A marmot stands in front of Hidden Lake and Reynolds Mountain in Glacier National Park. Tobias Klenze / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 4.0
By Breanna Draxler
Climate change is the undercurrent that drives and shapes our lives in countless ways. Journalist Judith D. Schwartz sees the term as shorthand. "It's almost as if people think climate is this phenomenon, determined solely by CO2, as if we could turn a dial up or down," she tells me over the phone. "We are missing so much."
<p>In her quest for climate solutions, Schwartz leans into the complexity of natural systems. As she and I talk, I come to imagine our climate as a beautiful series of overlapping Rube Goldberg-style cycles of carbon, water, nutrients, and energy. Those systems have been knocked out of alignment, sure, but as Schwartz sees it, repair is not impossible.</p><p>While mainstream environmentalism has historically pursued either preservation or conservation, Schwartz's new book, <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/09/02/norway-reindeer-herding-sami-culture/" target="_blank">The Reindeer Chronicles</a> (Chelsea Green 2020) explores a third option: regeneration. She looks at community efforts to restore ecosystems the world over. "We've been trained to believe that finding solutions is a job for the experts," she writes, but "Earth repair is a participatory sport: a grassroots response to evolving global crises."</p><p>Schwartz is worried that climate change conversations center around terrifying projections. "What do you do with that? Cower under the bed?" She says collapse is unlikely to be a one-shot meteorite, and that gives us some leeway. If we assume we're not always going to get things right, that leaves room for mistakes and the collective learning they bring. "We have so much more agency than we've been able to see," she says.</p><p>We may not know what the future climate is going to look like, and she acknowledges that not knowing is really hard. "But we've got to try," she says matter of factly. "We're here now … Just start."</p>
Overcoming Cultural Myths
<p>Schwartz comes to the topic of climate solutions with curiosity and a deep appreciation for science. You can hear it in the way she writes about processes like transpiration and decomposition: "The logic of nature is no secret; it is laid bare in every streambed, every handful of living soil, every spiderweb, if we bother to take a look. Its tale is told through accrual or retrenchment of biomass, biodiversity, and soil organic matter: the stuff of life."</p><p>She has a particular soft spot for soil health, sustainable grazing, and water retention—subjects on which she has written entire books. These pop up throughout The Reindeer Chronicles as she attends Ecosystem Restoration Camp in Spain and Cowgirl Camp in Eastern Washington. (Yes, it's a thing).</p><p>While I find the name off-putting, Schwartz uses her Cowgirl Camp experience as a springboard to discuss the critical role of women in agriculture. The word "farmer" often conjures an image of a man on a tractor, but she writes that a third of American farmers are women, and in the Midwest, it's closer to half. </p><p>"It's our cultural myths. It's our myth of the cowboy. It's our myth of what a farm is," Schwartz says. "There might be women involved, but you think about them as the supporting cast. We tend to look for heroes before we look for heroines."</p><p>By perpetuating the myth of the male farmer, Schwartz says, "We miss half of the imagination, insight, problem solving, intuition that's out there." And when it comes to climate change, we're going to need all we can get.</p>Naturalizing the Economy
<p>Schwartz's writing is lyrical in its descriptions of systems normally not given such linguistic fanfare. When talking about the economy, she writes, "Its theme music—the vicissitudes of the market, job numbers, profits and losses—sets both melody and tone for newscasts and public debate, the inadvertent soundscape of contemporary life." She calls the disconnect between limitless growth and a finite planet "a society-wide exercise in fooling ourselves."</p><p>But rather than try to force the complexity of nature into existing financial structures—by giving value to resources and ecosystem services, for example—she writes of naturalizing the economy instead. This requires rethinking basic concepts we take for granted, like productivity, jobs, and meaningful work.</p><p>"There is no natural law that says profit must supersede other types of reward," she writes. "The truth is, we are what we measure—or at least our actions are largely determined by how we gauge success. What if environmental healing, social engagement, and a commitment to the future governed our companies and institutions, and therefore our work lives?"</p><p>A lot of the solutions in the book talk about connecting with the land. In some communities that access is collective, but I press her on the fact that access to land is incredibly inequitable. In the U.S., a lot of that has to do with historic and systemic racism. What role does justice have to play here, and how can that be factored into the conversation about ecological restoration?</p><p>"It plays a huge role," Schwartz says. "The people who are most at risk of losing work in this time are people of color and young people." Rather than try to shoehorn everybody back into a service economy that refuses to provide a living wage and requires working two or three jobs, she tells me, we can start investing in restoration.</p><p>She describes the magnitude of the potential benefits with enthusiasm: not just a wage, but tools that are going to be needed throughout the world—the capacity to grow food, manage landscapes, design dwellings. Not to mention the impacts on mental and physical health of being in natural spaces and eating healthy food.</p><p>Schwartz describes these as short-term signposts that give positive feedback on the long road to restoring ecosystems. Biodiversity inevitably bounces back, she says, and soil health, too. While she doesn't tackle the issue of racism head-on, she makes clear that healthy communities include people and the land.</p><p>"What can be more healing than to heal land?" she asks me.</p>A Local Land Ethic
<p>The book is somewhat meandering in its quest for resilience. Schwartz's willingness to entertain a wide range of ideas and approaches is central to her message: "Once ideas on how to achieve what's assumed to be impossible are articulated, that goal is no longer impossible."</p><p>She describes different communal land management traditions—the Himma that long sustained shared grazing lands for Bedouin shepherds in Saudi Arabia, and ahupua'a, whereby each self-sustaining unit of shared land in Hawai'i included functional ecosystems that stretched from the mountains to the sea.</p><p>"I was very humbled by Indigenous knowledge, understanding myself as a newcomer on that land," she says. She admits she has a lot to learn but is excited about the prospect. I ask her how she views the relationship between Western science and traditional ecological knowledge.</p><p>"They can serve as reality checks for each other," she says. She goes on to explain how in Western culture, scientific inquiry is about breaking things apart to look at them in greater detail. But this reductive approach misses the way things fit into systems. In this way, she says science can disconnect people from the very nature they are trying to understand.</p><p>"Originally science was based on keen observation," she says. "That is part of getting us to knowledge." Ancient knowledge systems emphasize the connections between humans and nature—and see humans as part of larger whole. She says science today seems to be bearing that out more and more.</p><p>Still, that doesn't preclude the need for ancient knowledge as the climate rapidly changes. "Who better to be able to keenly observe those changes than people who have known what it has been?" she asks me. "To have a baseline and to know the various factors that will be changing?"</p>Centering Community
<p>Alongside the understanding of place, Schwartz emphasizes the equally important respect for community. Her writing recognizes that climate change is not so much an environmental problem as a human problem.</p><p>"Running in the back of my mind, like the hum of those hovering bees, was the dawning realization that all the knowledge and technology needed to shift to a regenerative future—one marked by agriculture that builds soil carbon, retains water, produces nutrient-dense food, and revives land and communities—is already available," she writes. "It's only people that get in the way."</p><p>To come at it from another angle, as one of her sources puts it, "There is nothing wrong with the Earth."</p><p>In reporting the book, Schwartz reckons with the notion of imperialism and comes to realize the limits of information. Knowing more doesn't necessarily change minds, but feeling heard can. Building trust can. Overcoming fear can. She witnesses the power of consensus when decades-old feuds among ranchers in New Mexico dissipate with the formation of a collective vision for their future.</p><p>"Worst-case-scenario perseverating keeps everyone pumping stress hormones. This leaves us at once frozen and overwhelmed, unable to act or seek alternatives," she writes. "In short, we stuff our heads with worst possible outcomes and wonder why we get them."</p><p>In my favorite example from the book, from which the title is derived, Schwartz explores what some local Indigenous leaders have called "green colonialism" in northern Norway. She follows the efforts of an Indigenous reindeer herder to prevent the government from culling his animals. While Norway's government is considered among the most progressive in the world, it doesn't recognize the value of the grazing animals in climate change mitigation, instead investing in wind turbines on those very same lands. The herder's family considers reindeer herding a cultural bank for traditional language, handicraft, knowledge of the environment, and ecology. So the loss is far greater than the animals themselves. (<a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/09/02/norway-reindeer-herding-sami-culture/" target="_blank">Read an excerpt here.</a>)</p>Homebound
<p>"This was not an easy book to write," Schwartz admits, and the world looks very different today than when she was writing it. Schwartz says the pandemic has given her permission to fall in love with the place where she is. She describes her home in southern Vermont as beautiful, though somewhat dismissively, saying that she always viewed the action as taking place somewhere else. Home was just the place she returned to after each of her reporting trips to write without distractions.</p><p>Now, though, she says she's experiencing a newfound presence and grounding right where she is, and realizing there's far more to discover than she previously acknowledged. "What was in the background has become foreground." I would venture a guess that her shifted perspective is not unique in these uncertain times, and that's just what she thinks we need.</p><p>Even in the small town of Bennington, Vermont, where she lives, she's seeing the effects. A "grow your own food" webinar was offered in June. While a successful local event might usually attract five people, 100 people signed up. She says this is evidence that people are aware of the need for local resilience.</p><p>"We've all got places," she says. "Places have their own ecological logic. Let's do what we can where we are and learn from each other." That idea of connecting with place and community is central to her worldview. "The 'we' who can address climate change is everybody," she says.</p><p>"There is no one size fits all for climate action." Schwartz says we need to protest oil companies and make art and grow healthy food and feed one another and, in her case, write—all using our respective skills to imagine a more resilient world.</p><p>Her argument, reinforced by 2020's stay-at-home orders, is to focus on restoring the functions of whatever ecosystem you call home. Rhetorically, she writes, "How many microclimates does it take to make a new climate?"</p>Tipping Points
<p>In her concluding chapter, Schwartz asks what people would do if restoring ecosystems was achievable. She then lists possible answers, among them: keeping water in the ground, jettisoning the cynicism, and dancing.</p><p>I can't help but push back on this. After all, if our planet is at a tipping point, don't we need to do more and at larger scales to actually achieve meaningful ecological restoration?</p><p>Her answer is perfect in its simplicity: "Tipping points go both ways." We may be on the brink of disaster, if we choose to dwell on the worst-case scenarios. But maybe, just maybe, if we focus on the best possible outcomes, we can tip the scales to bring best-case scenarios into being.</p>From Your Site Articles
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By John R. Platt
This has already been one of the hottest summers on record, and things are only going to get worse. Unless we do something about it.
