CLIMATE CHANGE MADE SIMPLE

JUNE 6, 2021

6 Best Books on Climate Change for Beginners

1. This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein is a Canadian activist, journalist, filmmaker, and author (impressive resume). Don’t be intimidated by the size of this book: Klein’s language is clear, accessible, but most of all, pleading. Every chapter of this book will make you want to get up and do something about what is happening to our planet. She doesn’t shy away from the core root of the problem: capitalism and unrestricted global trading. In business school, we’re constantly taught that globalization is our savior and that open markets mean prosperity for everyone. Klein makes it clear that this is far from the truth. Check this book out to get a broad perspective of climate change and the consequences if we don’t take action fast enough.

2. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells

The summary of this book begins with “It is worse, much worse, than you think.” It does not shy away from telling the cold, stark truth. It’s well written, information is presented in a clear, straightforward manner, and highlights specifically how differently climate change will affect different parts of the globe  (learn more about this phenomenon here as well). Those in the global south, for example, face their homes being potentially uninhabitable in the next few decades. Pick this one up if you want a clear, honest portrayal of climate change and what we’ve done to the world.

3. The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivette-Carnac

The shortest on the list so far at 240 pages, this book can fit in your (maybe extra large) back pocket. The authors Figueres and Rivett-Carnac led negotiations for the UN during the Paris Agreement of 2015. This book is a simple, honest, yet optimistic view at the current climate situation, and does it by outlining two possible scenarios for our planet:

1. What life on Earth would be if we didn’t meet our Paris climate targets
2. What it would look like if we lived in a carbon neutral world

This unique framing coupled with an optimistic, hopeful tone makes for an informative and interesting reading experience.

4. Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change by George Marshall

It’s safe to say that this book on climate change looks at the situation from a completely different angle: Marshall teams up with both psychologists and climatologists to look at why we seem incapable of doing something about this existential threat.

Marshall combines research and rich personal stories to look at the way human beings are wired - our evolutionary beginnings, our deepest instincts, and how we deal with threats. There are also some really cool subtopics explored in this book, like:

• Similarities between our brains and swiss army knives
• Why the word ‘we’ is less inclusive than we think
• Why a polar bear isn’t the most effective symbol for climate change

If any of this intrigues you at all, we encourage you to give this book a try!

5. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Buckle in - this book doesn’t hold back. From the title alone you can tell that there’s going to be some grim honesty here, and you’d be right. This book details the past five major extinctions we’ve experienced over the last half-billion years, and how the trigger for the impending sixth extinction is going to be - you guessed it - us humans. Kollbert is clear that the villain in this story is us. Through her engaging (and often humorous, despite the subject matter) first person narrative format, she lays out the facts and walks the reader through the history of extinction and the impending sixth one if we don’t get our act together.

6. A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future by David Attenborough

We’re finishing off this list with someone whose name you might recognize: Sir David Attenborough, the owner of that calm, gravelly voice you likely remember from the scenic documentaries like Planet Earth. As you can imagine, at age 94, Attenborough has lived an incredible life. In this book, he chronicles how the world has changed through his travels and experiences:

“I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet is my witness statement, and my vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake - and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.”

Written in a concise, informative way, Attenborough outlines some pretty terrifying statistics, but ends the book off with some wonderful suggestions for readers.

Our mission statement on this blog is to simplify climate change and explain the situation in clear, direct terms. It’s a complicated problem, but we have the tools to learn about it from hundreds of scientists, authors, and activists who understand that educating people is the first step to a better future. We hope these books on climate change can help give you some background knowledge on the subject.

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So, we’ve established that climate change is an existential threat that we must tackle in our lifetime. Though the threat is simple enough to understand, there are a lot of moving parts that can be difficult to break down. Books are a great way to gain background knowledge on this phenomenon, and below we’ve compiled a list of some of the six best books on climate change from a broad variety of authors coming from different backgrounds.