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Booklist from the Summer Schools September 2023 and May 2025
At the Climate Matters Summer Schools held at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in September 2023 and Warwick University in May 2025, participants were invited to bring along any books or magazines that they particularly recommended. Attached is a list of all those publications, with a little bit of information about each to help you decide which you or your group might like to read - and maybe discuss as a group. Please note these are recommendations of reasonably knowledgeable and well-informed individuals, who are mostly not technical experts.
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Non fiction
Fiction
Children's books
Magazines
Subject Adviser Reading List
Books, Magazines
| Title | Author | Description | Date |
| Non-fiction | |||
| A Climate of Truth | Berners-Lee, Mike | We have most of the technology we need to combat the climate crisis - and most people want to see more action. But after three decades of climate COPs, we are accelerating into a pollicises of climate, food security, biodiversity, pollution, inequality, and more. What, exactly, has been holding us back? Mike Berners-Lee spells out why, if humanity is to thrive in the future, the most critical step is to raise standards of honesty in our politics, our media, and our businesses. Anyone asking 'what can each of us do right now to help?' will find inspiration in this practical and important book | 2025 |
| Not the End of the World: how we can be the first generation to build a sustainable planet | Ritchie, Hannah | “Data is a superpower. Let Hannah Ritchie show you the world as it really is. Then go out an change it for the better.” Mark Lynas Myth: We are the last generation before disaster becomes inevitable. Fact: We could be the first generation to build a truly sustainable planet. | 2024 |
| A Life On Our Planet | David Attenborough | This book "contains my witness statement, and my vision for the future - the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake, and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right." David Attenborough | 2023 |
| Ravenous: Why Our Appetite Is Killing Us and the Planet, and What We Can Do About It | Henry Dimbleby | "A highly readable account of what needs to happen in order for us to both save the planet and fit into those old jeans again...." The Guardian | 2023 |
| Shaping the Wild: Wisdom from a Welsh Hill Farm | David Elias | "In this captivating [book], conservationist David Elias explores a farm in the Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park and unpacks what it shows us about the gritty reality of trying to reconcile hill farming and caring for nature." Waterstones | 2023 |
| Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency | Mark Lynas | "Degree by terrifying degree, Lynas charts the likely consequences of global heating and the ensuing climate catastrophe." Goodreads | 2023 |
| Fire Weather: a true story for a hotter world | Vaillant, John | With masterly prose and cinematic style, Vaillant delves into the intertwined histories of the oil industry and climate science, the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern wildfires, and the lives forever changed by these disasters. ‘A towering achievement; an immense work of research, reflection and imagination' Robert Macfarlane | 2023 |
| It’s Not Just You: how to navigate eco-anxiety and the climate crisis | Tsui, Tori | Exploration of eco-anxiety, the intricacies between mental health and climate change. We “are not alone; our reactions to climate change are part of being human and that communal solidarity is a primal need in times of struggle.” | 2023 |
| The Children of the Anthropocene: Stories from the Young People at the Heart of the Climate Crisis | Bella Lack | Chronicles the lives of the diverse young people on the frontlines of the environmental crisis around the world, amplifying the voices of those living at the heart of the crisis. Amazon | 2022 |
| Living Plantfully | Lindsey Harrad | "A font of information for anyone wanting to live and eat more mindfully and sustainably"Anna Jones, Cook and Author | 2022 |
| Regenesis | George Monbiot | "The environmental activist’s proposals for remaking the global food industry, from changes in farming practices to 3D-printed steaks, makes for urgent, essential reading" The Guardian | 2022 |
| Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World | Katharine Hayhoe | "This book is essential. It's deceptively simple - so clear and breezy that you really have to focus to notice how much knowledge and work goes into this kind of artful climate communication…. [and]anecdotes that I can't get out of my head." Rosemary Mosco | 2022 |
| The Climate Book | Greta Thunberg | "Chapters on almost everything you might need to know about ... the book is a curated, portable library of knowledge, full of classics. Everyone will get something different from reading this book ... It is an extraordinary body of work" Rowan Hooper, New Scientist | 2022 |