<p>So … let's <em>do</em>.</p><p>We can't really go to the beach in these final few weeks of summer — too many potential disease vectors walking around in Speedos — so let's all stay home and read up on climate change.<br/></p><p>We've collected this summer's 10 best new books about global warming and related topics — all published over the past three months — covering how we got here and how we're going to get out of this hot mess. You'll find books about science, activism, history and people, and even some art along the way.</p><p>And maybe you'll also find some inspiration.</p>
The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming by Eric Holthaus
<p>Billed as "the first hopeful book about climate change." Holthaus, a meteorologist turned climate journalist, explores several major scenarios under which we could get to carbon-zero over the next three decades and save the planet. Along the way he also encourages another radical idea: that we relearn how to embrace the Earth and our relationship with it — and maybe our relationship with ourselves along the way.</p>Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It by Jamie Margolin
<p>An essential book by one of the country's most engaging young climate activists. Margolin cofounded the action group Zero Hour and helped energize 2018's record-breaking Youth Climate March. Now she shares her experience and expertise — along with that of other activists — and offers advice on everything from organizing peaceful protests to protecting your mental health in a time of crisis. Greta Thunberg provides the foreword.</p>When the World Feels Like a Scary Place: Essential Conversations for Anxious Parents and Worried Kids by Abigail Gewirtz
<p>A wide-ranging book by a child psychologist that teaches parents to help stressed kids of all ages deal with the world's ever-growing multitude of crises, ranging from climate change to active-shooter drills — and yes, COVID-19. Oh yeah, and along the way the book aims to help parents deal with their own anxieties about these issues.</p>Disposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe by Mario Alejandro Ariza
<p>Environmental and economic collapse go hand in hand for Miami, Florida — and this book provides a poignant first-person investigation into a metropolis that could one day soon be underwater. (Read our full review <a href="https://therevelator.org/miami-climate-ariza/" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p>Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility: Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health
<p>A wide-ranging, open-access (as in free) academic book addressing how climate change damages peoples' health, covering everything from the cardiovascular effects of air pollution to the ethics of climate justice. There are even chapters about how the climate crisis will affect our mental health and religious faiths. Edited by Wael K. Al-Delaimy, Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, with dozens of contributors from around the world, the book is <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-31125-4" target="_blank">available for download</a> in its entirety or on a chapter-by-chapter basis.</p>Who Killed Berta Cáceres? by Nina Lakhani
<p>This isn't <em>exactly</em> a climate book, but it's a must-read and close enough in topic to belong on this month's list. Subtitled "Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender's Battle for the Planet," this powerful investigation digs into the brutal murder of an activist who led the fight against a hydroelectric dam being built on her peoples' sacred river in Honduras. In an age when hydropower is being embraced in some corners as a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, we need to remember that dams are often built on blood and stolen land.</p>Paying the Land by Joe Sacco
<p>The author, an acclaimed journalist/cartoonist best known for his graphic novels about war zones, travels to a different kind of conflict: the fossil-fuel and mining industries' destructive influence on a First Nations community in the Canadian Northwest Territories. Heartbreaking and powerful, this book drives home that the climate crisis was affecting people long <em>before</em> temperatures started to rise.</p>The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah
<p>Climate change is already forcing people, animals and plants to shift where they live — an often-dangerous prospect fraught with potential consequences and conflict. But is migration also a <em>solution</em> to the climate crisis? Shah looks deeply into human and natural history — not to mention our history of xenophobia — to show how we can effectively embrace compassionate laws, wildlife corridors and permeable international borders to benefit a changing world.</p>Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World edited by John Freeman
<p>In this hybrid book of nonfiction, fiction, essays and poems, an all-star lineup of international writers addresses how climate change will exacerbate the gap between rich and poor around the world and put millions of people at greater risk. Margaret Atwood, Anuradha Roy, Lauren Groff and Chinelo Okparanta are among the notable contributors.</p>The Hidden Life of Ice: Dispatches from a Disappearing World by Marco Tedesco
<p>A noted climate scientist takes us on a journey to Greenland to discuss its melting beauty and the secrets that researchers are uncovering beneath the ice. Part science book, part history lesson, part travelogue, this book puts the reader on the front line to illuminate the climate crisis and what we're losing in the process. Co-written by journalist Alberto Flores d'Arcais; Elizabeth Kolbert (<em>The Sixth Extinction</em>) provides the foreword.</p>Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
<p>A near-future novel about a world almost destroyed by climate change and overconsumption, narrated by a woman whose dark secrets and haunted past echo the melting ice and extinctions that surround her and a ship's crew as they follow the final migration of the world's last surviving birds. Mysterious and melancholy, but as much about the quest for the future as what the characters have lost.</p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/john/" target="_blank">John R. Platt</a> is the editor of <em>The Revelator</em>. An award-winning environmental journalist, his work has appeared in <em>Scientific American</em>, <em>Audubon</em>, <em>Motherboard</em>, and numerous other magazines and publications. His "Extinction Countdown" column has run continuously since 2004 and has covered news and science related to more than 1,000 endangered species. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. John lives on the outskirts of Portland, Ore., where he finds himself surrounded by animals and cartoonists.</p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/climate-books-august-2020/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
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Yale Climate Connections highlights 13 reports covering climate change.
By Michael Svoboda
If measured by the number of reports put out in just the first half of this year, the coronavirus has not slowed the work of the international, national, and non-governmental organizations keeping an eye on climate change.
