Transition Kamloops member George Johnson has gathered a list of recommendations to help inform and inspire us as we tackle the climate emergency. Dig in!
Non-fiction:
Berry, Thomas. The Great Work. Three Rivers Press, 1999. “Only in literature, poetry, music, art, and occasionally in religion and the biological sciences has the natural world received the care that it deserves.” (x)
Chomsky, Noam and Robert Pollin. Climate Crisis and the New Green Deal. Verso, 2020.
Earle, Steven. A Brief History of the Earth’s Climate. Everyone’s Guide to the Science of Climate Change. New Society, 2021. By a TRU Open Learning Faculty member.
Hayhoe, Katherine. Saving us. A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. 2021.
Hawken, Regeneration. Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation. Penguin, 2021.
Kelsey, Elin. Hope Matters. Why Changing the Way We Think is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis. Greystone, 2020.
Klein, Seth. A Good War. ECW, 2020. “The Arts and culture industries can help to paint a picture of what a zero carbon future look like.” 346.
Korten, David C. Change the Story. Change the Future. A living Economy for a Living Earth. Berett- Koehler, 2015.
Kostigan, Thomas. You Are Here. Exposing the Vital Link Between What We Do and What That Does to Our Planet. Harper, 2008.
MacKinnon, J.B. The day the world stops shopping : how ending consumerism saves the environment and ourselves. Random House, 2021.
Mann, Michael. The New Climate War. The Fight to Take Back Our Planet. Public Affairs, 2021.
Maslin, Mark. “The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial.” November 28, 2019 https://theconversation.com/the-five-corrupt-pillars-of-climate-change-denial-122893
Reich, Robert. The Common Good. Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed. But first we need to weigh the moral obligations of citizenship and carefully consider how we relate to honor, shame, patriotism, truth, and the meaning of leadership. (Book blurb)
Shiva, Vandana. Earth Democracy. Justice, Sustainability, and Peace. North Atlantic, 2015.
Solnit, Rebecca. Hope in the Dark. Untold histories. Wild Possibilities. Canongate, 2016. On activism and hope. “Inside the word emergency is emerge; from an emergency new things come forth.” 13 “The revolution that counts is the one that takes place in the imagination.” 26
Fiction
Richard Powers, The Overstory (2018). Fascinating saga of human connectedness with and separation from the world of trees and forests.
Richard Powers, Bewilderment (2021) A child’s response to the climate crisis, and high-tech connection
Catherine Bush, Blaze Island (2020) Set on an island off the coast of Newfoundland, this tale is inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and involves a misdirected climate scientist’s quest to resolve the climate crisis.
Recommended Films:
2040 An optimistic and moving view of what life could look like in 18 years if we make good decisions with ideas and projects available today.
Eating Our Way to Extinction You will never eat quite the same after viewing this film.
Going Circular ~ https://curiositystream.com/video/4002
I am Greta
How to Change the World -origins of Greenpeace
Banking Nature –commodification of nature
Invisible Hand – rights of nature