by Haley Haltom

President Biden’s recent executive orders are one step towards a society that puts the planet first, but we must continue to make personal choices to hold others and ourselves accountable. As readers, we know books are a powerful, transportive medium and profound empathetic experiences that encourage us to think outside the parameters of our lives. Novels and nonfiction about climate change are especially important; with the guidance of a talented author, the consequences of climate change can be shown as such that the reader feels moved to action.

The uptick in books concerning issues of our planet gives me hope that readers who are otherwise disinclined to care about preserving the Earth might be propelled to action after reading a compelling book. The solutions, guidance, and cautionary tales these novels and nonfiction stories give us are invaluable to sustainable living. Here are five books to begin your environmental reading journey.

ALL WE CAN SAVE; TRUTH, COURAGE, AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson

A collection of essays highlighting women’s voices in the environmental movement, ALL WE CAN SAVE is both a hopeful look to the future and a guide for understanding where we are, how we got here, and where we need to go next.

THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH by David Wallace-Wells

Brutally honest about the consequences that await us, Wallace-Wells reflects on the ways warming will change global politics, how we view technology and nature, and the sustainability of capitalism and human progress. Like Rachel Carson’s seminal Silent Spring, it is an impassioned call to action, and will leave you desperate for change.

BRAIDING SWEETGRASS by Robin Wall Kimmerer

A Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer brings her expertise and ancestry to BRAIDING SWEETGRASS, in which she combines science, indigenous practices, and the teachings of plants to call upon readers to reconsider the way they interact with the natural world.

MIGRATIONS by Charlotte McConaghy

Set in the near future, MIGRATIONS is an atmospheric and arresting novel about one woman’s quest to follow the last migrating flock of Arctic Terns. Birds have officially been declared extinct, almost all sea life is gone from the oceans, and few land animals remain other than those on farms. MIGRATIONS shows the personal devastation felt at the loss of species in a recognizable future, one that is sure to come without action.

THE NEW WILDERNESS by Diane Cook

On a planet recognizable yet ravaged a woman is faced with a choice; stay in a smog-choked city and watch her daughter die, or set off into The Wilderness State, a vast, preserved expanse of untamed land where mankind is not allowed. They join a group experiment of 18, where they must live leaving no trace and completely off the land, survival as their only mission.