28 of The Best Books on Climate Change — From Politics to Food to Transportation
Affiliate Disclosure: Throughout this article, I have affiliate links to Bookshop, an online bookseller that gives a portion of sales to independent bookstores. If you’re worried about climate change, you should NOT buy from Amazon. I recommend Bookshop instead. If you purchase through my links, I earn a small 10% commission. But don’t worry about me. I’d ratheryou support your local library or bookstore.
Making a list of the best books on climate change is really impossible.
Everything in our world, and therefore nearly every book you read, connects to climate change in some way. That’s because we’re part of nature. And our destruction of nature is what’s led to climate change.
It makes the task of this list in some ways too broad. I’m tempted to put in books that aren’t about climate change perse. For example, I thought of books about the Salvadoran Civil War. Seemingly, this is not about climate change, but there is no Salvadoran Civil War without understanding the topic of the conversion of Indigenous lands into coffee lands and other mono-crops, which has destroyed our soil and biodiversity and is a leading contributor to climate change.
So instead, I only included books that explicitly are about climate change, but throughout, I will mention other books that connect to it.
The exciting news about this is it means, no matter what you’re interested in, there’s a “climate change book” for you. Because what you already do and think about connects to it. Because as a human, you’re part of nature. And climate change is about halting — and then reversing — the damage we’ve done to nature.
This Could Never Be an Exhaustive List, Because I Can’t Read Everything
I’ll brag for a minute. As I made this list, I impressed myself with how much I’ve read. As a writer, reading is part of my job. But, I can’t read everything.
There are probably thousands of climate change books out there. My list will be different from others, of course.
I’ve divided these books into categories based on topic.
The topics I chose are a reflection of my unique interests, not the full scope of topics that directly relate to climate change.
Finally, please don’t buy these from Amazon.
If you’re concerned about climate, then you should stay away from Amazon.
- Check your local library. Knowledge should be free. Libraries make it so. I own many of these, but a lot I borrowed from the New York Public Library. Using your library helps them advocate for the funding they need to make knowledge accessible.
- If you want to own it, check your local bookstore. This keeps your money local and out of billionaires’ hands, particularly a billionaire who undercuts workers and contributes disproportionately to climate change.
- If you want to get it online, buy them from bookshop.org. While I prefer the other two, Bookshop gives a portion of revenue to local bookstores. I will include links to Bookshop throughout this article. If you buy from Bookshop my links, I will get a humble 10% commission. But please, no pressure. I’d prefer you support your libraries and local bookstores.
Best Books to Get Started
The first three I’ll recommend are all anthologies. An anthology is a book that contains a collection of essays written by different writers.
This is a good place to start because you can get a breadth of different opinions and topics.
All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katherine Wilkinson
This is my #1 choice if you’re looking for inspiration and ways to help. It made it on my list of my favorite books of 2023. This book is one of the most hopeful on this list. After I read it, I felt excited about helping combat climate change. From interesting topics like the role of Indigenous culture (and why we should give them land back) to the future of sustainable construction, to how good city planning can combat the climate crisis, there’s something in here for everyone.
All of the contributors are women, too. Statistically, women are more likely to support the action on climate change.
The Carbon Almanac: It’s Not Too Late by Seth Godin
Finally, this is another anthology that will help give you ideas for collective action. Seth Godin brings together dozens of contributors. Together they explain the simple facts of climate change and what we can do about it. You likely won’t read this one straight through, but flip around and see which topics interest you. It’s an almanac, after all. It has pictures. It’s a great coffee table book too.
The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg
Thunberg’s book is great if you want a 360-degree view of the climate situation. If you’re well-versed in what’s going on, you will likely have heard the majority of the key points in this book. That was the case for me.
Thunberg’s anthology showcases dozens of authors and thinkers about all kinds of topics. It’s great if you’re looking for a kick in the ass about how bad things are right now.
No-Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan
Okay, let’s move past anthologies. If you prefer books that feel like talking to an interesting friend, this one is for you.
The subtitle tells you exactly what this book will be like.
It’s from 2010, which means it should be hopelessly out of date. Unfortunately, we’re still debating the same things.
In it, he tries to reduce his environmental impact to zero while living in New York City. Chapter through chapter, he goes through each area of his life and cuts out his impact one by one, from food to transportation to electricity.