| Too Hot to Handle?: the democratic challenge of climate change | Rebecca Willis | "This book explores a central dilemma of the climate crisis: science demands urgency; politics turns the other cheek. Is it possible to hope for a democratic solution to climate change?" Waterstones | 2022 |
| A Gift for Conversation - Let's discuss Climate Change: Why it matters. What to do about it. | Louis Neal | Designed to be given away and to start climate conversations. Simple descriptions of aspects of climate change. Interactive with links to more materials. (Keal describes himself as a physicist who became a climate activist.) | 2021 |
| A Primer on Climate Security | The Trans-National Institute | The dangers of militarising the climate crisis. Can download as PDF on https://www.tni.org/en/publication/primer-on-climate-security | 2021 |
| Climate Crisis for Beginners | Andy Prentice / Eddie Reynolds | A clear, comprehensive guide to something that often feels too huge to be understood or coped with. Usborne Books | 2021 |
| How to Avoid a Climate Disaster | Bill Gates | A wide-ranging, practical - and accessible - plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe. | 2021 |
| How to Save Our Planet | Mark Maslin | "Punchy and to the point. No beating around the bush. This brilliant book contains all the information we need to have in our back pocket in order to move forward" Christiana Figueres | 2021 |
| The New Climate War: The fight to take back our planet | Michael E Mann | "A renowned climate scientist shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change, and offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet." Amazon | 2021 |
| There is no Planet B | Mike Berners-Lee | "An updated edition with fresh material on protests, pandemics, wildfires and more, There Is No Planet B explores the various environmental and economic challenges we face today and the practical action we can take to enact positive change." Waterstones | 2021 |
| Climate Jobs: building a workforce for the climate emergency Download free: https://www.cacctu.org.uk/sites/ data/files/sites/data/files/ Docs/climatejobs-2021-web_0.pdf | Campaign against climate change trade union group | Detailed and in-depth update of the One Million Climate Jobs report: many more than a million good, well paid, skilled jobs that could be created if we get serious and urgently tackle the climate emergency! We must break from the failed reliance on the market and instead invest in a huge expansion of public sector jobs across all sectors from transport, energy and food to homes, education and more. Need a National Climate Service to organise, plan, train workers and deliver urgently needed jobs. The changes will improve our lives, ensuring warm homes, a fully integrated public transport system and most importantly a safe climate and ecology now and in the future. | 2021 |
| A Primer on Climate Security: dangers of militarising the climate crisis | Buxton, Nick | There is a growing political demand for climate security as a response to the escalating impacts of climate change, but little critical analysis on what kind of security they offer and to who. This primer demystifies the debate – highlighting the role of the military in causing the climate crisis, the dangers of them now providing military solutions to climate impacts, the corporate interests that profit, the impact on the most vulnerable, and alternative proposals for ‘security’ based on justice. | 2021 |
| There is No Blanet B (updated) | Berners-Lee. Mike | Fresh material on protests, pandemics, wildfires and more. Explores environmental and economic challenges we face and the practical action we can take. But what is most pressing, and what should we do first? Do we all need to become vegetarian? How can we fly in a low-carbon world? How can we take control of technology? What on Earth can any of us do, as individuals? Mike Berners-Lee has crunched the numbers and plotted a course of action that is full of hope, practical, and enjoyable. This is the big-picture perspective on the environmental and economic challenges of our day, laid out in one place, and traced through to the underlying roots - questions of how we live and think. | 2021 |
| Riders on the Storm: the climate crisis and the survival of being | McIntosh, Alastair | Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2021. Rejecting the blind alleys of climate change denial, exaggeration and false optimism, McIntosh offers a scintillating discussion of ways forward. Weaving together science, politics, psychology and spirituality, this guide examines what it takes to make us riders on the storm. | 2020 |
| Heat Pumps for the Home, 2nd ed. | John Cantor | Armed with the practical information contained in these pages, homeowners will have the necessary knowledge to take advantage of this potentially low-carbon technology to heat their properties. | 2020 |
