32 Climate Books To Help Move Us Forward 

1 – The Web of Meaning

Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find our Place in the Universe

by Jeremy Lent

It offers a coherent and intellectually solid foundation for an alternative worldview based on deep interconnectedness, showing how modern scientific knowledge echoes the ancient wisdom of earlier cultures. 

2 – Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

by Robin Wall Kimmerer

A lovely series of essays that share her thoughts on life and the planet from an Indigenous perspective.  Check out the edition for youth also! 

3 – Ways of Being

Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence

by James Bridle

A fantastic exploration of the anthropocentric ways in which we have defined intelligence and amazing examples of where else it shows up other than in us. 

4 – Humankind

A Hopeful History

by Rutger Bregman

A fabulous book dispelling the myth that humans are primarily driven by self-interest and illustrates how we are hardwired for kindness and cooperation. 

5 – IntraConnected

MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging

by Daniel J. Siegel M.D. 

Reveals how our culture may give us a message of separation as a solo, isolated self, but a wider perspective unveils that who we are may be something more—broader than the brain, bigger even than the body—and fundamental to social systems and the natural world. 

6 – The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible

by Charles Eisenstein 

In a time of social and ecological crisis, what can we as individuals do to make the world a better place? This inspirational and thought-provoking book serves as an empowering antidote to the cynicism, frustration, paralysis, and overwhelm so many of us are feeling, replacing it with a grounding reminder of what’s true: we are all connected, and our small, personal choices bear unsuspected transformational power. By fully embracing and practicing this principle of interconnectedness—called interbeing—we become more effective agents of change and have a stronger positive influence on the world. 

7 – The Systems View of Life

A Unifying Vision

by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luigi 

Over the past thirty years, a new systemic conception of life has emerged at the forefront of science. New emphasis has been given to complexity, networks, and patterns of organisation, leading to a novel kind of ‘systemic’ thinking. This volume integrates the ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life into a single coherent framework.   

8 – Presence

Human Purpose and the Field of the Future

by Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, Flowers 

The book introduces the idea of “presence”—a concept borrowed from the natural world that the whole is entirely present in any of its parts—to the worlds of business, education, government, and leadership. Too often, the authors found, we remain stuck in old patterns of seeing and acting. By encouraging deeper levels of learning, we create an awareness of the larger whole, leading to actions that can help to shape its evolution and our future

9 – Stolen Focus

Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again

by Johann Hari 

An exploration of why it’s so hard to practice the Presence depicted in the book above. 

10 – Active Hope

How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy

by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone

Active Hope shows us how to strengthen our capacity to face this crisis so that we can respond with unexpected resilience and creative power. Drawing on decades of teaching an empowerment approach known as the Work That Reconnects, the authors guide us through a transformational process informed by mythic journeys, modern psychology, spirituality, and holistic science. 

11 – The Ministry of the Future

by Kim Stanley Robinson 

The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Warning – can be a bit of slog – especially at the beginning but keep going.  

12 – Ishmael

by Daniel Quinn

A fictional exploration of how we can save ourselves from ourselves as told by a student learning from his teacher who happens to be a gorilla. 

13 – The Heat will Kill You First

Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

by Jeff Goodell

Heat is the first order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis.  And as the temperature rises, it is revealing fault lines in our governments, our politics, our economy, and our values. The basic science is not complicated: Stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and the global temperature will stop rising tomorrow. Stop burning fossil fuels in 50 years, and the temperature will keep rising for 50 years, making parts of our planet virtually uninhabitable.  It’s up to us.  The hotter it gets, the deeper and wider our fault lines will open.  

15 – The Long View

Why we Need to Transform How the World Sees Time

by Richard Fisher

Humans are unique in our ability to understand time, able to comprehend the past and future like no other species. Yet modern-day technology and capitalism have supercharged our short-termist tendencies and trapped us in the present, at the mercy of reactive politics, quarterly business targets and 24-hour news cycles.  

It wasn’t always so. In medieval times, craftsmen worked on cathedrals that would be unfinished in their lifetime. Indigenous leaders fostered intergenerational reciprocity. And in the early twentieth century, writers dreamed of worlds thousands of years hence. Now, as we face long-term challenges on an unprecedented scale, how do we recapture that far-sighted vision? 