His experiments reveal how fossil fuels are embedded in nearly every aspect of modern life.
It will provide a nice breadth of the problem and give you ideas for what to start doing today. It’s a fun read, too.
Stop Saving The Planet: An Environmentalist Manifest by Jenny Price
This short book is a hard look in the mirror for climate advocates and environmentalists.
The topics range from the age-old debate about whether personal action is worth anything at all, to discussions about greenwashing, the problems with Priuses, and the flawed system of carbon offsets.
It opens up the type of conversations I think we need more of: How come we’ve made such little progress?
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
This book caused the birth of the modern environmental movement. In 1962, Carson wrote about the dangers of pesticides in our foods and the horrific origins of the chemical farming industry.
You won’t hear the words “climate change” in this book. But, it underpins the beginning of our cultural thinking that maybe all this technology and “progress” wasn’t so great. It’s a warning that we went wrong when we tried to become the masters of nature.
Climate Change Books to Understand the Stakes?
If you want to understand the current science, I think newsletters from climate scientists are the best way to do that. I really like Andrew Dessler’s newsletter, The Climate Brink. For news and what’s going on, I think Inside Climate Newsdoes great journalism. I subscribe to their newsletter too.
But here are a few books I’ve flipped through.
Introduction to Modern Climate Change by Andrew Dessler
He’s a climate scientist. He’s a clear writer too. That combo makes him well-suited to this. But it’s a textbook.
Climate Change: a very short introduction by Mark Maslin
This is the opposite of a textbook. It reminds me of how I learned about elementary school and middle school.
Maslin is an earth science professor. You know, if I’ve learned anything in this 2024 election cycle, it’s that there’s a lot to be said for explaining simple concepts as clearly as possible over and over. This book helps accomplish that.
A Global Warming Primer: Pathway to a Post-Global Warming Future by Jeffrey Bennett
I didn’t read this whole book, but it’s a great one to flip through. It’s in a question-and-answer style. I think this is actually brilliant and extremely helpful for education.
After all, there are typically the same five to ten questions about Climate Change. Bennett goes through them.
I’m glad I checked it out at the library. It’s a good reference book. It weeds through all the misinformation and disinformation.
Best Books on The Education and Communication of Climate Change
This is my favorite category in this article and the most underrated type of book. I’m biased toward this category because writing and communication are what I do.
Yet, I believe at the core of our failure to act on climate is that we have lost the communication fight against the fossil fuel industry and their political allies.
We Are The Only Major Country Still Debating Climate Change
Yes, other countries debate how to take action and at what sacrifice, but they all agree it’s real, human-caused, and urgent.
In contrast, in the U.S. decades-long misinformation campaigns have convinced people that it’s either not real, not that big a deal, or that we’ll “innovate” our way out of it without reducing our consumption of earth’s finite resources.
Some of these books help us understand this public relations war. Others help us more directly fight back with strategies.
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
Released in 2011, this book quickly became one of the core texts about climate change.
It tells the story of how scientists at fossil fuel companies knew about climate change decades before it became a partisan war, and how they launched an all-out disinformation campaign to confuse us on what was already clear science.
If there’s anything responsible for climate change, I often think back to the story told in this book. They lobbied and spent hundreds of millions to stall the shift away from fossil fuels.
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope in a Divided World by Katherine Hayhoe
This is the best book to help you have more conversations about climate change. It will arm you with communication tools to have conversations with climate skeptics. Or even not with skeptics, but those who don’t think about climate change at all.
I wrote a whole article on the lessons from Saving Us, so you can get a taste of the content from that.
The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It by Dr. Genevieve Guenther
Buzzwords run so many of our cultural conversations. That’s true of climate change too. We repeat off-hand comments and talking points and regard them as facts.
Guenther dissects these with thorough research and a clear argument.
She sums it up with “six key terms: alarmist, growth, cost, ‘India and China,’ innovation, resilience.”
As she warps them up, into a few sentences, here’s the modern-day fossil fuel propaganda playbook: “Yes, climate change is real, but calling it an existential threat is just alarmist — and anyway, phasing out coal, oil, and gas would cost us too much. Human flourishing relies on economic growth enabled by fossil fuels, so we need to keep using them and deal with climate change by fostering technological innovation and increasing our resilience. Besides, America should not act unilaterally on the climate crisis while emissions are rising in India and China.”
