Books GLOBAL WARMING: Problems and Possibilities
  
An Anotated List of Informative Helpful Books
Here's a selection of recent books we've found most enlightening and moving. Together, they offer a wide range of approaches, evidence, argument, and styles. Some are by top scientists and some are by well-informed journalists. They have helped us, non-scientists, to learn what's happening, the changes we must make in our lives, and what demands we must make upon our government, at all levels, from the United Nations to the city commission. We hope you will find the list--and the sources--helpful. Let us know your thoughts, suggestions, your own favorite resources.

Bill McKibben, THE END OF NATURE (various editions, 1989 and after). I agree with James Hansen, Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, that McKibben's book is still one the best. He had it right almost 20 years ago.

Fred Pearce, WITH SPEED AND VIOLENCE: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change (Beacon, 2007). By a news editor for New Scientist (a first-rate science-news magazine), this is one of the best books we know of: it's well written, and it focuses relentlessly and persuasively on all the "feedbacks" and prospects for sudden and violent changes that the latest IPCC reports fail to take into account. Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, says if you can read only one book on climate change, "this is it."

Elizabeth Kolbert, FIELD NOTES FROM A CATASTROPHE: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (Bloomsbury, 2007). As the title suggests, the book consists of "field notes" by a New Yorker journalist, on the scene of various ongoing "catastrophes" around the planet--with excellent interviews of scientists studying the evidence for and the effects of climate change.

Stephan Harding, ANIMATE EARTH: Science, Intuition, and Gaia (Chelsea Green, 2006). A moving and powerful dramatization of the earth's--or Gaia's--self-regulating energies. Harding presents the clearest explanation of the various carbon cycles that I've encountered yet, and he shows us how all the major "Gaian" processes work together, including "feedback" consequences of our disruptions. He guides us to imagining how the entire earth is part of OUR body and how we are destroying it. Finally, he calls us to a radical--indeed, revolutionary--change in our values and in the way we live.

Tim Flannery, THE WEATHER MAKERS: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005). A comprehensive, very readable account of what's happening and why, by a famous Australian writer and scientist. Flannery places global warming within its political and evolutionary contexts, makes the science accessible and vivid, and considers carefully the pros and cons of various proposed remedies. "Time's up," he concludes; "Over to You."

George Monbiot, HEAT: How to Stop the Climate from Burning (South End Press, 2007). Monbiot's book urges immediate action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 90% by 2030--a much greater, faster reduction than proposed by anyone else. He then shows how it can be done--without returning us to stone-age living standards. He rejects both technophiles who believe that new technologies will allow us to innovate our way to solutions and neosurvivalists who find salvation in civilizational collapse. He's dogged, offensive, and brilliant. Monbiot is a columnist for the UK Guardian and one of the world's most influential radical thinkers. Among his many prizes is the UN Global 500 award for outstanding environmental achievement.

E. O. Wilson, THE CREATION: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (W. W. Norton, 2006). The eminent biologist appeals to evangelical Christians to join with scientists in a common cause--saving "the creation." An impassioned teacher himself, Wilson includes a section on "Teaching the Creation."

Al Gore, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: The Planetary Emergence of Global Warming and What We Can Do about It (Rodale, 2006). You've seen the film, but the book is worth the cost if only for the excellent graphics and photos, plus a to-do list more extensive than provided by the film.

James Lovelock, THE REVENGE OF GAIA: Earth's Climate Crisis & the Fate of Humanity (Basic Books, 2006). The originator of the profoundly influential "Gaia Hypothesis," Lovelock presents a dire prophecy of the future if we fail to act decisively: breeding pairs" " of human beings will survive, but billions of individuals will die. Lovelock's "solution," that only atomic energy can save us, is challenged by many, including Tim Flannery (see above).

Laurie David, THE SOLUTION IS YOU! An Activist's Guide (Fulcrum, 2006). Brief, very useful, particularly for its extensive and annotated list of resources: books, DVDs, web sites, environmental groups.

James Howard Kunstler, THE LONG EMERGENCY: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (Grove Press, 2006). Useful (and scary) because Kunstler covers almost all the crises of our time, how they're likely to reinforce one another, and what living in "the long emergency" will probably be like. Often darkly funny, caustic, irreverent.

Robert Henson, THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CLIMATE CHANGE: the Symptoms, the Science, the Solutions (Rough Guides, 2006). A useful handbook, with good sections on "solutions"--political, technological, and personal.
  

  
Here we list a few more excellent books that we'll provide annotated notice of in the near future. From time to time, we'll do a full book review.

Peter Barnes, CLIMATE SOLUTIONS: A Citizen's Guide (Chelsea Green, 2008).

Richard Heinberg, PEAK EVERYTHING: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (New Society Publishers, 2007).

Richard Conkin, THE STATE OF THE EARTH: Environmental Challenges on the Road to 2100 (Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2007).

James Gustave Speth, RED SKY AT MORNING: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment (Yale Univ. Press, 2005) and THE BRIDGE AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (Yale Univ. Press, 2008).

Terry Glavin, THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: Journeys Among the Lost and Left Behind (St. Martin's Press, 2006). See our review of this book, following this list.