| How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything | Mike Berners-Lee | "It is terrific. I can't remember the last time I read a book that was more fascinating and useful and enjoyable all at the same time." - Bill Bryson "An engaging book that manages to present serious science without preaching. It offers tools that any reader will be able to use and make informed choices, and even seasoned ecoenthusiasts will be in for plenty of surprises." New Scientist | 2020 |
| Our House is On Fire | Malena and Beata Ernman, Svante and Greta Thunberg | "A must-read ecological message of hope . . . Everyone with an interest in the future of this planet should read this book." David Mitchell, The Guardian | 2020 |
| Scotland 2070: Healthy, Wealthy and Wise | Ian and Dorothy Godden and Hillary Sillitoe | "A fifty-year vision for Scotland.... There is lots to commend in this book which is buzzing with ideas and intelligence about a post-oil economy, the challenge of climate change, and our future as a northern nation. A welcome contribution to the sort of futures literacy we need more of." Indylibrary | 2020 |
| The Case for Climate Justice (an illustrated booklet0 | Global Justice Now | "Climate breakdown isn’t just an ecological crisis, serious though that is. It’s a crisis which exacerbates much of the inequality and injustice of the economic system it’s rooted in. But like climate change, economic systems are man-made." Global Justice Now | 2020 |
| The Future We Choose | Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac | “Humanity is not doomed, and we can and will survive. The future is ours to create: it will be shaped by who we choose to be in the coming years. The coming decade is a turning point - it is time to turn from indifference or despair and towards a stubborn, determined optimism.” Amazon | 2020 |
| The Joyful Environmentalist | Isabel Losada | A book about saving our planet that is fast, funny and inspiring too. Isabel doesn’t bother with an examination of the problem but gets right on with the solutions. "This is the joy we need in our lives." George Monbiot | 2020 |
| Too Hot to Handle? The Democratic Challenge of Climate Change | Rebecca Willis | "This book explores a central dilemma of the climate crisis: science demands urgency; politics turns the other cheek. Is it possible to hope for a democratic solution to climate change?" Waterstones | 2020 |
| Our House is on Fire: scenes of a family and a planet in crisis | Ernman, Malena & and Geata Svante and Greta Thunberg | When Greta Thunberg was eleven, her family were facing a crisis. Greta had stopped eating and speaking, and her mother and father had reconfigured their lives to care for her. Greta's distress? Her imperiled future on a rapidly heating planet. They between their own suffering and the planet's. Written by a remarkable family and told through the voice of an iconoclastic mother, Our House Is on Fire is the story of how they fought their problems at home by taking global action. And it is the story of how Greta decided to go on strike from school, igniting a worldwide rebellion. | 2020 |
| #futuregen: lessons from a small country | Davidson, Jane | The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 – the first piece of legislation in history to place regenerative and sustainable practice at the heart of government. Unparalleled in scope and vision, the Act connects social, environmental, economic and cultural wellbeing and looks to solve complex issues through better decision-making. | 2020 |
| No One is Too Small to Make a Difference | Thunberg,Greta | A collection of eleven speeches which Greta has written and presented about global warming and the climate crisis.[ | 2019 |
| Live Green | Chillingsworth, Jen | Live Green is a practical guide of 52 sustainable living changes . Tackling all areas of your life from your cleaning routine, home furnishings, food shopping, fashion choices, natural beauty and Christmas, this book has all the ingredients to help you achieve a more sustainable year. | 2019 |
| Our Place | Mark Cocker | "One of our foremost nature writers, Mark Cocker spent several years researching this tour de force… stuffed with eye-opening statistics… by turns hopeful, melancholy and humorous… [Our Place] is heartfelt." Ben Hoare, BBC Wildlife **Book of the Month** | 2018 |
| Wilding | Isabella Tree | "The book describes an attempt to renew the ecosystem, after decades of intensive agriculture of some 1,400 hectares ...at Knepp in West Sussex. The project...is perhaps unique in England, and the results have been spectacular." Guardian | 2018 |
| No. More. Plastic | Dorey, Martin | Contains a #2minutesolution for every aspect of life. Tips & why your actions matter. (Sold out but buy used from eBay etc.) | 2018 |