By the end, you’ll see why all of this is nothing but talking points and be ready to fight back against it.
It’s a climate advocate version of the public relations classic, Words That Work by Frank Luntz, a republican strategist responsible for terms like “the death tax,” “pro-life” and others that steer our political conversations into today.
Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America by Katie Worth
This book talks specifically about how fossil fuel propaganda and direct industry lobbying affect how we teach (or don’t teach) climate change in schools.
From the textbooks to how the fossil fuel industry “educates” science teachers, Katie Worth investigates how this has led to disastrous effects: our kids aren’t learning about the scientific reality of climate change.
In fact, they’re often learning fanciful denial and downplays.
It’s another short book too, at under 150 pages. If you’re a teacher this is a must-read.
Best Books on Political Strategy to Fight Climate Change
In this category, you could put any number of books about strategy. Even a book like The 48 Laws of Power comes to mind for me. The games of politics are the games of power.
So we can’t just talk about policy and solutions. We also have to talk about how to make those things a reality.
We need concrete strategies. We need to build coalitions. We need to make our visions and ideas a reality.
Here are books from various political viewpoints about how we can actually halt climate change.
The Solutions Are Already Here: Ecological Revolution From Below by Peter Gelderloos
Gelderloos is an anarchist, and if you’re put off by that term, then you should especially grab this one.
However you feel about radical politics, this book makes a clear-headed case that to fight the climate crisis and all that intersects with it, we need grassroots movements to gain power.
Gelderloos argues, and it’s hard to disagree, that the top-down, United Nations-led model for fighting climate change has utterly failed us. It’s time to give more voice and power to indigenous groups, activists, and more.
Climate Radicals: Why Our Environmental Politics Isn’t Working by Cameron Abadi
I met Abadi at a book launch event in New York. He speaks on his experience living in both the U.S. and Germany, taking us through an international lens. Like Gelderloos, he agrees that our current environmental politics is failing. He also, like Gelderloos, questions whether our democratic institutions are even capable of fighting climate change.
Yet, he doesn’t come down on hard answers and leaves us to wrestle with the dilemma. On the one hand, the government is best positioned to make big changes to climate policy. On the other, they’ve seemed so incapable, and not just in the U.S.
How to Blow up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm
Is complete nonviolence working? Malm argues it isn’t. Frankly, it’s hard to ignore the fact that it has failed so far.
Malm shows there’s a cohesive, completely logical case that it’s time to destroy property. Note, he makes a keydistinction between violence against people and violence against property.
There’s also a movie based on the book. I recommend both, as they complement each other well.
A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos
Okay, I’ll give one that involves more mainstream political action. The poster child policy for this is The Green New Deal. Presented by progressive Democrats in 2019, it didn’t pass, but many pieces of it landed in Joe Biden’s signature climate policy: The Inflation Reduction Act. There are some good YouTube videos on Biden’s IRA. I watched this short film by the Financial Times, which is a British publication. It’s nice to get out of the U.S. media bubble.
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
I don’t think there’s a living novelist who’s written as clear-eyed about the future as Kim Stanley Robinson. This book is my favorite of his, and it’s not even his only novel on this list.
It’s packed with strange yet plausible ideas for addressing climate change. From geoengineering to financial reform, it explores how governments, international organizations, and grassroots movements could work together to tackle the crisis. It’s a unique perspective on strategy through a narrative lens.
Best Books on Our Transportation Systems and Climate Change
Okay, now we’re straying further from climate change books. Let’s talk about transportation. We know that cars are a huge contributor to global warming. In fact, the number one action you can take to reduce your personal emissions is to live without a car.
And as I’ve written about elsewhere, electric vehicles will not save us from this.
We need to waste less space for cars, period. That’s where ideas around urbanism, city planning, and building robust mass transit come into play.
Triumph of The City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Edward Glaeser
This book explains simply the problem of suburban sprawl and how disastrous it is for our environment. He even explains how government policies push us toward suburbia.
As it pertains to climate change, you can focus on the following chapters:
Chapter 6: What’s So Great About Skyscrapers?
Chapter 7: Why Has Sprawl Spread?
Chapter 8: Is There Anything Greener Than Blacktop?
Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail in America by James McCommons
This book is a great overview of passenger rail in America. You will understand Amtrak more than all of your friends after this book, I promise. What does this have to do with climate change?
