Recommended Books

Here Comes the Sun tells the story of the sudden spike in power from the sun and wind—and the desperate fight of the fossil fuel industry and their politicians to hold this new power at bay.

Stone’s aim is to understand how climate change is altering our lives in the present period – this period of transition between the ancient, stable climate of our ancestors and the unfolding, no longer stable climate of our children – and how our cities might adapt to these changes.

Moody focuses on issues of critical importance: aging in place; health and age in a warming world; responsibility for the climate crisis; options for climate-conscious consumers; planning for investment for a green retirement; and opportunities for political action.

This true story is a gripping exploration of the devastating Fort McMurray wildfire and its broader implications for our changing climate. Vaillant illustrates how fire has shaped human civilization while warning of its increasing unpredictability in a warming world. This read underscores the growing risks of wildfires and the need for immediate climate action.

This is the first major book to expose the catastrophic reality of the multi-billion-dollar global garbage trade. Disputes about what to do with the millions of tons of garbage generated every day have given rise to waste wars waged almost everywhere you look.

This primer explores the history of religious traditions and the environment, illustrating how religious teachings and practices both promoted and at times subverted sustainability. Subsequent chapters examine the emergence of religious ecology, as views of nature changed in religious traditions and the ecological sciences.

In this book, Eve O. Schaub tackles her most difficult challenge to date: garbage. Schaub and her family attempt the seemingly impossible: living in the modern world without creating any trash at all. For an entire year. And- as it turns out- during a pandemic. Recommended by Beyond Plastics.

By Shanna H. Swan and Stacey Colino In the tradition of Silent Spring and The Sixth Extinction, an urgent, “disturbing, empowering, and essential” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) book about the ways in which chemicals in the modern environment are changing—and endangering—human sexuality and fertility on the grandest scale, from renowned epidemiologist Shanna Swan.

By Leonardo Trasande A leading voice in public health policy and top environmental medicine scientist reveals the alarming truth about how hormone-disrupting chemicals are affecting our daily lives—and what we can do to protect ourselves and fight back.

Matt Simon reveals a whole new dimension to the plastic crisis. The thing that makes plastic so useful–its toughness–means it never really goes away. It just gets smaller and smaller: eventually small enough to enter your lungs or penetrate a fish’s muscle tissue before it becomes dinner.

Our Stolen Future examines the ways that certain synthetic chemicals interfere with hormonal messages involved in the control of growth and development, especially in the fetus. Scientific research over the last 50 years has revealed that this hormonal control of development is vulnerable to disruption by synthetic chemicals. (Available in most public library systems.)

Freinkel treks through history, science and the global economy to assess the real impact of plastic in our lives through eight familiar plastic objects. Each one illuminates a different facet of our synthetic world to give us a new way of thinking about a substance that has become the defining medium—and metaphor—of our age.