For information more generally focused on North America, and resources for the Berklee Boston Campus, see The Environment: Information and Activism LibGuide.
Weather, climate and water related natural disasters in Europe during 2021. Source of data: EM/DAT. Note: Impacts for some disaster occurrences may lack due to data unavailability.
The Future We Choose by
A cautionary but optimistic book about the world's changing climate and the fate of humanity, from Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac--who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015. 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 Agreement's climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a regenerative world that has net-zero emissions. They argue for confronting the climate crisis head-on, with determination and optimism. 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.
Our house is on fire: scenes of a family and a planet in crisis by
When climate activist Greta Thunberg was eleven, her parents, Malena and Svante, and her little sister, Beata, were facing a crisis in their own home. Greta had stopped eating and speaking, and her mother and father had reconfigured their lives to care for her. Desperate and searching for answers, her parents discovered what was at the heart of Greta's distress: her imperiled future on a rapidly heating planet. Steered by Greta's determination to understand the truth and generate change, they began to see the deep connections between their own suffering and the planet's. Written by a remarkable family and told through the voice of an iconoclastic mother, Our House Is On Fire is the story of how they fought their problems at home by taking global action. And it is the story of how Greta decided to go on strike from school, igniting a worldwide rebellion.
Regeneration by
A radically new understanding of and practical approach to climate change by noted environmentalist Paul Hawken, creator of the New York Times bestseller Drawdown Regeneration offers a visionary new approach to climate change, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, equity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation. It is the first book to describe and define the burgeoning regeneration movement spreading rapidly throughout the world. Regeneration describes how an inclusive movement can engage the majority of humanity to save the world from the threat of global warming, with climate solutions that directly serve our children, the poor, and the excluded. This means we must address current human needs, not future existential threats, real as they are, with initiatives that include but go well beyond solar, electric vehicles, and tree planting to include such solutions as the fifteen-minute city, bioregions, azolla fern, food localization, fire ecology, decommodification, forests as farms, and the number one solution for the world: electrifying everything. Paul Hawken and the nonprofit Regeneration Organization are launching a series of initiatives to accompany the book, including a streaming video series, curriculum, podcasts, teaching videos, and climate action software. Regeneration is the inspiring and necessary guide to inform the rapidly spreading climate movement.
The Sixth Extinction: an unnatural history by
Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. But this time around, the cataclysm is us ... In The Sixth Extinction, two-time National Magazine award winner and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in a half-dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the Great Auk and the Sumatran rhino ... Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as a concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in French Revolutionary Paris through to the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
The Climate Action Handbook by
"What can I do, personally, about the climate crisis? . . . [Roop] says that civic engagement is one of the most effective ways for individuals to make a difference and to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the climate crisis....Ask yourself, what are you passionate about? Using this passion may motivate you to help shape the future of your community." --The New York Times Climate Forward newsletter This must-have book shows us WHY we need to take action now to combat climate change and then, critically, HOW, through easy-to-understand language and fascinating infographics that offer each of us varied and doable solutions to the many challenges facing our planet. As more focus is put on climate science, there is a need for each of us to learn how we can change our habits in our home, communities, and government to save our planet. Enter The Climate Action Handbook. A visually stunning guide, it does what no other climate change book manages to do: it's approachable, digestible, and offers the average person ideas, options, and a roadmap for action. It also offers hope--often overlooked in climate change conversations. Climate actions can create near-instantaneous improvements in air quality and can offer ways to address societal inequities, green our communities, save money, and build local economies. From food and fashion choices, rethinking travel, greening up our homes and gardens, to civic engagement and championing community climate planning, Dr. Heidi Roop shares 100 wide-ranging ways that readers from all walks of life can help move the needle in the right direction. Actions include: * Cutting down on food waste * Reducing your driving speed * Voting in every election * Using the cold-water cycle on your washing machine * Supporting healthy soils in your gardens and community green spaces * Engaging in local climate action planning * Preparing an emergency kit for your home * Deleting unused emails and online accounts * Swapping out milk for nondairy alternatives like oat milk * Opting for slower shipping whenever possible * Regularly maintaining and clean your heating and cooling systems * Engaging in climate conversations at work and at home And many more! Return to this invaluable resource again and again to discover a roadmap for action and much-needed hope. What will your climate journey look like?
Winning the Green New Deal by
An urgent and definitive collection of essays from leaders and experts championing the Green New Deal--and a detailed playbook for how we can win it--including contributions by leading activists and progressive writers like Varshini Prakash, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, Bill McKibben, Rev William Barber II, and more. In October 2018, scientists warned that we have less than 12 years left to transform our economy away from fossil fuels, or face catastrophic climate change. At that moment, there was no plan in the US to decarbonize our economy that fast. Less than two years later, every major Democratic presidential candidate has embraced the vision of the Green New Deal--a rapid, vast transformation of our economy to avert climate catastrophe while securing economic and racial justice for all. What happened? A new generation of leaders confronted the political establishment in Washington DC with a simple message: the climate crisis is here, and the Green New Deal is our last, best hope for a livable future. Now comes the hard part: turning that vision into the law of the land. In Winning a Green New Deal, leading youth activists, journalists, and policymakers explain why we need a transformative agenda to avert climate catastrophe, and how our movement can organize to win. Featuring essays by Varshini Prakash, cofounder of Sunrise Movement; Rhiana Gunn-Wright, Green New Deal policy architect; Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Bill McKibben, internationally renowned environmentalist; Mary Kay Henry, the President of the Service Employees International Union, and others we'll learn why the climate crisis cannot be solved unless we also confront inequality and racism, how movements can redefine what's politically possible and overcome the opposition of fossil fuel billionaires, and how a Green New Deal will build a just and thriving economy for all of us. For anyone looking to understand the movement for a Green New Deal, and join the fight for a livable future, there is no resource as clear and practical as Winning the Green New Deal.
Tomorrow by
Based on the award-winning, globally acclaimed film, Tomorrow, by Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent. What if highlighting solutions and telling positive stories was the best way to solve the ecological, economic, and social problems our countries are grappling with? In 2012, French writer/activist Cyril Dion learned about a study carried out by twenty-two scientists from around the world that forecasts the extinction of multiple forms of life, and possibly a large part of humanity, by the year 2100. This news barely received any media coverage at all. Convinced that spreading catastrophic news is not effective, Dion decided to explore, along with actress and director Mélanie Laurent and a small film crew, what our world could look like if we brought together some of the best solutions to date in agriculture, energy, economics, education, and democracy. What they found were men and women changing the world: cities that produce their own food and energy, zero-waste systems, businesspeople and towns creating their own currency to prevent speculation and the appropriation of wealth, citizens rewriting their own constitution, and pioneering educational systems. By linking these initiatives together, Dion and his crew bring to light a new philosophy, a community of thought among people who often don't know each other: new blueprints for society.
On fire : the burning case for a green new deal by