Trains are the most efficient mid-distance travel option. They can replace short flights and long car rides. They can also support better land use and less reliance on cars.
Flying Green: On The Frontiers of New Aviation by Christopher de Bellaigue
Another very short (150 page) book, there are two big takeaways:
- Flying contributes disproportionately to climate change. He writes, “Flying from Berlin to Vancouver and back again you emit in a few hours more greenhouse gases than the average non-airborne Indian or Nigerian (i.e. the majority of inhabitants of two of the world’s most populous countries) does in a year. In fact, air travel is almost certainly your biggest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.” Yikes.
- While there are lots of projects ongoing, we’re not close to making flying green.
Thanks to this book, I now have a yearly flying limit.
I take trains or a bus for anything reasonable (and even sometimes if it’s unreasonable.)
Okay, we’ve covered everyday transportation, long-distance rail, and flying. So let’s move on.
Best Books on Coastal Preparedness for Climate Change
Climate change is here today. This year, 2024, the U.S. suffered from two $50 billion storms, both of which wereexacerbated by warmer weather. This means we have to talk about what we’re going to do about our coastal cities.
I think this is the most overlooked topic on climate change. That’s because a huge percentage of humanity lives in an at-risk coastal city, yet very few places are bracing themselves for the next major storm. And that storm is coming, it’s only a matter of time.
We also need to have conversations about retreating from places that will be underwater.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbably by Nicolas Nassim Taleb
This book isn’t about climate change directly, but it forms the most important intellectual foundation for climate preparedness. That’s the concept that these storms are going to come even if we can’t predict them. These “highly improbable” events will shape our world in every way.
This book will allow you to understand this core concept of “The Black Swan.”
Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change: Ashley Dawson
For an overview of all of this, Dawson’s book is the book. He covers it all, taking us on a tour of coastline transformation (or lack thereof) from New York to Jakarta to Amsterdam.
If you’re seriously interested in this topic, start here and allow this to inform your future reading.
For something lighter, I wrote an article on the topic of coastal transformation in cities.
New York: 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Another fiction book, but it imagines a world where many of our cities are underwater, and how we’ve adapted. Read The Ministry of The Future first, and if you really like Robinson’s writing style, read this next.
Best Books on Our Food Systems and Climate Change
Extracting carbon from the earth and putting it out into the atmosphere didn’t begin with the burning of fossil fuels. It began with agriculture. As many groups of humans abandoned the hunter-gatherer life for agriculture, they began the process of deforestation for croplands. These systems, while feeding the world, have also laid the groundwork for the climate crisis we face today.
Chemical and industrial farming accelerated this with soil-destroying practices. In this process, more and more carbon has been taken out of the soil. Where we once had luscious soil, we now have deserts.
Yet, food systems are one of the most promising areas for solutions. Understanding the intersection of food and climate is essential for anyone serious about fighting climate change.
The following books explore how our food systems became a climate liability, and how they might instead become a cornerstone of the solution.
Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body & Ultimately Save Our World by Josh Tickell
This book is, in my opinion, the best overview of agriculture and its effects on climate change. It talks about how we need to shift to what’s called “regenerative agriculture.” This is getting away from monocrops, and instead using an array of plants that mimic nature and bring carbon back into the soil.
As discussed, the benefits of this are so numerous.
The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber
Dan Barber is a world-class chef, who takes us through his journey searching for a more sustainable, and more delicious,way to eat. It’s a great follow-up to Kiss The Ground.
If you’re a foodie, move it up on your reading queue.
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter
This obscure memoir holds a special place in my heart. It’s the story of how Novella Carpenter turned an abandoned lot in Oakland into a garden that fed herself.
For so many reasons eating locally has tons of benefits. It helps us break away from the systems of chemical agriculture that we’ve come to rely on.
Just a few weeks after reading this book, I started volunteering in community gardens in New York.
We could save the world if we all grew some of our own food and helped out in gardens.
Okay, I Think That’s a Solid List
From this, you can see the topics that interest me the most: communication, transportation, cities, and food. There are no doubt entire sections I could have included. I didn’t talk about books I’ve read about indigenous cultures, the protection of the Amazon, deforestation in general, and many other topics.
Perhaps I can keep building it out over time.
Let Me Know Which One(s) You Pick Up!
And let me know what you think of it too. I’m also all ears for recommendations if you have some for me.
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