| Don’t Even Think About It: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change | George Marshall | "What is the psychological mechanism that allows us to know something is true but act as if it is not?...our values, assumptions, and prejudices can take on lives of their own, . ..[but] we can rethink and reimagine climate change, for it is not an impossible problem. Rather, it is one we can halt if we can make it our common purpose and common ground. Silence and inaction are the most persuasive of narratives, so we need to change the story." Harvard.com/book | 2015 |
| Climate Jobs – Building a Workforce for the Climate Emergency | Campaign Against Climate Change | Provides a detailed and in-depth update of the One Million Climate Jobs report, demonstrating that there are many more than a million good, well paid, skilled jobs that could be created if we get serious and urgently tackle the climate emergency. (PDF on https://www.cacctu.org.uk/sites/data/files/sites/data/files/Docs/climatejobs-2021-web) | 2014 |
| Sustainability without the Hot Air | David Mackay | Estimates energy use in kWh/person/day. Helps us see what actions are most effective in cutting emissions. This dates from 2008 but because it deals with the science of renewables, rather than the economics, it is still a useful reference. PDF available here; 10-page summary here. | 2008 |
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| Title | Author | Description | Date |
| Children's books | |||
| A Handbook for Dreamers and Thinkers - Solutions to Repair our Planet | Jonnie Hughes and Colin Butfield (foreward by HRH Prince William) | The Earthshot Prize is a 10-year programme inspired by Prince William and aimed at encouraging positive thinking through planet-saving solutions in five key areas: - protect and restore nature - revive our oceans - clean our air - fix our climate - build a waste-free world. Each year project ideas are submitted from around the world. The projects may be small prototypes but should be scaleable to have a significant impact. A £1m prize is given to the overall winner in each category. Recommended by Catherine Ware. | 2023 |
| Not a Drop in the Ocean | Sayer, Nicolas | A fun children's book to highlight the issues of plastic in our oceans and the effects it has on our diverse marine life. | 2023 |
| Climate Crisis for Beginners | Usborne | "A clear, comprehensive guide to something that often feels too huge to be understood or coped with." The Guardian 10 years to adult | 2021 |
| Questions and Answers about Plastic Usborne Lift-the-Flap | Daynes, Katie | What's plastic made of? How does it get into the ocean? Can we live without plastic? Learn all about plastic, recycling and how plastic affects the environment – over 60 flaps to lift. Tips on how we can make a difference, and Usborne Quick links to specially selected websites for video clips and activities | 2020 |
| Here We Are | Oliver Jeffers | “Here We Are is a tour through the land, the sea, the sky, our bodies; dioramas of our wild diversity….Jeffers is the master of capturing the joy in our difference.”New York Times 6 years + | 2017 |
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| Title | Author | Description | Date |
| Fiction | |||
| Orbital | Harvey, Samantha | 2024 Booker winner—adjectives used by reviewers include awe-inspiring, stunning, extraordinary, uplifting, exquisite, gorgeous, luminous. Fictional account of the thoughts and lives of six astronauts over one day (sixteen orbits round the planet) on the international space station. Makes your heart ache with love for our earth. | 2024 |
| The Ministry for the Future | Kim Stanley Robinson | "It opens like a slow-motion disaster movie...a heatwave of unsurvivable “wet-bulb” temperatures in a small Indian town kills nearly all its inhabitants in a week...there is much hard science, of atmospheric and oceanic physics, usually helpfully explained by a passing expert; but also speculative military strategy... Robinson shows that an ambitious systems novel about global heating must in fact be an ambitious systems novel about modern civilisation." Guardian | 2020 |
| Riders on the Storm: The Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being | Alistair MacIntosh | "Ecologist Alastair McIntosh's latest work could not be more timely ... Riders on the Storm offers a profusion of ideas, written with insight, honesty and wit" The Herald | 2020 |
| Leave the World Behind | Alam, Rumaan | A novel about two families, forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong. Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island for a holiday but Ruth and G. H. arrive there in a panic. A sudden power outage has swept New York. Is the holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another? Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped in moments of crisis - and how the most terrifying situations are never far from reality | 2020 |
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Magazines | |