16 – Less is More

How Degrowth will Savee the World

by Jason Hickel

This book shines a light on the ecological breakdown and the political and economic systems that are causing it. It shows us how we can bring our economy back into balance with the living world and build a thriving society for all. This is NOT a dry economics book – great read! 

17 – Not Too Late

Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

by Rebecca Sonit & Thelma Young Lutunatabua 

We know that we are all capable of allowing our thinking to take us into the basement. If you want to immerse yourself in a book of thoughts that will help return you to the penthouse where you can see the green fields of possibility – pick up this book. 

18 – The Story of More

How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go From Here 

by Hope Jahren 

Jahren celebrates the long history of our enterprising spirit, but also shows how that spirit has created excesses that are quickly warming our planet to dangerous levels. In short, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions that, even as they help us, release untenable amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. She explains the current and projected consequences of greenhouse gases and shares the science-based tools that could help us fight back. 

19 – All We Can Save

Truth Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis 

by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katherine K. Wilkinson 

All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States—scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race—and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society. 

20 – Entangled Life

How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds & Shape our Future 

by Merlin Sheldrake 

When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. 

21 – Being A Human

Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness 

by Charles Foster 

How did humans come to be who we are? In book Being a Beast, he set out to understand the consciousness of animal species by living as a badger, otter, fox, deer, and swift. Now, he inhabits three crucial periods of human development to understand the consciousness of perhaps the strangest animal of all―the human being. 

22 – Awe

The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life 

by Dacher Keltner 

Awe is mysterious. How do we begin to quantify the goose bumps we feel when we see the Grand Canyon, or our utter amazement when we watch a child walk for the first time? Until recently, there was no science of awe, that feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that transcend our understanding of the world. Revolutionary thinking, though, has shown how humans have survived over the course of evolution thanks to our capacities to cooperate, form communities, and create culture—all of which are spurred by awe. 

23 – Being You

A New Science of Consciousness 

by Anil Seth 

What does it mean to “be you”—that is, to have a specific, conscious experience of the world around you and yourself within it? There may be no more elusive or fascinating question. Historically, humanity has considered the nature of consciousness to be a primarily spiritual or philosophical inquiry, but scientific research is now mapping out compelling biological theories and explanations for consciousness and selfhood.

24 – The Master and His Emissary

The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World 

by Ian McGilchrist 

This book reveals that the difference between the two sides of the brain is profound. He argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in today’s world, with potentially disastrous consequences. 

25 – The Dawn of Everything

A New History of Humanity  

by David Graeber & David Wengrow 

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike–either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could only be achieved by sacrificing those original freedoms, or alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. It shows how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. 

26 – Sapiens

A Brief History of Humankind 

by Yuval Noah Harari

Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology, and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? Also recommend his other books. 

27 – The Limits of Thought

Discussions

by J. Krishnamurti & David Bohm 

These two great thinkers discuss the nature of consciousness and the condition of humanity. The dialogues address issues of truth, desire, awareness, tradition, and love.  

28 – Regenesis

Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet

by George Monbiot 

This is a great book addressing how we need to change how we feed ourselves. So are so many of his books; I also recommend How Did We get into This Mess, Out of the Wreckage, Manifesto for a New World Order, and Feral . 

29 – Big Magic

Creative Living Beyond Fear

by Elizabeth Gilbert 

We sure could use some additional inspiration and creativity to figure out a path forward to the new emerging post-carbon caring society. Gilbert offers some insights into how to infuse our lives with more mindfulness and passion. 

30 – Manifesto for a Moral Revolution

Practices to Build a Better World

by Jacqueline Novogratz 

Drawing on inspiring stories from change-makers around the world and on memories of her own most difficult experiences, Jacqueline divulges the most common leadership mistakes and the mind-sets needed to rise above them. The culmination of thirty years of work developing sustainable solutions for the problems of the poor, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution offers the perspectives necessary for all those―whether ascending the corporate ladder or bringing solar light to rural villages―who seek to leave this world better off than they found it. 

32 – Restoring the Kinship Worldview

Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth 

by Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) & Darcia Narvaez 

The book emphasizes our deep need to move away from the dominant Western paradigm-one that dictates we live without strong social purpose, fails to honor the earth as sacred, leads with the head while ignoring the heart, and places individual “rights” over collective responsibility. Restoring the Kinship Worldview is rooted in an Indigenous vision and strong social purpose that sees all life forms as sacred and sentient-that honors the wisdom of the heart, and grants equal standing to rights and responsibilities.