Last Chance to Save the Planet with These January Releases

The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption by Dahr Jamail

 

The author who Jeremy Scahill calls the “quintessential unembedded reporter” visits “hot spots” around the world in a global quest to discover how we will cope with our planet’s changing ecosystems. Jamail scales Denali, the highest peak in North America, dives in the warm crystal waters of the Pacific only to find ghostly coral reefs, and explores the tundra of St. Paul Island where he meets the last subsistence seal hunters of the Bering Sea and witnesses its melting glaciers. The End of Ice offers a firsthand chronicle—including photographs throughout of Jamail on his journey across the world—of the catastrophic reality of our situation and the incalculable necessity of relishing this vulnerable planet while we still can.

The Secret Lives of Glaciers by M Jackson

 

Meticulously detailed, each chapter unfolds complex stories of people and glaciers along the southeastern coast of Iceland, exploring the history of glacier science and the world’s first glacier monitoring program, the power glaciers enact on local society, perceptions by some in the community that glaciers are alive, and the conflicting and intertwined consequences of rapid glacier change on the cultural fabric of the region. Powerfully written, The Secret Lives of Glaciers reaches beyond Iceland and touches on changing glaciers worldwide, revealing oft-overlooked interactions between people and ice throughout human history.

A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow by Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist

 

Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist explain how clean energy quickly replaced fossil fuels in such places as Sweden, France, South Korea, and Ontario. Their people enjoyed prosperity and growing energy use in harmony with the natural environment. They didn’t do this through personal sacrifice, nor through 100 percent renewables, but by using them in combination with an energy source the Swedes call kärnkraft, hundreds of times safer and cleaner than coal. Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, Goldstein and Qvist’s book could, in the words of Steven Pinker’s foreword, literally save the world.

The Ocean Book: How Endangered Are Our Seas? by Esther Gonstalla

 

The Ocean Book is full of easy-to-read, beautiful infographics that present the key issues facing our oceans. Rising sea levels, growing rubbish patches and overfishing are putting our oceans in grave danger. Though we love our oceans, we must learn to cherish them. This book will help readers realize how we cause the problems and how we can solve them.

Biodiversity and Climate Change: Transforming the Biosphere by Thomas E. Lovejoy and Lee Hannah

 

In this new sequel to the 2005 volume Climate Change and Biodiversity, leading experts in the field summarize observed changes, assess what the future holds, and offer suggested responses. From extinction risk to ocean acidification, from the future of the Amazon to changes in ecosystem services, and from geoengineering to the power of ecosystem restoration, this book captures the sweep of climate change transformation of the biosphere.