| Ethical Consumer | Published by an independent, not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder co-operative with open membership, founded in 1989. Some of the information is free to access on their website, while the full information is available for a yearly subscription. There is a bi-monthly hard copy magazine for subscribers, also available as a digital flip-book. |
| The New Economics Zine | Published by The New Economics Foundation. It's mission is to transform the economy so it works for people and the planet. It works with people "igniting change from below and combine this with rigorous research to fight for change at the top." The Zine covers a wide range of topics and is published as a downloadable report once or twice a year. |
| Positive News | Positive News is an independent media brand that’s structured as a community benefit society (a form of social enterprise with a co-operative ownership structure). They are owned by 1,500 of their readers in 33 countries, and are pioneers among the growing movement towards ‘solutions journalism’. They publish daily online (free) and Positive News magazine is published quarterly in print, for a subscription. |
List owner: Harriet Martin
Subject Adviser Reading List
I wouldn't necessarily start with books: there's a lot of content online and free. I'd subscribe to The Guardian's Down to Earth newsletter; it might not be your newspaper of choice but its content is free. I'd also take Nature Briefing, Nature Anthropocene, and the Sustainability newsletter from Which?. (Be warned, articles in Nature tend to disappear behind a paywall within a few days of them being posted in the newsletters. If you think you may want to refer back to them later, print or save as PDF while you can.)
For a 'big picture' view I go to Project Drawdown and its solutions library.
For the effects of climate change read Lynas's 'Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency'.
For a near-real-time view of renewables in UK electricity generation see gridwatch.
For the physics of climate change I'd recommend Lawrence Krauss's book of that name - you can get a second-hand copy for less than £10, or get the gist of it from his YouTube lecture.
Books, Magazines
| Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet Hannah Ritchie 2024 | Ritchie is lead researcher at Our World in Data. She seems to be a Guardian favourite: it published an extract from the book here and she was the subject of a long interview in January 2024. The Guardian's review describes the book as "an optimists guide to the climate crisis", but is not uncritical. Read the extract and the review, and if you like what you read buy the book; l found a lot of commonsense in it, and a lot of hope. |
| What We Need to Do Now Chris Goodall 2020 | Ten things that we need to do for a zero-carbon future, from green energy to geoengineering. He calls, for example, for a twenty-fold expansion in renewable electricity generation in UK - and reckons that we have enough land and sea to do this. There's not enough physics in this for my taste. |
| Renewable Energy Without the Hot Air David J C MacKay 2009 | This is the book to go to if you want to know whether the UK can survive on renewables. It's from 2009 so a little dated now but still reliable I think, because it deals with the physics of renewables not the economics. You can buy the book, read it online or download it as PDF. MacKay was a Physics prof, which is maybe why I like his approach. I recommend his interview with Mark Lynas which was recorded just a few days before he died in 2016. |
| Zero Carbon Britain Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) 2019 | For a more optimistic view than MacKay's there is CAT's Zero Carbon Britain, also downloadable. The ZCB scenario involves reducing UK's energy demand by 60%, including two-thirds less flying - I'm yet to be convinced that this is achievable, or could be sold to the electorate. |
| A Climate of Truth Mike Berners-Lee 2025 | His thesis: an increase in truthfulness is more important than technological advances as a solution to the threats that humanity faces (which of course includes climate change). There is a review by Julia Jones in Nature which is better than anything I can provide. I confess that I zoomed through this book, because I didn't find much to disagree with, so it didn't really change my mind about anything. We dislike the same politicians and distrust the same newspapers, we both hate greenwashing and bs and are sceptical about carbon offset. |
| Just Earth: how a fairer world will save the planet Tony Juniper 2025 | If we want to build a secure future, environmental priorities and social justice must be pursued together. I confess to not having read this one, but Alix Dietzei had read it and you will find her comments here. |
| Resource | A trade paper for the waste management industry. Because it is a trade paper a lot of the content is recycled press releases, but it does cover subjects like recycling, deposit return schemes, circular economy, extended producer responsibility at a lower level than does the mainstream press. |
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