<p>And that's a good thing. Because although it has temporarily reduced the amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere, the coronavirus crisis has done nothing to slow the climatic effects of the carbon dioxide already there after decades of fossil fuel combustion. The planet is still warming, the oceans are still acidifying, and more and more humans are experiencing the consequences.</p><p>In this edition of our bookshelf feature, Yale Climate Connections highlights a baker's dozen of these reports, selected to reflect the broad range of concerns that intersect with climate change, including water, national security, media, health, food, finance, energy, and climate and environmental justice.</p><p>Readers can also find a link to <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/dl/YCC_2020_Reports.doc" target="_blank">a much longer list of reports</a>, which provides a measure of depth rather than breadth. Food security, for example, is the subject of six separate reports released since the start of the year, but only one is included in this month's baker's dozen.</p><p><span></span>The descriptions of the 13 reports are adapted from copy provided by the organizations that published them. All of the reports, those profiled below and those included in the larger downloadable list, are available free, in pdf form online. In some cases, however, interested readers may need to register with the organizations that released them.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/state-of-the-climate/">State of the Climate 2019: Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society</a>, edited by J. Blunden and D.S. Arndt (BAMS 2020, 435 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://watermark.silverchair.com/2020bamsstateoftheclimate.pdf">here</a>; a 10-page executive summary is also available)</p><p><em>Compiled by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information and published as a supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, State of the Climate provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice, and in space. State of the Climate in 2019 is the 30th issuance of the annual assessment, which has been published by the Bulletin since 1996. The main function of each volume is to document the status and trajectory of many components of the climate system. As a series, however, the report also documents the status and trajectory of our capacity and commitment to observe the climate system.</em></p><p><em><a target="_blank" href="https://firststreet.org/press/2020-first-street-foundation-flood-model-launch/">The First National Flood Risk Assessment: Defining America's Growing Risk</a>, by Flood Modelers (First Street Foundation 2020, 163 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://assets.firststreet.org/uploads/2020/06/first_street_foundation__first_national_flood_risk_assessment.pdf">here</a>)</em></p><p><em><em>The nonprofit research and technology group First Street Foundation has publicly released flood risk data for more than 142 million homes and properties across the country. The data assigns every property in the contiguous United States a "Flood Factor™" based on its cumulative risk of flooding over a thirty-year mortgage. When adjusting changing sea levels, warming sea surface and atmospheric temperatures, and changing precipitation patterns, the Foundation's model finds the number of properties with substantial risk grows to 16.2 million by the year 2050. "The First Annual National Flood Risk Assessment: Defining America's Growing risk" highlights these significant national, state, and city findings of the First Street Foundation Model.</em></em></p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.unwater.org/publications/world-water-development-report-2020/">World Water Development Report 2020: Water and Climate Change</a>, by UN Water (UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization 2020, 235 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000372985.locale=en">here</a>)</p><p><em>Climate change will affect the availability, quality and quantity of water for basic human needs, threatening the effective enjoyment of the human rights to water and sanitation for potentially billions of people. The alteration of the water cycle will also pose risks for energy production, food security, human health, economic development, and poverty reduction. The 2020 UN World Water Development Report focuses on the challenges that can be addressed through improving water management. Combining climate change adaptation and mitigation, through water, is a win-win proposal, improving the provision of water supply and sanitation services and combating both the causes and impacts of climate change, including disaster risk reduction.</em></p><p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.fao.org/3/ca9692en/online/ca9692en.html">The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020: Transforming Food Systems for Affordable Healthy Diets</a>, by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (United Nations 2020, 320 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/ca9692en">here</a>)</p><p><em>This year, the UN's annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World includes a special focus on transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets. It analyses the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. New analysis is presented on the "hidden" health and climate-change costs associated with our current food consumption patterns, as well as the cost savings if we shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report also offers policy recommendations to transform current food systems and make them able to deliver affordable healthy diets for all – crucial to all efforts to achieve Zero Hunger – Sustainable Development Goal No. 2.</em></p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240000377">WHO Global Strategy on Health, Environment, and Climate Change: The Transformation Need to Improve Lives and Wellbeing through Healthy Environments</a>, by WHO (UN-WHO 2020, 36 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240000377">here</a>)</p><p><em>The burden of disease attributable to the environment is high and persistent (~ one quarter of all deaths), and further health concerns are posed by global climate change and rapid urbanization. To respond to this situation, a new global strategy on health, environment and climate change has been developed to transform the way we tackle environmental risks by accounting for health in all policies and scaling up disease prevention and health promotion. It needs to be supported by a strengthened health sector, adequate governance mechanisms, and enhanced communication, thereby creating a demand for healthy environments. The new strategy is timely – it responds to and is in line with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the GPW13.</em></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/report/cooling-emissions-and-policy-synthesis-report">Cooling Emissions and Policy Synthesis Report: Benefits of Cooling Efficiency and the Kigali Amendment</a>, by UNEP-IEA (UNEP and IEA 2020, 50 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/33094/CoolRep.pdf">here</a>)</p><p><em>In a warming world, prosperity and civilization depend more and more on access to cooling. But the growing demand for cooling will contribute significantly to climate change, both through the leaking of HFCs and other refrigerants, and through emissions of CO2 and black carbon from the mostly fossil fuel-based energy powering air conditioners and other cooling equipment. By combining energy efficiency improvements with the transition away from super-polluting refrigerants, the world could avoid cumulative greenhouse gas emissions of up to 210-460 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) over the next four decades. This is roughly equal to 4-8 years of total annual global greenhouse gas emissions, based on 2018 levels.</em></p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.2035report.com/">The 2035 Report: Plummeting Solar, Wind, and Battery Costs Can Accelerate Our Clean Electricity Future</a>, by Sonia Aggarwal and Mike O'Boyle (Goldman School of Public Policy 2020, 37 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="http://www.2035report.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2035-Report.pdf">here</a>)</p><p><em>Most studies aim for deep decarbonization of electric power systems by 2050, but this report shows, with the latest renewable energy and battery cost data, that we can get there in half that time. The U.S. can achieve 90% clean, carbon-free electricity nationwide by 2035, dependably, at no extra cost to consumers, and without new fossil fuel plants. On the path to 90% over the next 15 years, we can inject $1.7 trillion into the economy, support a net increase of more than 500K energy sector jobs each year, and reduce economy-wide emissions by 27%. This future also retires all existing coal plants by 2035, reduces natural gas generation by 70%, and prevents up to 85,000 premature deaths by 2050. But without robust policy reforms, this future will be lost.</em></p><p><em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ceres.org/resources/reports/addressing-climate-systemic-risk">Addressing Climate as a Systemic Risk: A Call to Action for U.S. Financial Regulators</a>, by Veena Ramani (Ceres 2020, 68 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ceres.org/sites/default/files/reports/2020-06/Financial%20Regulators%20FULL%20FINAL.pdf">here</a>, registration required)</em></p><p><em><em>This Ceres report outlines how and why U.S. financial regulators, who are responsible for protecting the stability and competitiveness of the U.S. economy, need to recognize and act on climate change as a systemic risk. It provides more than 50 recommendations for key financial regulators to adopt, including the Federal Reserve Bank (the Fed), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC), state and federal insurance regulators, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).</em></em></p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/report/gender-climate-security-sustaining-inclusive-peace-frontlines-climate-change">Gender, Climate & Security: Sustaining Inclusive Peace on the Frontlines of Climate Change</a>, by UN Women (UN Environment & Development Programs 2020, 52 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/32638/GCS.pdf">here</a>)</p><p><em>Climate change is a defining threat to peace and security in the 21st century – its impacts felt by everyone, but not equally. Gender norms and power dynamics shape how women and men of different backgrounds experience or contribute to insecurity in a changing climate. Grounded in a series of case studies from research and programming experience, this report offers a comprehensive framework for understanding how gender, climate and security are inextricably linked. The report assesses entry points for action across existing global agendas and suggests concrete recommendations for how policymakers, development practitioners and donors can advance three inter-related goals: peace and security, climate action and gender equality.</em></p><p><em><a target="_blank" href="https://careclimatechange.org/evicted-by-climate-change/">Evicted by Climate Change: Confronting the Gendered Impacts of Climate-Induced Displacement</a>, by Care International (Care International 2020, 33 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://careclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CARE-Climate-Migration-Report-v0.4.pdf">here</a>)</em></p><p><em><em>This report outlines the causes and consequences of climate-induced displacement, and how the triple injustice of climate change, poverty and gender inequality must be met by transformative action. In this report, CARE draws on key scientific findings as well as its own experience and, most importantly, the experiences of the people CARE seeks to support in managing compound risks: women and girls in vulnerable situations. To tackle climate-induced displacement in a gender-transformative and human-rights based way, CARE calls on all relevant actors to do their part to build a safer, more equitable, inclusive and resilient future that harnesses the power of women and girls within their communities.</em></em></p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/defending-tomorrow/">Defending Tomorrow: The Climate Crisis and Threats Against Land and Environmental Defenders</a>, by Global Witness (Global Witness 2020, 52 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://www.globalwitness.org/documents/19939/Defending_Tomorrow_EN_low_res_-_July_2020.pdf">here</a>)</p><p><em>For years, land and environmental defenders have been the first line of defense against climate breakdown. Time after time, they have challenged those companies rampaging through forests, skies, wetlands, oceans and biodiversity hotspots. Yet the crucial role they play, businesses, financiers and governments fail to safeguard the vital and peaceful work of these defenders. The climate crisis is arguably the greatest global and existential threat we face. As it escalates, it will exacerbate many other problems. The question is whether we want to build a better, greener future for our planet and its people. The answer lies in following the leadership, the campaigns and solutions that land and environmental defenders have been honing for generations.</em></p><p><em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2020/07/23/breaking-the-plastic-wave-top-findings">Breaking the Plastic Wave: A Comprehensive Assessment of Pathways Towards Stopping Ocean Plastic Pollution</a>, by Pew Charitable Trust and System IQ (Pew Charitable Trust 2020, 153 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2020/07/breakingtheplasticwave_report.pdf">here</a>)</em></p><p><em><em>Plastic has become ubiquitous. From wrapped food and disposable bottles to microbeads in body washes, it's used widely as packaging or in products because it's versatile, cheap, and convenient. But this convenience comes with a price. Plastic waste is entering the ocean at a rate of about 11 million metric tons a year. How did we get here? We have produced vast quantities of plastic products but have had few ways to regulate their use or properly manage their disposal. "Breaking the Plastic Wave" shows that we can cut annual flows of plastic into the ocean by about 80% in the next 20 years. But no single solution can achieve this goal; rather, we can break the plastic wave only by taking several immediate, ambitious, and concerted actions.</em></em></p><p><em><em><a target="_blank" href="https://medium.com/centerforcooperativemedia/climate-specific-reasons-help-propel-growth-in-journalism-collaborations-4696dc2f672c">Adapting to a Change Climate: How Collaboration Addresses Unique Challenges in Climate-Change and Environmental Reporting</a>, by Caroline Porter (Center for Cooperative Media 2020, 24 pages, free download available <a target="_blank" href="https://collaborativejournalism.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/07/climate-change-caroline-porter-july-16-2020.pdf">here</a>)</em></em></p><p><em><em><em>As part of its collaborative journalism program, the Center for Cooperative Media (CCM) at Montclair State University tracks journalism collaborations. In early 2019 the number of climate change-related collaborations seemed to be ticking upward, spurred by the launch of Covering Climate Now, the biggest such collaboration on record. CCM decided to take a look at how journalists are working together to tackle the topic and all of its related issues. The result is the new report researched and written by Caroline Porter. Based on her assessments of 40 climate-related collaborations, she found that there are some climate change-specific reasons that journalism collaborations make sense, beyond the usual economic reasons for such efforts.</em></em></em></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/08/13-major-climate-change-reports-released-so-far-in-2020/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Support Ecowatch
By Michael Svoboda
The enduring pandemic will make conventional forms of travel difficult if not impossible this summer. As a result, many will consider virtual alternatives for their vacations, including one of the oldest forms of virtual reality – books.
