Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists: Climate Crisis

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? (Description from catalog)

Explores how "anti-science" became so virulent in American life through a history of climate denial and its consequences.
(Description from catalog)

The technologist, business leader and philanthropist who founded Microsoft draws on the input of experts in physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science and finance to create an accessible, concrete plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid certain environmental disaster. (Description from NoveList)

A wondrous insider's account of climate science and an unbelievable memoir of his life.
(Description from NoveList)

The climate is changing more rapidly than scientists predicted even a few years ago, with extreme weather already touching our everyday lives. At the same time, the clean energy revolution is forging ahead faster than nearly anyone anticipated. As Tom Steyer sees it, these two trends together create a moment like the one America faced during World War II: on the one hand, an existential threat calling for collective action; on the other, an opportunity to lead the world, protect the planet, and set the stage for a new generation of shared economic prosperity. (description from catalog)

In May 2016, the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, burned to the ground, forcing 88,000 people to flee their homes. It was the largest evacuation ever of a city in the face of a forest fire, raising the curtain on a new age of increasingly destructive wildfires.
(Description from catalog)

The world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal in California, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast. 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.
(Description from catalog)

The New Yorker has devoted enormous attention to climate change, describing the causes of the crisis, the political and ecological conditions we now find ourselves in, and the scenarios and solutions we face. This collection takes features some of the best writing on global warming from the last three decades, including McKibben’s seminal essay "The End of Nature," the first piece to popularize both the science and politics of climate change for a general audience. (Description from catalog.)

Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts - geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and indigenous leaders--to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster.
(Description from catalog)

Natural historian David Attenborough and longtime collaborator Colin Butfield present a powerful call to action focused on our planet's oceans, exploring how critical this habitat is for the survival of humanity and the earth's future. Through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science, Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder, and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet.
(Description from NoveList)

A marine biologist brings to vibrant life the extraordinary ecosystem of the deep ocean, which has a huge effect on our daily life, in this fascinating book that is at once a revelation and a clarion call to preserve this vast unseen world. (Description from NoveList)

Junglekeeper is for any reader yearning to be led on an expedition into the wild of life in that strange world on which all life on Earth depends-and in that wild, into discovering the deepest truths of human existence, calling, purpose, connectedness, and hope. When we're tucked away in the safety and comfort of modern living, is there still an adventure available to us?
(Description from NoveList)

A galvanizing and powerful debut, Mill Town is an American story, a human predicament, and a moral wake-up call that asks: what are we willing to tolerate and whose lives are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival? (Description from catalog.)

Winds are the force at the center of devastating hurricanes, murderous tornadoes, and cataclysmic fires that today affect large swaths of America. Yet to the energy industry, rising wind strength and speeds are an unalloyed boon - a vital source of clean and "safe" power. Between these two poles - wind as a malevolent force, and wind as savior of our planet - lies a world of fascination, history, literature, science, poetry, and engineering.
(Description from NoveList)