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The words “climate change” were not on the signs and banners that students, faculty, and community members brought to the first Earth Day rallies and teach-ins in 1970. These words are now at the top of the global environment agenda.
But the problems that mobilized millions more than 50 years ago – air and water pollution, threats to wildlife from chemical contamination and habitat destruction, soil degradation, etc. – are still issues today, albeit in somewhat different forms. All of these environmental problems are affected by climate change.
One side, for instance, climate change can negatively affect ecosystems or habitats. However, communities can adapt to climate change by restoring habitats and ecosystems. This can increase carbon uptake, storage, slowing or even absorption of flood waters.
This month’s Earth Day bookshelf feature highlights titles on other environmental issues that intersect with climate change, along with titles that promote more broadly-based engagement and activism. This list includes books on biodiversity, agriculture, food security, food security, environmental justice, coral reefs and insects.
One title Oceans of GrainIt is a timely reminder of the political and climatic consequences of agricultural choices. The shift from wheat to corn by American farmers meant that corn was a more water-intensive crop and had more commercial options (like corn oil or ethanol). Other countries, such as Russia and Ukraine, were forced to fill the gap. An agricultural reset might be necessary, with that production now in serious danger from war and the decline of America’s aquifers.
These titles’ descriptions are, as always, adapted from the copy provided by their publishers. The second date is for the publication of the paperback.
A Kid’s Guide to Saving the Planet: It’s Not Hopeless and We’re Not Helpless, by Paul Douglas (author), and Chelen Ecija (illustrator). (Beaming Books 2022; 112 pages, $22.99)
We have every reason for concern about our planet, which is our only true home. New inventions and technologies will help, but cleaning up the planet – saving the world – will require all of us to pay attention and take action. What can you do? Plenty! Despite what you may hear on the news, the situation isn’t hopeless, and we aren’t helpless. Paul Douglas, a nationally renowned meteorologist, clearly and thoughtfully addresses the complex problems of climate changes in this book. He also offers realistic solutions (including some already working!) There are many actions that children can take part in right now. It’s imperative that we all step up and become part of the solution, by engaging in new, smarter ways of living.
Restoring the Earth: Protecting Half of the Land to Save the EarthTony Hiss (Penguin Random House 2021/2022), 336 pages, $17.00 Paperback
Beginning in the vast North American Boreal Forest that stretches through Canada, Tony Hiss sets out on a journey to take stock of the “superorganism” that is the earth: its land, its elements, its plants and animals, its greatest threats – and what we can do to keep it, and ourselves, alive. Hiss argues that protecting half the country is the only way to solve this problem. Hiss also highlights the importance of the work of the many organizations already involved in the fight such as the Indigenous Leadership Initiative and the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. Tender, impassioned, curious, and above all else inspiring, Rescuing the Planet is a work that promises to make all of us better citizens of the earth.
Pollution is ColonialismMax Liboiron (Duke University Press 20, 216 pages; $24.95 paperback).
In Pollution Is Colonialism Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. Liboiron draws on work in the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) – an anticolonial science laboratory in Newfoundland, Canada – to illuminate how pollution is not a symptom of capitalism but a violent enactment of colonial land relations that claim access to Indigenous land. Liboiron’s creative, lively, and passionate text refuses theories of pollution that make Indigenous land available for settler and colonial goals. Liboirton demonstrates how anticolonial science can be practiced in ways that promote more ethical modes of being in this world.
The quest for solutions to the plastic crisis: Thicker than waterErica Cirino, Island Press 2021 (272 pages, $28.00).
In Thicker Than Water, journalist Erica Cirino brings readers on a globe-hopping journey to meet the scientists and activists telling the real story of the plastic crisis. From the deck of a plastic-hunting sailboat with a disabled engine, to the labs doing cutting-edge research on microplastics and the chemicals we ingest, Cirino paints a full picture of how plastic pollution is threatening wildlife and human health. Thicker Than Water reveals that the plastic crisis is also a tale of environmental injustice, as poorer nations and communities of color take in larger shares of the world’s trash. Cirino asserts that we must reform our throwaway culture. Thicker Than Water is an eloquent call to reexamine the systems churning out waves of plastic waste.
A Blue New Deal: Why we need a new Politics for the Ocean, by Chris Armstrong (Yale University Press 2022), 272 pages, $30.00
The ocean is the lifeblood of our planet and, as we use up resources on land, it is becoming a key component of the global market. Today, we face two major challenges at sea: spiraling inequality and massive environmental destruction. Chris Armstrong shows how the existing governing institutions fail these urgent problems. He examines the rising crises – from the fate of people whose lands will be submerged by sea level rise, to the exploitation of people working in fishing, to the rights of marine animals – and makes the case for a powerful World Ocean Authority capable of tackling them. A Blue New Deal presents a radical manifesto for putting equality, democracy, and sustainability at the heart of ocean politics.