<p>Two kinds of books meet this challenge while telling stories about climate change. The first burrows deep into a particular place, noting changes over time as human impacts, including climate change, have intensified. The second tracks a particular effect of climate change – longer droughts, melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, or raging wildfires – across different communities and landscapes.</p>
<p>Both kinds of books can be found in this month's bookshelf. And for those who hope to do some of their "reading" while on the road, socially distanced in their vehicles, each of this month's entries includes a link to a streamable audio interview with the author.</p><p>As always, the descriptions of the titles are drawn from copy provided by the publishers. When two dates of publication are provided, the second is for the release of the paperback edition.</p><p>Safe travels!</p><p><em>Editor's Note: Yale Climate Connections thanks Scott Smallwood, senior communications manager for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.southernenvironment.org/">Southern Environmental Law Center</a>, for suggesting this theme. Three of the online interviews linked to below were recorded for <a target="_blank" href="https://brokengroundpodcast.org/">Broken Ground</a>, the podcast produced by Southern Environmental Law Center. A fourth Broken Ground interview, with Dr. Robert Bullard, considered the founder of the environmental justice movement, can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.buzzsprout.com/270210/3620881-dr-robert-bullard-environmental-justice-is-equal-justice">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>1. <a target="_blank" href="https://milkweed.org/book/the-home-place">The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature</a>, by Drew Lanham (Milkweed 2016/2017, 240 pages, $16.00 paperback) / An interview with author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.buzzsprout.com/270210/3433171-drew-lanham-call-of-the-rural-south">here</a>.</strong></p><p>From fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham. Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be "the rare bird, the oddity." By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the South – and in America today.</p>
<p><strong>2. <a target="_blank" href="https://milkweed.org/book/late-migrations">Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss</a>, by Margaret Renkl (Milkweed Editions 2019, 248 pages, $24.00) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.buzzsprout.com/270210/3829103-margaret-renkl-backyard-environmentalism">here</a>.</strong></p><p>Growing up in Alabama, New York Times opinion writer Margaret Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child's transition to caregiver. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. Gorgeously illustrated by the author's brother, Billy Renkl, Late Migrations vividly portrays the cycles of joy and grief that inscribe human lives within the natural world.</p>
<p><strong>3. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062661401/chesapeake-requiem/">Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island</a>, by Earl Swift (Dey Street Books/Harper Collins 2018/2020, 448 pages, $17.99) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.buzzsprout.com/270210/4004636-earl-swift-watching-waters-rise">here</a>.</strong></p><p>Tangier Island, Virginia, is a community unique on the American landscape. Mapped by John Smith in 1608, settled during the American Revolution, the tiny sliver of mud is home to 470 hardy people who live an isolated and challenging existence, with one foot in the 21st century and another in times long passed. But Tangier is disappearing. The very water that has long sustained it is erasing the island day by day, wave by wave; its shoreline retreats by fifteen feet a year. As the graves of their forebears are being sprung open by encroaching tides, the conservative and deeply religious Tangiermen ponder the end times. Chesapeake Requiem is an intimate look at Tangier by an acclaimed journalist who spent much of the past two years living among its people, crabbing and oystering with its watermen, and observing its odd ways.</p>
<p><strong>4. <a target="_blank" href="https://milkweed.org/book/rising">Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore</a>, by Elizabeth Rush (Milkweed Editions 2018/2019, 328 pages, $16.00 paperback) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018/11/27/rising-new-american-shore">here</a>.</strong></p><p>Rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place. Weaving firsthand testimonials from those facing this choice – a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago – with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of these vulnerable communities, Rising privileges the voices of those often kept at the margins.</p>
<p><strong>5. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.counterpointpress.com/dd-product/trees-in-trouble/">Trees in Trouble: Wildfires, Infestations, and Climate Change</a>, by Daniel Mathews (Counterpoint Press 2020, 304 pages, $26.00) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://oldfirehousebooksblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/15/author-interview-dan-mathews/">here</a>.</strong></p><p>Climate change manifests in many ways across North America, but few as dramatic as the attacks on our western pine forests. In Trees in Trouble, Daniel Mathews tells the urgent story of this loss, accompanying burn crews and forest ecologists as they study the myriad risk factors and refine techniques for saving this important, limited resource. Scrupulously researched, Trees in Trouble not only explores the devastating ripple effects of climate change, but also introduces us to the people devoting their lives to saving our forests. Mathews also offers hope: a new approach to managing western pine forests is underway. Trees in Trouble explores how we might succeed in sustaining our forests through the challenging transition to a new environment.</p>
<p><strong>6. <a target="_blank" href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374280062">Erosion: Essays of Undoing</a>, by Terry Tempest Williams (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux 2019, 336 pages, $27.00) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://radiowest.kuer.org/post/terry-tempest-williams-erosion">here</a>.</strong></p><p>Terry Tempest Williams's fierce and spirited essays are a howl in the desert. She asks: "How do we find the strength to not look away from all that is breaking our hearts?" Here, Williams bravely and brilliantly explores the many forms of erosion we face: of democracy, science, compassion, and trust. She examines the cultural and environmental implications of the gutting of Bear Ears National Monument; of the undermining of the Endangered Species Act; of the relentless press by the fossil fuel industry that has led to "oil rigs light[ing] up the horizon." And she testifies that the climate crisis is not an abstraction, offering as evidence the drought outside her door. Erosion is a book for this moment, political and spiritual at once. Williams reminds us that beauty is its own form of resistance, and that water can crack stone.</p>
<p><strong>7. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nyrb.com/products/wilding?variant=13867544150068">Wilding: Returning Nature to Our Farm</a>, by Isabella Tree (New York Review Books 2019, 392 pages, $19.95 paperback) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.writersvoice.net/2020/02/writers-voice-isabella-tree-wilding-jeet-heer/">here</a>.</strong></p><p>For years Isabella Tree and her husband, Charlie Burrell, farmed Knepp Castle Estate and struggled to turn a profit. By 2000, with the farm facing bankruptcy, they decided to try something radical. They would restore estate's 3,500 acres to the wild. Using herds of free-roaming animals to mimic the actions of the megafauna of the past, they hoped to bring nature back to their depleted land. In the face of considerable opposition the couple persisted with their experiment and soon witnessed an extraordinary change. New life flooded into Knepp, now a breeding hotspot for rare and threatened species. At a time of looming environmental disaster, Wilding is an inspiring story of a farm, a couple, and a community transformed. Isabella Tree's book brings together science, natural history, a fair bit of drama, and – ultimately – hope.</p>
<p><strong>8. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nyrb.com/products/wilding?variant=13867544150068">Wilding: Returning Nature to Our Farm</a>, by Isabella Tree (New York Review Books 2019, 392 pages, $19.95 paperback) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.writersvoice.net/2020/02/writers-voice-isabella-tree-wilding-jeet-heer/">here</a>.</strong></p><p>For years Isabella Tree and her husband, Charlie Burrell, farmed Knepp Castle Estate and struggled to turn a profit. By 2000, with the farm facing bankruptcy, they decided to try something radical. They would restore estate's 3,500 acres to the wild. Using herds of free-roaming animals to mimic the actions of the megafauna of the past, they hoped to bring nature back to their depleted land. In the face of considerable opposition the couple persisted with their experiment and soon witnessed an extraordinary change. New life flooded into Knepp, now a breeding hotspot for rare and threatened species. At a time of looming environmental disaster, Wilding is an inspiring story of a farm, a couple, and a community transformed. Isabella Tree's book brings together science, natural history, a fair bit of drama, and – ultimately – hope.</p>
<p><strong>9. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/103569/horizon-by-barry-lopez/">Horizon</a>, by Barry Lopez (Penguin Random House 2019/2020, 592 pages, $16.99 paperback) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.opb.org/radio/programs/thinkoutloud/segment/rebroadcast-barry-lopez-on-horizon/">here</a>.</strong></p><p>From pole to pole and across decades of lived experience, National Book Award-winning author Barry Lopez delivers his most far-ranging, yet personal, work to date. Horizon moves indelibly, immersively, from Western Oregon to the High Arctic; from the Galápagos to the Kenyan desert; from Botany Bay in Australia to the ice shelves of Antarctica. Along the way, Lopez probes the long history of humanity's thirst for exploration, including prehistoric peoples, 16th & 17th century explorers, 17th and 18th century colonialist, and today's ecotourists in the tropics. And always, throughout his journeys to some of the hottest, coldest, and most desolate places on the globe, Lopez searches for meaning and purpose in a broken world.</p>
<p><strong>10. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/543135/disappointment-river-by-brian-castner/">Disappointment River: Finding and Losing the Northwest Passage</a>, by Brian Castner (Penguin Random House 2018/2019, 368 pages, $16.95 paperback) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhHejIQfx8s">here</a>.</strong></p><p>Fourteen years before Lewis and Clark, Alexander Mackenzie set off to cross the continent to find a trade route to the riches of the East. What he found was a river that he named "Disappointment." In this book, Brian Castner retraces Mackenzie's travels, taking readers to a world rarely glimpsed in the media, a world of tar sands, thawing permafrost, remote indigenous villages and, at the end, a wide open Arctic Ocean that could become a far-northern Mississippi of barges, pipelines and oil money. Disappointment River transports readers back to the heroic age of North American exploration and places them in a still rugged but increasingly fragile Arctic wilderness in the process of profound alteration by the dual forces of globalization and climate change.</p>
