary situation in which are.
Very Soon
For one, a common misconception is that temperatures rising is the only drawback from climate change. That is completely untrue and false, since we know better. For example, the countries and, more broadly, the spaces in the equator of the Earth are slated to be entirely uninhabitable in a measly two to three decades if immediate action is not taken.
Accordingly, for lands that are not quite as high as others, the rise in the sea level will bring forth floods which will devastate these countries. Wallace-Wells urges everyone to take the matter as seriously as possible and for the whole world to come together in an attempt to save not just ourselves, but our own home.
This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
Lack of Regulations
Lack of RegulationsAuthoress Naomi Klein hails from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Klein is a very well-known Canadian activist, a prominent writer, and even a moviemaker. Her superb book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate was published in the year of 2014.
Naomi immediately, without fluff or padding, tells us what the truth is. The truth, unfortunately, is that the lack of regulations for the capitalism that is prevalent right now – and in the last half-decade – has brought us to where we are right now.
Significant Gap
Leaving the capitalistic tendencies of society to flourish uninterrupted have ensured that the gap between the lower, middle, and higher classes has become exceedingly large.
This enables the higher echelons of society to have the lower ones work twice, thrice, or however many times, as hard while the environment and the nature about them are destroyed slowly, yet surely.
Honest and Readable
For one, we can give Klein much praise for making the writing exceedingly honest and readable. She is forthright with us in telling us that she, too, was skeptical of the whole climate change rhetoric, but changed her mind once she devoted enough time and thought to the whole situation.
It perfectly describes how the thought process usually occurs to and with people. Naomi also asks us not to think that climate change and global warming are just things that the liberals are using against us.
It’s Real
Climate change is not a fictitious matter, but one very much grounded in reality. If we are ignorant of it, then we have caused more damage than we can ever hope to amend. Naomi Klein’s book is truly wonderful on the subject matter. It is clear why we chose it to be on our list of the best climate change books.
Six Degrees by Mark Lynas
Undeterred
UndeterredAuthor Mark Lynas was born in 1973, in Fiji. He lived in Fiji, Peru, and Great Britain during his childhood. Lynas is a famed journalist, writer, and a well-known activist. Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hot Planet was published in 2007.
Lynas begins with examining the way that the average human acts in spite of the dire situation concerning global warming. Sadly, what he surmises isn’t a man that is vigilant or diligent in his attempts to better, amend, or expiate the situation, but a man that is, seemingly, undeterred by what is going on.
Do We Care at All?
Is man truly ignorant of the rise in temperatures, the melting icecaps, or is he just unwilling to act against his own greedy tendencies? In spite of how little the average person is vexed by the situation, Lynas is still very much interested in helping humanity better our world.
Lynas gives us a brilliant book which features a number of research papers, personal thoughts and warnings of notable scientists, and conclusions which can be drawn from certain methods and models. Essentially, Lynas’ book is focused on what will happen on the Earth when its temperature has risen a scary six more temperatures.
Untold Catastrophe
With every subsequent degree, the Earth and humanity lose on a few more and a few more joys and liberties that are, at the moment, present. With just four degrees, many parts in South America and Africa will be completely uninhabitable.
However, when the sixth-degree mark has been assumed, the catastrophe will be untold. Those same conditions on the Earth would not have been seen for millions of years, yet by the helpful hand of man, it will seem like a lightweight feat.
Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes
Movie Adaptation
Movie AdaptationNaomi Oreskes is an American well-known author, an environmental activist, and also a Historian of Science. Oreskes was born on the 25th of November, 1958.
Oreskes’ wonderful book, which was co-written with Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming was published in 2010. A movie has also been made considering the large success of the book.
Selfish Needs
The duo of authors has come to the conclusion that a certain faction of well-known scientists – whose respective stature and prominence was achieved during the Cold War – came to view the regulations which were being made during that time for the purpose of hindering the unchecked disasters caused by capitalism.
In layman’s terms, they put their own selfish needs and judgments ahead of the planet’s wellbeing. Since their word was to be believed, industries like the tobacco industry, oiling industry, mining, and such, were left to profit off of the detriments they were inevitably causing.
Greed
It’s a tale as old as time. One person – or a group in this case –comes into wide public favor. That person determines that their own greed is to be held in higher regard than the greater good, of the planet, for instance, and that person can thus profit off of his brazen word which is believed wholly by the masses.
The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh
Dire Situation
Ghosh supposes that one has to be completely deranged if he doesn’t acknowledge the dire situation that climate change has brought on to us, which we have brought on, inadvertently. One truly has to ask himself, are we really ignorant or unenlightened of what we are doing, or are we aware, but just don’t want to stop? Does this affirm Ghosh’s assertion?
Three Parts
How often do we see the issue of global warming spoken of in the media, nowadays? How about if we take out all the disaster movies that profit off the catastrophes? It doesn’t seem to be all that frequent. Ghosh’s superb book is divided in three parts. The first part tackles the relationship which exists between global warming and fiction.
The second takes a look at climate change through history and how it has gained traction and momentum during the last fifty years; It’s obvious how industrialization has accelerated all of it.
Masterpiece
The final part speaks on the issues that global warming faces when it becomes used by politicians. The book is nothing short of a reverential masterpiece. Deservedly it has been chosen for the best books on climate change.
Losing Earth by Nathaniel Rich
Not a Surprise
Not a SurpriseAuthor Nathaniel Rich was born on March the 5th, in 1980. Coming from New York City, Rich is a well- known American author and essayist. One of the great books that the expert writer has authored is Losing Earth: A Recent History. It was published in 2018.
Nathaniel reveals to the reader than forty-one years ago, in the year of 1979, all of the kinks surrounding global warming were uncovered. Since then, everything that global warming and climate change bring forth and cause has not been a surprise to the ones that discovered its effects.
Acceleration
The few things that have changed since then pertain to the methods with which scientists predict the coming events; in a few words, they don’t spell a future that bodes well for us.
In the opinion of Nathaniel, the ten years between 1979 and 1989 were the most important in the battle against global warming. Nothing that could actually help the Earth was incorporated, but humanity opted to accelerate the horrible process.
Painting the Picture
If the steps needed were taken back then, then we wouldn’t have such a daunting challenge ahead of us. Did humanity attempt to hide under the bed while the monster went away?
Nathaniel does a wonderful job with painting the picture that he intends. Even if the topic mandates or assumes that a certain level of verbosity is to be utilized, Rich’s style of writing never becomes confusing. The book is highly readable, and one that we can’t recommend enough.
Continuous War
The battle against climate change and global warming isn’t to be won in a day, nor in a year. It is a continuous war in which humanity can’t do anything save adjust its own egoistical tendencies to the needs of the planet. It is either that or extinction.
Michael Englert
Michael is a graduate of cultural studies and history. He enjoys a good bottle of wine and (surprise, surprise) reading. As a small-town librarian, he is currently relishing the silence and peaceful atmosphere that is prevailing.