Coral Reefs’ Future: Life on the Rocks, by Juli Bernwald (Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House 20,22, 352 Pages, $28.00
Coral reefs are a microcosmof our planet. They are rich in wonders, extraordinarily diverse and deeply interconnected. Corals around the world are currently in the midst of an unprecedented die off. As a marine biology student, Juli Berwald fell in LOVE with coral reefs. Alarmed by their imminent destruction, she traveled the globe to find ways to save them. She met scientists, activists, and others who do everything possible to keep coral reefs from disappearing for good. Life on the Rocks is an inspiring ode to the reefs and to the undaunted scientists working to save them. As she also attempts to help her daughter in her struggle with mental illness, Berwald contemplates the inevitable grief of climate change and the beauty of small victories.
Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction, by David George Haskell (Penguin Random House 20,22, 448 pages; $29.00).
We live on an earth that is full of song, music, speech. David Haskell explores the history of these amazing wonders. He takes us to endangered forests, noisy oceans, and loud city streets. He discovers the legacies behind plate tectonics, deep history of animal groups and movements around the globe, and the quirks that are part of aesthetic evolution in the strangely divergent sonic sounds of the animals on different continents. Sound is a generative power, so removing sonic diversity can make the world less creative, just and beautiful. The appreciation of the beauty and brokenness of sound is therefore an important guide in today’s convulsions and crises of change and inequity. Sounds Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act.
The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Rule the WorldOliver Milman, 272 pages, $27.95, authored by Oliver Milman (W.W. Norton 20022, 272 Pages, W.W. Norton 2022).
What is causing the collapse in the insect world? Oliver Milman, an internationally acclaimed journalist, explores this hidden emergency with urgency and clarity. He suggests that it could have as many consequences as climate change. He joins scientists who are tracking the decline in insect populations around the world. These losses not only rip at the tapestry that holds life on our planet, but they also threaten everything we hold dear. Even insects we don’t like, like the stinging beetle or the hated cricket, play vital ecological roles. A decline in their numbers would drastically alter our story. Part warning, part celebration of the incredible variety of insects, The Insect Crisis is a wake-up call for us all.
The Earth Without Glaciers: MeltdownJorge Daniel Taillant (Oxford University Press 2021), 304 pages, $29.95
In his new book Meltdown, Jorge Daniel Taillant takes readers deep into the cryosphere, connecting the dots between climate change, glacier melt, and the impacts that receding glacier ice brings to livability on Earth. Taillant guides us through the unexplored realm of the Periglacial Environment, a world where invisible subsurface rocks glaciers will outlive the exposed glaciers. Our climate is changing right before our eyes. Meltdown is about the unfolding demise of glaciers during one of the most critical moments of our planet’s geological history. We may be able save the cryosphere if we can see glaciers in a different light and understand their critical role in our own sustainability.
A World without Soil: The Past and Present of the Earth Below Our FeetJo Handelsman (Yale University Press 2021), 272 pages, $28.00
The soil is the foundation of 95 percent global food production. Yet, it continues to erode at an unsustainable rate. Vast tracts of farmland in the United States, China, India and other countries will be devoid of topsoil by the end of this century. A combination of climate change’s intensifying erosion and an increasing world population’s food demand is creating a desperate need to find solutions. Biologist Jo Handelsman begins her very accessible book by telling soil’s origin story, explaining how it erodes, and offering solutions. She examines the lessons learned from indigenous people who have managed the same land for thousands years, as well as practices that can be used for large-scale agriculture and technology-based policy initiatives.
Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade The WorldScott Reynolds Nelson, ed. (Basic Books 2022), 368 Pages, $32.00
To understand the rise and fall of empires, we must follow the paths traveled by grain – along rivers, between ports, and across seas. In Oceans of Grain, historian Scott Reynolds Nelson reveals how the struggle to dominate these routes transformed the balance of world power. In the early nineteenth century, Russia’s imperial power fed large parts of Europe via the port of Odessa. After the US Civil War ended, tons of American grain began to flood the Atlantic. Cheap American wheat led to the rise of Germany, Italy, and the fall of the Habsburgs as well as the Ottomans. These rivalries were driven by the control of grain.
Note: Russia is once again the world’s leading supplier of wheat. Corn is America’s most important crop.
Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them, by Dan Saladino, (Farrar Straus, Giroux 2022), 464 pages, $30.00
Only nine of the approximately six thousand plants that were once eaten by humans are still important staples. Just three of these – rice, wheat, and corn – now provide fifty percent of all our calories. Worse, the source of much of the world’s food – seeds – is mostly in the control of just four corporations. In Eating to Extinction, the distinguished food journalist Dan Saladino travels the world to experience and document our most at-risk foods before it’s too late. From an Indigenous American chef refining precolonial recipes to farmers tending Geechee red peas on the Sea Islands of Georgia, the individuals profiled in Eating to Extinction are essential guides to treasured foods and to a healthier, more robust food system that is richer in flavor and meaning.