<p><strong>11. <a target="_blank" href="https://thenewpress.com/books/end-of-ice">The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption</a>, by Dahr Jamail (The New Press 2019/2020, 288 pages, $17.99 paperback) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://ralphnaderradiohour.com/the-end-of-ice/">here</a>.</strong></p><p>In The End of Ice, we follow acclaimed journalist Dahr Jamail as he 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. Accompanied by climate scientists and people whose families have fished, farmed, and lived in the areas he visits for centuries, Jamail begins to accept the fact that Earth, most likely, is in a hospice situation. Like no other book, The End of Ice offers a firsthand chronicle of the catastrophic reality of our situation and the incalculable necessity of relishing this vulnerable, fragile planet while we still can.</p>
<p><strong>12. <a target="_blank" href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374718992">Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils</a>, by David Farrier (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2020, 307 pages, $28.00) / An interview with the author can be streamed <a target="_blank" href="https://lithub.com/rekindled-david-farrier-in-conversation-with-stephen-sparks/">here</a>.</strong></p><p>Modern civilization has created objects and landscapes with the potential to endure through deep time, whether it is plastic polluting the oceans or nuclear waste sealed within the earth or the 30 million miles of roads spanning the planet. Our carbon could linger in the atmosphere for 100K years, and the remains of our cities will still exist millions of years from now as a layer in the rock. Traveling from the Baltic Sea to the Great Barrier Reef, and from an ice-core laboratory in Tasmania to Shanghai, Farrier describes a world that is changing rapidly, with consequences beyond the scope of human understanding. As much a message of hope as warning, Footprints will not only alter how you think about the future; it will change how you see the world today.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from Yale Climate Connections.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Food Tank
By Danielle Nierenberg and Alonso Diaz
With record high unemployment, a reeling global economy, and concerns of food shortages, the world as we know it is changing. But even as these shifts expose inequities in the health and food systems, many experts hope that the current moment offers an opportunity to build a new and more sustainable food system.
<p>To understand what it will take to move forward, Food Tank has compiled its summer reading list to delve into the issues that affect our food system today. These 20 books provide insight into food access and justice in Black communities, food relief and school nutrition programs, the effects of technology on global food supply chains, the relationship between climate change and food production, and much more.</p>
1. Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community, and the Meaning of Generosity by Priya Basil (forthcoming November 2020)
<p>Priya Basil explores the meaning of hospitality within a variety of cultural, linguistic, and sociopolitical contexts in this short read. Basil uses her cross-cultural experience to illustrate how food amplifies discourse within families and touches on the hospitality and the lack thereof that migrants and refugees experience. <em>Be My Guest </em>is at once an enjoyable read and a hopeful meditation on how food and hospitality can make a positive difference in our world.</p>2. Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition: A New Agenda for Sustainable Food Systems by Danny Hunter, Teresa Borelli, and Eliot Gee
<p>In <em>Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition</em>, leading professionals from Bioversity International examine the positive impacts of biodiversity on nutrition and sustainability. The book highlights agrobiodiversity initiatives in Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, featuring research from the <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/research-portfolio/diet-diversity/biodiversity-for-food-and-nutrition/" target="_blank">Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Project </a>(BFN) of the <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/alliance/" target="_blank">Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT</a>. Through this analysis, the authors propose that the localized activities in these countries are not only benefiting communities, but are transferable to other regions.</p>3. Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. by Ashanté M. Reese
<p>In <em>Black Food Geographies, </em>Ashanté Reese draws on her fieldwork to highlight community agency in response to unequal food access. Focusing on a majority-Black neighborhood in Washington, DC, Reese explores issues of racism, gentrification, and urban food access. Through her analysis, she argues that racism impacts and exacerbates issues of unequal food distribution systems.</p>4. Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice edited by Hanna Garth and Ashanté M. Reese (forthcoming October 2020)
<p>Access, equity, justice, and privilege are the central themes in this forthcoming collection of essays. The food justice movement often ignores the voices of Black communities and white food norms shape the notions of healthy food. Named for Black Lives Matter, <em>Black Food Matters </em>highlights the history and impact of Black communities and their food cultures in the food justice movement.</p>5. Diners Dudes & Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture by Emily J.H. Contois (forthcoming November 2020)
<p>In <em>Diners, Dudes & Diets</em>, Emily Contois looks at media's influence on eating habits and gendered perceptions of food. Focusing on the concept of dude foods, the book follows the evolution of food marketing for men. In doing so, Contois shows how industries used masculine stereotypes to sell diet and weight loss products to a new demographic. She argues that this has influenced both the way consumers think about food and their own identities.</p>6. Feeding the Crisis: Care and Abandonment in America’s Food Safety Net by Maggie Dickinson
<p>The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is essential for individuals who face food insecurity on a daily basis. Still, the program fails to reach many, including those who are unemployed, underemployed, or undocumented. <em>Feeding the Crisis</em> provides a historical overview of SNAP's expansion and traces the lives of eight families who must navigate the changing landscape of welfare policy in the United States.</p>7. Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries by Rebecca T. de Souza
<p>In <em>Feeding the Other</em>, Rebecca de Souza explores the relationship between food pantries and people dependent on their services. Throughout the work, de Souza underscores the structural failures that contribute to hunger and poverty, the racial dynamics within pantries, and the charged idea of a handout. She argues that while food pantries currently stigmatize clients, there is an opportunity to make them agents of food justice.</p>8. Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato by Rebecca Earle
<p>In <em>Feeding the People,</em> Rebecca Earle tells the story of the potato and its journey from a relatively unknown crop to a staple in modern diets around the world. Earle's work highlights the importance of the potato during famines, war, and explains the politics behind consumers' embrace of this food. Interspersed throughout are also potato recipes that any reader can try.</p>9. Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal by Hanna Garth
<p>In <em>Food in Cuba</em>, Dr. Hannah Garth looks at food security and food sovereignty in the context of Cuba's second largest city, Santiago de Cuba. Throughout the work, Garth defines a decent meal as one that is culturally appropriate and of high quality. And through stories about families' sociopolitical barriers to food access, Garth shows how ideas of food and moral character become intimately linked.</p>10. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain
<p>Scholar, speaker, and strategist Marcia Chatelain provides readers insight into the ways fast food restaurants expanded throughout Black communities. Dr. Chatelain traces their growth during the 20th century and their intersection with Black capitalists and the civil rights movement. This book highlights the dichotomy between fast food's negative impacts on Black communities and the potential economic and political opportunities that the businesses offered them.</p>11. Honey And Venom: Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper by Andrew Coté
<p>In <em>Honey and Venom,</em> Andrew Coté provides a history of beekeeping while taking the reader through his own trajectory in the industry. A manager of over one hundred beehives, Coté raises colonies across New York City, on the rooftops of churches, schools, and more. Coté's<em> </em>passion for beekeeping comes through clearly as he narrates the challenges and rewards of his career.</p>12. Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont by Teresa M. Mares
<p>Agriculture, immigration, and Central American and Mexican farm workers may conjure ideas of the Mexico-U.S. border, but in <em>Life on the Other Border</em>, Teresa Mares gives a voice to those laboring much farther north. Mares introduces the readers to the Latinx immigrants who work in Vermont's dairy industry while they advocate for themselves and navigate life as undocumented workers. This is an inspiring read that touches on the intersection of food justice, immigration, and labor policy.</p>13. Meals Matter: A Radical Economics Through Gastronomy by Michael Symons
<p>In <em>Meals Matter</em>, Michael Symons argues that economics used to be, in its essence, about feeding the world but has since become fixated with the pursuit of money. Symons introduces readers to gastronomic liberalism and applies the ideas of philosophers like Epicurus and John Locke to the food system. Through this approach, he seeks to understand how large corporations gained control of the market and challenges readers to rethink their understanding of food economics.</p>14. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg
<p>Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit and has since been a global symbol of environmental activism. Her community organizing and impassioned speeches are uncompromising as she argues that climate change is an existential crisis that needs to be confronted immediately. <em>No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference </em>includes Thunberg's speeches and includes her 2019 address to the United Nations.</p>15. Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It by Tom Philpott (forthcoming August 2020)
<p>In <em>Perilous Bounty</em>, journalist Tom Philpott critically analyzes the centralized food system in the U.S. and argues that it is headed for disaster unless it sees some much-needed changes. Philpot argues that actors within the U.S. food system are prioritizing themselves over the nation's wellbeing and provides well-researched data to back up his claims. Providing readers insight into the experiences of activists, farmers, and scientists, this is a great read for those starting to learn about the state of the country's food system and for those who are already deeply involved.</p>16. Plucked: Chicken, Antibiotics, And How Big Business Changed The Way The World Eats by Maryn McKenna
<p>In this exposé on the chicken industry, acclaimed author Maryn McKenna explains the role antibiotics played in making chicken a global commodity. <em>Plucked </em>makes it clear that food choices matter and show how consumers' desire for meat, especially chicken, has impacted human health. McKenna also offers a way forward and outlines ways that stakeholders can make food safer again.</p>17. Stirrings: How Activist New Yorkers Ignited a Movement for Food Justice by Lana Dee Povitz
<p>Between 1970 and 2000, food activists in New York City pushed to improve public school lunches, provide meals to those impacted by the AIDS epidemic, and established food co-ops. In <em>Stirrings</em>,<em> </em>Lana Dee Povitz draws on oral histories and archives to recount the stories of individuals who led these efforts. She highlights the successes of grassroots movements and reminds readers of the many women leaders in the New York food justice movement.</p>18. The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability by Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern
