Add a book about climate change to your reading list

It can be hard to know where to start when you want to get to grips with a topic as seemingly huge and complicated as climate change. A simple first step is to add a climate-related book to your reading list. I’ve always found that reading a well-written book about an issue can help connect the dots much better than news headlines or the overwhelming amount of content that exists online.

A web search or a trip to the library can yield up tons of book recommendations. We have a list of books (and other media) to explore right here under the ‘Discover’ tab. If you need a reliable place to start, I also recommend the website Five Books. This site asks scientists, historians, economists, writers, and all sorts of other experts to recommend five books on topics they know well. It’s an easy way to find thoughtful reading lists curated by experts, rather than going by random rankings, popularity contests, and ads.

Why is this a good way to learn? Climate change touches a lot of different areas of knowledge: science, economics, technology, politics, culture, health, and more. That’s part of why it can be an overwhelming topic—but it also means that there are many different entry points to understanding it better, easily curated to your current level of knowledge and your personal interests. There’s everything from the hard environmental science to self-help books on improving your carbon footprint to climate-themed fiction (including “cli-fi”) that imaginatively explores the personal, societal, and planetary what-ifs related to climate change.

Books can give you the space to explore these different angles more deeply, at your own pace. Books vetted by experts tend to be better than short-form media at properly contextualizing the issues they talk about, helping to build a real understanding of the bigger picture.

You could start by exploring the Five Books category on Environment. If you want to dive in on a more specific theme, here are just a few of the five-book recommendations lists related to climate change:

• The best books on Science and Climate Change, by John Shepherd, Researcher at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre
• The Best Climate Change Novels, by James Bradley, author
• The best books on Climate Justice, by Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and President of Ireland
• The best books on Clean Energy, by Jerry McNerney, congressman and energy specialist
• The best books on The Politics of Climate Change, by Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University

Pick a title that grabs your attention and add it to your queue, whether it’s in the form of a physical book, e-reader or audiobook. Even reading a single book on the topic can make the conversation around climate change feel clearer and more grounded—and there’s every chance that you might discover writers or ideas you want to explore further.