anthrojoyce asked: What books would you recommend?

Welcome to my climate book list! I created 5 categories of climate books: Science, Cities, Law, Policy, and World. Each book was carefully selected by me, and I’ve read every one of them. Hit me up if you have a recommendation!

Climate/Environment: 

• Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes. Must have book for anyone interested in climate change. Every one my followers and followers needs to read this very important book. Buy it.
  
  
• Climatopolis. A challenging argument, whereby Kahn argues that entrepreneurs and the free markets, not governments, will make cities better places to live.
  
  
• Ecology of Commerce, by Paul Hawken. A cornerstone on how businesses should operate profitably and ethically. Again, it challenges environmentalists to think about business infrastructure and the importance of profits. 

• Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back by Andrew Zolli, editor of PopTech. Simon and Shuster sent me a review copy of this book. It’s a compilation of resilience, with a focus on cities and how they bounce back from disasters. There isn’t a formula to attain resilience, but redundancy and diversity are common threads. Buy it.

• Climate Change and Cities

  Cities:

  • Anything by Simon Winchester - The Map that Changed the World; Krakatoa: The day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883; Professor and the Madman: The Making of the Oxford Dictionary; Atlantic.
  • Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time, by Jonathan Weiner. A story of married scientists who spent 20 years on Galapagos studying Darwin’s finches in order to understand the evolutionary process. It’s personal, dramatic, and lovingly written. One of my top books that helped me understand evolution and field work (and family). 
  • The City Reader, Richard LeGates. I love cities and I have a master’s in city planning to prove it. The City Reader introduced me to many different points of view on how to design cities. Lots of global perspectives, so it’s not too US centric. Also includes sections on climate change and city planning (my specialty). Now in it’s fifth edition, it’s a very popular book.

  Law: 

  • The Making of Environmental Law. My second highest recommendation. In clear prose and a fast pace, Lazarus describes how our environmental laws came to be. He tells the story of environmental law, and doesn’t get too technical. It’s a must for all environmentalists. 
  • The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Like Lazarus above, the Lorax is a foundational must for all environmentalists and lawyers. 
  • The Stranger, by Albert Camus. You’ve probably read it, and think of it as a sad tale of a guy wrongly accused. Read it again. This inadvertently introduced me to one of the West’s greatest contribution to the world, that of innocence before guilt and the importance of women’s rights.
  • The Seven Degrees of Relevance: Why should real-world environmental attorneys care now about sustainable development policy? by J.B. Ruhl. This is not a book, it’s a free article published in Duke Environmental Law and Policy. An absolute must for environmentalists, or policy people looking to understand how protective theories transition into law. A very important read, and it’s short. In fact, it’s worth printing yourself.
  • Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time, by Jonathan Weiner. A story of married scientists who spent 20 years on Galapagos studying Darwin’s finches in order to understand the evolutionary process. It’s personal, dramatic, and lovingly written. One of my top books that helped me understand evolution and field work (and family).