<p>In <em>The New American Farmer</em>, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern offers a look at farm labor in the U.S. Although most farm owners are white Americans, farm workers are overwhelmingly immigrants and people of color. In this book, Minkoff-Zern details the experiences of farm laborers who are becoming farm owners themselves and outlines the many barriers that workers must overcome during this transition. Through interviews with farmers and organizers, Minkoff-Zern shows that these farmers bring sustainable agricultural practices that can benefit our food system.</p>19. The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren
<p>Hope Jahren breaks down climate change for readers in an accessible and data-driven book. <em>The Story of More </em>explains<em> </em>how greenhouse gas emissions and consumption of natural resources in developed nations exacerbate climate change and outlines the consequences of these actions. Although she argues that the planet is in danger, she also provides a variety of everyday actions, like decreasing meat consumption, that consumers can take to make a difference.</p>20. Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes by Bryant Terry
<p>Author, chef, and food justice activist Bryant Terry provides readers with over a hundred recipes to create approachable and flavorful vegan dishes, without relying on meat alternatives. This book is a wonderfully practical recipe book that begins with a list of recommended tools, is organized by ingredients, and even includes a music playlist. Vegans and non-vegans alike will appreciate Chef Terry's <em>Vegetable Kingdom</em>.</p><a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Make+this+summer+a+season+of+reflection+and+self-education+with+Food+Tank%27s+reading+list+%E2%80%94+new+and+important+books+from+%40AMReese07%2C+%40GretaThunberg%2C+%40EmilyContois%2C+%40BryantTerry%2C+%40DrMChatelain%2C+and+more&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffoodtank.com%2Fnews%2F2020%2F07%2Ffood-tanks-summer-2020-reading-list%2F&via=foodtank"><span></span></a>
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A pair of trees grow out of a book that rests on scorched earth to depict climate change. vencavolrab / Getty Images
A record number of Americans are concerned about climate change, a recent study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication found. If you're among them, you may be interested in learning more about the climate crisis and what you can do about it. Luckily, you don't have to comb through scientific papers in order to educate yourself (unless you'd like to): More and more books on climate change and climate action are published every year, ranging from grimly realistic takes on the severity of the crisis to optimistic visions of social and technological solutions. To find out which ones are worth a read, Teen Vogue reached out to 11 climate activists for their recommendations. Here are the books they said were most informative and inspiring.
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<p><strong>1. <em>Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History</em> by Ted Steinberg</strong></p><p>"<em>Down to Earth</em> is a history of North America from an environmental perspective. It's an easy read, and very interesting. One chapter explains how we used to know where our food came from, but eventually we pushed agriculture out to the sidelines of our cities, causing many other problems. <em>Down to Earth</em> made me realize that this country was founded on exploitation and that everything we do has an impact." —Natalie Blackwelder, commissioner of sustainability, Santa Barbara City College</p><p><strong>2. <em>Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming</em> by Paul Hawken</strong></p><p><strong></strong>"<em>Drawdown</em> is a handbook for how to stop and then reverse climate change. It lists dozens of actions to not just avoid putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but to draw carbon dioxide down out of the atmosphere. When you combine 'family planning' and 'educating girls' from the top 10 actions list, they draw down more CO2 from the atmosphere than anything else on the list. <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/climate-activists-explain-why-climate-justice-movement-needs-feminism" target="_blank">Feminism literally saves humanity from climate catastrophe.</a>" —Cassian Lodge, LGBTQ+ and environmental activist, U.K.</p><p>"When I felt overwhelmed at the big challenge of stopping climate change, this book broke things down to something manageable. It's like a playbook of climate solutions. I was fascinated to learn about marine permaculture, which is one of the proposed solutions. It's a method of growing seaweed on floating platforms that not only removes carbon from the atmosphere, but can also restore life to the oceans and provide an economic boon to coastal communities. I've since learned a lot about it, and I even helped lead a fundraiser that will help build some platforms off the coast of Tasmania." —Mark Abersold, software developer and Citizens' Climate Lobby member; moderator for <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ClimateOffensive/" target="_blank">Reddit's Climate Offensive forum</a></p>
<h2><span></span></h2><h2><br></h2><p><strong>3. <em>Frontlines: Stories of Global Environmental Justice</em> by Nick Meynen</strong></p><p>"Nick Meynen's storytelling is personal, powerful, and inspiring. Every unpacked frontline is one cutting edge of an economic system and political ideology that is destroying life on earth. Revealing our ecosystems to be under a sustained attack, Meynen finds causes for hope in unconventional places. He reminds us that it is up to each and every one of us to play our role in the fight to achieve the radical changes necessary to save the planet." —Paola Hernández Olivan, food project and policy officer, Health Care Without Harm, Brussels</p><h2></h2><strong>4. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg<br></strong><p><br>"<em><a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/greta-thunberg-book-review-no-one-is-too-small-to-make-a-difference-climate-rebellion" target="_blank">No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference</a></em> contains the speeches made by the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg — in climate rallies across Europe, to audiences at the U.N., the World Economic Forum, and the British Parliament. Greta inspires me because she says it like it is. She doesn't wrap the truth up in pretty paper to make it easier to take. Among millions of activists, <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/greta-thunberg-climate-strike-teen-vogue-special-issue-cover" target="_blank">Greta has one of the most powerful voices</a> because she occupies the moral and ethical high ground of someone from the next generation whose life is being destroyed." —Christine Essex, coordinator, Extinction Rebellion Newbury<br></p><p>Favorite quote: <em>And we will never stop fighting, we will never stop fighting for this planet, and for ourselves, our futures, and for the futures of our children and our grandchildren.</em></p>
<p><strong>5. <em>The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change</em></strong><strong> by Danny Chivers</strong><br></p><p>"This is the clearest and most succinct book I have ever read about the nature of climate change, the forces that are blocking action on it, and the forces that have arisen to confront it. I teach classes on this subject, and this book works year after year to bring everyone up to speed on the problem and potential actions we can take. It's funny, readable, engaging, and powerful." —John Foran, professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara</p><p>Favorite passage: <em>This is going to be the most amazing, inspiring, and unifying social movement that the world has ever seen. It's going to be difficult, and frustrating at times, but it's also going to massively enrich the lives of everyone who's a part of it. This includes you.… [You can] be part of the most exciting and important social uprising of our lifetimes.</em></p><p><strong>6. <em>The Water Knife</em> by Paolo Bacigalupi</strong></p><p><em></em>"By the author of <em>The Windup Girl, The Water Knife</em> is a fictional portrayal of the effects of climate change on the western United States. It includes scenes of trying to get by in Phoenix when it's basically a desert. It's a powerful, well-written story that emphasizes the impacts of climate-induced social collapse on women." —D. Kempton, Climate Reality Canada, Drawdown Newmarket-Aurora</p>
<h2><br></h2><p><strong>7. <em>As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, From Colonization to Standing Rock</em> by Dina Gilio-Whitaker</strong></p><p>"This book covers the 500-year history of Native American resistance to colonialism and ecocide. It contextualized my environmental work as part of a struggle that has been taking place in the Americas since European contact, and it made me feel more connected to the larger Native American environmental movement as a cohesive whole both over time and across cultures and places. For Native people, this book is a reminder of how connected and similar our environmental justice struggles have been. This is especially important because the climate crisis requires cooperation across cultures and locations in an unprecedented way." —Shaylon Stolk, Indigenous (Scottish/Wayúu) renewable energy scientist and organizer with Extinction Rebellion justice; based in occupied Duwamish land (Seattl</p><p><strong>8. <em>The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming</em> by David Wallace-Wells</strong></p><p>"This book offers specific, science-based predictions about the effects of unchecked global warming. It scared me silly, and it inspired me to reflect and act." —Gregg Long, high school English teacher, Illinois</p><p>Favorite quote: <em>It is worse, much worse, than you think.</em></p>
<br><p><strong>9. <em>This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate</em> by Naomi Klein</strong></p><p>"<em>This Changes Everything</em> makes the case that the climate crisis is a consequence of capitalism, but it is a crisis that offers an opportunity to organize a new political system. It convinced me that we won't invent or grow our way out of this problem, but that it can be solved by political organizing. It's sobering and empowering, which is a difficult tightrope to walk." —Evan, Climate Justice committee coordinator, Democratic Socialists of America, Los Angeles chapter</p><p>Favorite passage: <em>And that is what is behind the abrupt rise in climate change denial among hard-core conservatives: They have come to understand that as soon as they admit that climate change is real, they will lose the central ideological battle of our time — whether we need to plan and manage our societies to reflect our goals and values, or whether that task can be left to the magic of the market.</em></p><p><strong>10. <em>This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook</em> by Extinction Rebellion</strong></p><p>"<em>This Is Not a Drill</em> is a handbook on nonviolent civil disobedience for the challenges of the 21st century. Only a mass social movement will save us. This book provides the tools for that." —George, youth climate activist, U.K.</p><p>Favorite passage: <em>We may or may not escape a breakdown. But we can escape the toxicity of the mindset that has brought us here. And in doing so we can recover a humanity that is capable of real resilience.</em></p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in </em><a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/best-books-about-climate-change" target="_blank"><em>Teen Vogue</em></a><em> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Kien Virak / Pixabay
By John R. Platt
When things get tough, many of us often turn to books for new information, inspiration or simple entertainment. Well, we've got you covered on all three counts, with 14 great new environmental books coming out this month. The list includes books for eco-interested kids, dedicated activists and everyone in between.
