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There's a Book for That: Climate Change 2020

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Climate Week NYC , the biggest climate summit of 2020, continues online through September 27. Hosted by the Climate Group in association with the United Nations and the City of New York, this year the focus is on rebuilding after COVID-19 and the lessons we can learn in the “pursuit of a net-zero future through just transition.” Penguin Random House has a number of relevant titles to the pursuit. Here are some of the most recent and popular:

 

The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-WellsTHE UNINHABITABLE EARTH: LIFE AFTER WARMING by David Wallace-Wells

This #1 New York Times bestseller is a chilling, groundbreaking portrait of the near future if global warming continues unchecked

Like An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring before it, The Uninhabitable Earth is both a meditation on the devastation we have brought upon ourselves and an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation. Click here for the spanish edition

 

The Story of More by Hope JahrenTHE STORY OF MORE: HOW WE GOT TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND WHERE TO GO FROM HERE by Hope Jahren

From the bestselling author of Lab Girl comes a slim, urgent missive on the defining issue of our time. Hope Jahren is an award-winning geobiologist, a brilliant writer, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. The Story of More is her impassioned open letter to humanity as we stand at the crossroads of survival and extinction.

 

As Long as Grass Grows by Dina Gilio-WhitakerAS LONG AS GRASS GROWS: THE INDIGENOUS FIGHT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, FROM COLONIZATION TO STANDING ROCK by Dina Gilio-Whitaker

The story of Native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community’s rich history of activism

Throughout 2016, the Standing Rock protest put a national spotlight on Indigenous activists, but it also underscored how little Americans know about the longtime historical tensions between Native peoples and the mainstream environmental movement.

 

The Ice at the End of the World by Jon GertnerTHE ICE AT THE END OF THE WORLD: AN EPIC JOURNEY INTO GREENLAND’S BURIED PAST AND OUR PERILOUS FUTURE by Jon Gertner

Gertner chronicles the unfathomable hardships, amazing discoveries, and scientific achievements of the Arctic’s explorers and researchers with a transporting, deeply intelligent style—and a keen sense of what this work means for the rest of us. The melting ice sheet in Greenland is, in a way, an analog for time. It contains the past. It reflects the present. It can also tell us how much time we might have left.

 

The New Map by Daniel YerginTHE NEW MAP: ENERGY, CLIMATE, AND THE CLASH OF NATIONS by Daniel Yergin

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin offers a revelatory new account of how energy revolutions, climate battles, and geopolitics are mapping our future.

A master storyteller and global energy expert, Yergin takes the reader on an utterly riveting and timely journey across the world’s “new map”. He illuminates the great energy and geopolitical questions on the eve of the historic 2020 Presidential election and the profound challenges that lie ahead.

 

The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-CarnacTHE FUTURE WE CHOOSE: SURVIVING THE CLIMATE CRISIS by Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac

In The Future We Choose, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac—who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015—have written a cautionary but optimistic book about the world’s changing climate and the fate of humanity.

The authors outline two possible scenarios for our planet. In one, they describe what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a carbon neutral, regenerative world. The Future We Choose presents our options and tells us what governments, corporations, and each of us can and must do to fend off disaster.

 

Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal by Noam Chomsky and Robert PollinCLIMATE CRISIS AND THE GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SAVING THE PLANET by Noam Chomsky, Robert Pollin…

In this compelling new book, Noam Chomsky, the world’s leading public intellectual, and Robert Pollin, a renowned progressive economist, map out the catastrophic consequences of unchecked climate change—and present a realistic blueprint for change: the Green New Deal.

Humanity must stop burning fossil fuels within the next thirty years and do so in a way that improves living standards and opportunities for working people. This is the goal of the Green New Deal and, as the authors make clear, it is entirely feasible.

 

All We Can Save by ALL WE CAN SAVE: TRUTH, COURAGE, AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Katharine K. Wilkinson

Women are on the front line of the climate-change battle, and are uniquely situated to be agents of change—to find ways to mitigate the causes of global warming and adapt to its impacts on the ground. Today, across the world, from boardrooms and policy positions to local communities, from science to activism, women everywhere are using their voices to take leadership and call for action on climate change. This anthology is a collection and celebration of these diverse voices, asking critical questions and providing invaluable insight and solutions. Curated by two climate leaders, this book leads us away from the brink and toward the possibility of a life-giving future.

 

Tales of Two Planets by TALES OF TWO PLANETS: STORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND INEQUALITY IN A DIVIDED WORLD by John Freeman

Galvanized by his conversations with writers and activists around the world, beloved writer and editor John Freeman engaged with some of today’s most eloquent storytellers, many of whom hail from the places under the most acute stress—from the capital of Burundi to Bangkok, Thailand. The response has been extraordinary. Margaret Atwood conjures with a dystopian future in a remarkable poem. Lauren Groff whisks us to Florida; Edwidge Danticat to Haiti; Tahmima Anam to Bangladesh; Yasmine El Rashidi to Egypt, while Eka Kurniawan brings us to Indonesia, Chinelo Okparanta to Nigeria, and Anuradha Roy to the Himalayas in the wake of floods, dam building, and drought. This is a literary all-points bulletin of fiction, essays, poems, and reportage about the most important crisis of our times.

 

The New American Farmer by Laura-Anne Minkoff-ZernTHE NEW AMERICAN FARMER: IMMIGRATION, RACE, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SUSTAINABILITY by Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

Drawing on extensive interviews with farmers and organizers, Minkoff-Zern describes the social, economic, and political barriers immigrant farmers must overcome, from navigating USDA bureaucracy to racialized exclusion from opportunities. She discusses, among other topics, the history of discrimination against farm laborers in the United States; the invisibility of Latino/a farmers to government and universities; new farmers’ sense of agrarian and racial identity; and the future of the agrarian class system.

 

FOR YOUNGER READERS

 

 

Who Is Greta Thunberg? by Jill Leonard and Who HQWHO IS GRETA THUNBERG? By Jill Leonard, Who HQ, Manuel Gutierrez

When she was just fifteen years old, Greta Thunberg knew she wanted to change the world. With a hand-painted sign that read “School strike for the climate” in Swedish, Greta sat alone on the steps of the Swedish parliament to call for stronger action on climate change. Her one-person strike would soon spark a worldwide movement. This exciting story details the defining moments in Greta’s childhood that led up to her now-famous strike and all the monumental ones that have fueled her revolution since, including being named Time’s Most Influential Person of the Year in 2019.

 

Life Cycles by DKLIFE CYCLES: EVERYTHING FROM START TO FINISH by DK; illustrated by Sam Falconer

From the single-celled amoeba to how the Earth formed, the life cycles in this book have been carefully chosen to give you an amazing overview of the universe, and how everything is intricately linked. Filled with facts to amaze your friends, stunning photography, and beautifully detailed illustrations by Sam Falconer, Life Cycles gets to grips with the essence of life itself.

 

For more on these and related titles visit the collection: On Climate

 


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Posted: September 23, 2020