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Remember when Earth Day was just something Dawn from The Babysitters Club liked and everyone was like “okay, Dawn, guess we’ll wear some Birkenstocks today,” but since then it’s become very “oh damn” and “WELP, this seems quite pressing”? Well HAPPY EARTH DAY-WEEK, we have books.
Climate change can seem very overwhelming and stressful, but having actual facts rather than “I think I read this on the internet” can make things less stressful! (specifically speaking to myself on that last point) And at least then you can be like, okey dokey, so maybe I compost instead of using my garbage disposal like a food dumpster. And other useful tips!
Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have by Tatiana Schlossberg
Reporter Schlossberg relates environmental change and impact to every decision you make. Which can sound overwhelming! But she breaks it down into the categories Technology and the Internet, Food, Fashion, and Fuel, and uses surprisingly (in a good way!) informal, fun language for what can be seen as a stressful topic.
As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
The protests at Standing Rock put a spotlight on Indigenous environmental activism, but it has been going on for decades and decades. This is a history of “Indigenous resistance to government and corporate incursions on their lands and offers new approaches to environmental justice activism and policy.” It connects Native people’s history with the environmental justice movement and looks at opportunities for change in the future.
A Terrible Thing To Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind by Harriet A. Washington
Journalist Washington examines the impact of environmental racism on Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities. Released in 2019, this covers the water crisis in Flint, where water has had lead levels high enough to be classified as hazardous waste; forced contraception that has a toxic effect on the pregnant parent; and the way waste products like toxins and heavy metals are disproportionately leeched into communities of color.
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
This is Kolbert’s newest release after her very successful and Pulitzer Prize–winning The Sixth Extinction. Sticking with her excellent formula, she spends each chapter focusing on a different area, including “biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a “super coral” that can survive on a hotter globe” and more. I’ve said this a lot with Kolbert, but her work makes me really happy that there is someone to care about everything. Including the tiny Mojave fish!
For more nonfiction new releases, check out the For Real podcast which I co-host with the excellent Kim here at Book Riot. If you have any questions/comments/book suggestions, you can find me on social media @itsalicetime. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.