<p>The publishing industry isn't immune to the economic threats posed by the current pandemic. Most local bookstores and libraries have closed their doors to customers and patrons, and many authors have needed to cancel their planned promotional tours. Publishers themselves are feeling the pinch, and at least three additional books that would have appeared on our list this month have been pushed back to later in the spring or summer.</p>
<p>But we're all adapting. Many publishers and bookstores will happily ship new books to you (or, in the case of local shops, offer curbside pickup). E-books may also be great options (they're often available through publishers or your local library website). The links below go to publishers' sites for each new book, which should provide you with a variety of options.</p><p>No matter how the books end up coming your way, may they offer the ideas and inspiration you need to keep you going and continuing to find ways to protect the planet.</p>
1. Nature Obscura: A City’s Hidden Natural World by Kelly Brenner
<p>With many of us currently restricted to our homes or neighborhoods, now's the perfect time to become a backyard naturalist (<a href="https://therevelator.org/backyard-naturalist-birding/" target="_blank">as we wrote recently</a>). This magnificent book offers stories about the varied plants and wildlife that lives around us — even in the hearts of big cities — and ideas about how to make our urban ecosystems even wilder.</p>2. The Not BAD Animals by Sophie Corrigan
<p>An utterly delightful kids' book that tries (and succeeds) to soften the reputation of the critters "that make us squirm and wriggle in our seats," but which, beneath their sharp teeth and odd habits, fulfill important roles in the world. You'll never look at a spider or vulture the same way again.</p>3 - 4. Becoming Wild and Beyond Words by Carl Safina
<p>Two new books from the famed ecologist and bestselling author. The first, for adult audiences, examines "how animal cultures raise families, create beauty and achieve peace." The second, for younger readers, adapts one of Safina's earlier adult books and discusses the inner lives of wolves and dogs. Both are must-reads.</p>5. Green Meat? Sustaining Eaters, Animals and the Planet edited by Ryan M. Katz-Rosene and Sarah J. Martin
<p>This book tackles some tough questions about meat, examining issues related to production and consumption through a wide and varied set of lenses. Throughout, the book and its contributors invite readers to examine what they eat, where it comes from and how it's produced. You won't find easy answers inside, but it'll give you something to chew on.</p>6 - 7. A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety by Sarah Jaquette Ray and Facing the Climate Emergency by Margaret Klein Salamon
<p>"Climate grief" is both real and draining. These two complementary titles offer readers some great psychological tools necessary to keep going in these trying times — and beyond. <em>Field Guide</em> is aimed more at young adults ("the climate generation"), but both books provide key tips for turning your negative emotions into powerful action.</p>8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars? Public Transit in the Age of Google, Uber and Elon Musk by James Wilt
<p>Public transportation was already in crisis before the pandemic, thanks in no small part to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/koch-activists-phoenix-ban-light-rail" target="_blank">Koch brothers' assault on local transit systems</a>. Things could get even worse now, with ridership in trains and busses <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-public-transportation-subway-bus-ridership-9f039bd9-459b-45f9-954c-b26380a037dc.html" target="_blank">on the decline</a> while we maintain safe distance from each other, a trend that could undermine critical low-carbon transportation initiatives. This book, which addresses issues ranging from transit to electric cars to ridesharing, aims to provide a model for a greener future.</p>9 - 10. How Birds Work and How Insects Work by Marianne Taylor
<p>These two heavily illustrated science books provide great insight into both intriguing groups of species. Taken together or individually, they may offer hours of fun educational opportunities in this era of home-schooling.</p>11. Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire by Rebecca Henderson
<p>The pandemic reinforces the tragic reality that our systems are terribly broken. Many experts and activists feel that this crisis — which comes on top of the already existing climate and wildlife crises — also provides an opportunity for change. This book offers an ever-so-timely economic model, along with working examples, for a safer and more just future. (Expect several more books on similar topics in the months ahead.)</p>12. Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton
<p>We probably shouldn't personally be visiting <a href="https://therevelator.org/pandemic-parks/" target="_blank">national parks during the pandemic</a>, but here's the next best thing. This thoroughly delightful travelogue (from a <em>CBS Sunday Morning</em> correspondent) brings national parks to you and delivers a deeply personal and revelatory take on what makes America's natural spaces so important.</p>13. The Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene by George Steinmetz and Andrew Revkin
<p>Steinmetz is renowned for his aerial photography projects, which often capture the stark reality of climate change, agriculture and sea-level rise. Revkin is a prominent environmental journalist and educator. Together they've delivered a beautiful, haunting coffee-table book that provides a powerful portrait of the ways we're changing the planet.</p>14. Sea Otters: A Survival Story by Isabelle Groc
<p>Your required dose of cuteness combined with important conservation messages, all wrapped up in a fun and heavily illustrated book for teen readers. Dame Judy Dench provides the foreword, which may be the most unexpected fact in this whole column.</p><p>That's it for this month. Stay safe and stay tuned for another batch of books on May's list in a few short weeks. Until then you can find dozens of additional eco-books in the <a href="https://therevelator.org/tag/revelator-reads/" target="_blank">"Revelator Reads" archive</a>.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-books-april-2020/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2645850225#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Take Your Climate Activism to the Next Level With January’s New Environmental Books
11 January
Popular
Pixabay
By John R. Platt
The New Year got off to a rocky start, with deadly fires throughout Australia and international political tensions rising to a frightening level.
<p>What's the best way to get past the dread and return to action? One option is to turn your attention toward new and proven ideas for saving what matters most.</p><p>Below you'll find the eight most interesting, inspiring and energizing new books coming out in January 2020. Half of them cover the climate crisis in one way or another, while the rest take on issues related to animals and wildlife. Some are for professional conservationists, while others are for anyone interested in the issues that define our modern world. All are worth your time.</p>
The Citizen’s Guide to Climate Success by Mark Jaccard
<p>Ever feel paralyzed by the scope and threat of climate change? You're not alone, but this new book aims to turn that around and get people moving. Part of it discusses the best individual actions we can all take, while the rest focuses on identifying the most important societal and political actions to prioritize. Along the way the book busts some myths perpetuated by the climate-denier industry and even debunks a few misconceptions held by well-meaning environmentalists. Jaccard can be a bit <em>too</em> provocative at times, but he backs his conclusions up with the latest science and delivers a book worth reading and discussing — not to mention acting upon. (<em>Guide</em> is out in paperback this month, with a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/citizens-guide-to-climate-success/49D99FBCBD6FCACD5F3D58A7ED80882D" target="_blank">free open-access PDF available in February</a>.)</p>Climate Change From the Streets by Michael Méndez
<p>Méndez argues that the climate crisis is also a crisis for public health, especially in lower-income communities of color, and that both problems can only be solved by addressing issues of environmental justice. His book, subtitled "How Conflict and Collaboration Strengthen the Environmental Justice Movement," taps into Méndez's own research into California communities and grassroots activism to show how the problems that plague us can also bring us together — but only if we invite everyone to the table.</p>Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work by Robert H. Frank
<p>This broadly themed book addresses the complexities of our <em>social</em> environments — for example, how group behavior gives rise to bullying — but a lot of what it discusses applies to worldwide environmental issues, too. The result is a combination of psychology and economics that illustrates how the human "herd instinct" can be put to good use to solve the climate crisis and other problems.</p>It’s Earth Day, Cookie Monster! by Mary Lindeen
<p>Every day is Earth Day, just as every day is another opportunity to eat a cookie — or help teach kids to take care of the planet. This is the sixth book in the deliciously fun "Go Green with Sesame Street" series, which just goes to show you that "C is for Conservation."</p>Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther by Craig Pittman
<p>Pittman has done more than probably any other newspaper journalist to document the twists and turns of efforts to conserve and protect the Florida panther — not to mention the failures we've had along the way. Now he revisits the history of these critically endangered big cats and the people who helped them in this remarkable work of longform reporting.</p>And Here We Are: Stories From the Sixth Extinction by Bil Zelman
<p>A stunningly beautiful photo book — shot like a moody black-and-white movie — showcasing endangered species and the fragile, human-influenced environments in which they precariously hang on. Biologist E.O. Wilson (<em>Half-Earth</em>) provides the foreword.</p>The Nib: Animals
<p>Here's something different: a thick, square-bound magazine from the folks behind <em>The Nib</em>, the web's best political cartooning site (which often covers environmental topics). This collection includes short stories, art and gags by more than three dozen writers and cartoonists, covering topics like extinction, wildlife trafficking, livestock and our relationships with our pets. The result is a heady mix of politics, journalism, philosophy and eye-opening humor.</p>The Pollinator Victory Garden by Kim Eierman
<p>Victory gardens helped feed communities and troops during the first and second world wars. This book aims to translate that success to a similar effort: establishing year-round pollinator-friendly gardens in our backyards to help boost populations of bees, birds, bats, butterflies and other species — and in the process help "win the war against pollinator decline." It's not just for backyards, though; Eierman also discusses lawn alternatives (get rid of that grass!) and how to apply the same ideas to other areas throughout our developed communities. The book includes a resource list to help readers apply its recommendations to the needs of plants and wildlife in various parts of the country.</p><p>Well, that's it for this month. Stay tuned for a fresh batch of books on February's list in a few short weeks. Until then you can find dozens of additional eco-books in the <a href="https://therevelator.org/tag/revelator-reads/" target="_blank">"Revelator Reads" archive</a>.</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-books-january-2020/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
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Close-up of an octopus in the sea. Alexander Rieber / EyeEm / Getty Images
By Leslie Crawford
Remember back when we were all tubes?
<p>Sy Montgomery does. That was a simpler time, eons before the octopus and <em>Homo sapiens</em> went their separate evolutionary ways, and certainly long before that highly intelligent cephalopod, which appeared some 300 million years ago, ended up boiled, stewed and fried. "Our lineage goes back a half-billion years ago when everyone was a tube," says Montgomery, a naturalist and author of many books about animals. "That was when there were no eyes. Yet we have evolved almost identical eyes. I just love that."</p>
<p class=""><em>Leslie Crawford is the author of <a href="https://stonepierpress.org/store/sprig-the-rescue-pig" target="_blank">Sprig the Rescue Pig</a> and <a href="https://stonepierpress.org/store/gwen-the-rescue-hen-book" target="_blank">Gwen the Rescue Hen</a>. She lives in San Francisco with her two children, six hens and four foster pigeons. No partridges. Follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/lesliemcrawford" target="_blank">@lesliemcrawford</a>.</em></p><p><em>This article was originally published by <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/youre-not-so-different-from-an-octopus-rethinking-our-relationship-to-animals/" target="_blank">Truthout</a> and produced as part of a partnership between <a href="https://www.stonepierpress.org/" target="_blank">Stone Pier Press</a> and <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank">Earth | Food | Life</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p>
<p>Montgomery's enthusiasm and devotion to Earth's creatures—and the similarities we share with them — has inspired her readers to get to know the eight-tentacled and big-brained wonders in <a href="https://tinyurl.com/zy436hz" target="_blank"><em>The Soul of the Octopus</em></a>, and taken us to the ends of the Earth and back to our own backyards in such award-winning books as <a href="https://tinyurl.com/pvnbgtq" target="_blank"><em>Spell of the Tiger</em></a> and <a href="https://tinyurl.com/rg6fk8q" target="_blank"><em>Birdology</em></a>.</p><p>A real-life Dr. Dolittle, Montgomery says she's always related best to animals and — sometimes straining the patience of her bipedal family members — has long treated her home as a land-bound ark for orphaned animals. In scientifically precise but poetic prose, she writes that we share greater similarities than differences with the electric eel, the tarantula, the tree kangaroo and the snow leopard. Don't forget, she says, that we hail from the same genetic pool, or more likely, gurgling swamp. By paying attention to the commonalities we have with our fellow animals — our singular capacity for what Montgomery argues is a broad range of emotions and zeal for life — humans can transcend the "we-shall-rule-the-Earth" anthropocentric focus, she says, and see that we are all in this together.</p><p>"We are on the cusp of either destroying this sweet, green Earth — or revolutionizing the way we understand the rest of animate creation," Montgomery <a href="https://tinyurl.com/sdhca33" target="_blank">said</a>. "It's an important time to be writing about the connections we share with our fellow creatures. It's a great time to be alive."</p><p>Montgomery recently chatted with Leslie Crawford, author of animal-focused children's books <a href="https://stonepierpress.org/store/gwen-the-rescue-hen-book" target="_blank"><em>Gwen the Rescue Hen</em></a> and <a href="https://stonepierpress.org/store/sprig-the-rescue-pig" target="_blank"><em>Sprig the Rescue Pig</em></a>, and compared notes on delving into the minds of animals.</p>
Leslie Crawford: Do you understand animals more than people?
<p><strong>Sy Montgomery:</strong> As a child, I grew up on an Army base and I did not have a single human friend. It allowed me the freedom to get to know other species. I vividly remember my 20s like it was yesterday. As a young person, I was often worried about whether or not I was reading other people correctly. And yet these are organisms that use the same English language. It's terrific to be in my 60s and know I can read animals. I have always read animals better than people.<span></span><br></p>What did you find surprising about humans as a child?
<p>I was shocked to learn that people use their language to lie. Even little kids lie. Of course, animals will lie, too. An octopus will say, "I'm four or five sea snakes." What the octopus does is change each of its arms to look like a sea snake, which is very poisonous.<em></em> Chimpanzees lie all the time. But the degree to which humans use language to lie shocked me. I've always dealt with animals in a very straightforward way. I wasn't ever trying to conceal things from them. Humans often want incorrect information about you and project incorrect things on you.</p>So much has changed about our understanding of animals since you started writing about them. When did you first realize that animals are sentient beings?
<p>I think most of us realize as children that animals are sentient beings. But then, somehow, for so many people, this truth gets overwritten — by schools teaching old theories, by agribusiness that wants us to treat animals like products, by the pharmaceutical and medical industries who want to test products on animals as if they were little more than petri dishes. But thankfully, scientific and evolutionary <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/what-the-crow-knows/580726/" target="_blank">evidence for animal sentience</a> has grown too obvious to ignore.</p>What have you learned about animals and consciousness?
<p>You don't want to project onto animals your wishes and desires. You have to respect your fellow animals. I don't want to roll in vomit, but a hyena would enjoy that. I don't want to kill everything I eat with my face, but that's what I'd do if I'm a great white shark. If I were eating a carcass, I would not be as happy about it as a scavenger. We have different lives but what we share is astonishingly deep, evolutionarily speaking.</p>When did you know you were an animal person?
<p>Animals have always been my best friends and the source of my deepest joy. Before I was 2, I toddled into the hippo pen at the Frankfurt Zoo, seeking their company, and totally unafraid. When I learned to speak, one of my first announcements to my parents was that I was really a horse. The pediatrician reassured my mother I would outgrow this phase. He was right, because next I announced I was really a dog.</p><p>My father loved animals. Growing up, my mother had a dog named Flip who she adored. But I seem to have had an even greater attachment to animals than they did. My friend, the author <a href="http://www.brendapetersonbooks.com/about/" target="_blank">Brenda Peterson</a>, says that I must have been adopted at the local animal shelter.</p>How many animals do you currently live with?
<p>Right now, the only animal who lives with us is a border collie named Thurber. I travel a lot: Thailand, Ecuador, Germany, Spain. I can't force my husband to have a house filled with animals. I had chickens but predators got almost all of them. Weasels got into the coop. They are so smart. Even though we buried wire beneath the floor, weasels need just a tiny opening to get through. You can never weasel-proof an old barn.</p>It sounds like you have some respect for weasels even though they killed your chickens?
<p>They were there first. I learned my chickens were killed on Christmas morning when I brought a bowl of popcorn to them and saw this white creature with black eyes staring at me. You'd think I'd be angry. But the beauty and ferocity of this creature filled me with awe. At the same time that I mourned my beloved chickens, I admired the weasel.</p>You originally studied psychology. How do you go about thinking about what animals are thinking? Or is it a mistake for people to imagine animals are thinking in a way that we think?
<p>I triple majored in college, and psychology was one of them. But thinking about animals wasn't really part of the coursework. I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that nonhuman animals share our motivations and much of our thought processes. We want the same things: food, safety, interesting work and, in the case of social animals, love. But we can't always apply human tastes to animals — otherwise fish would seek to escape from the water and hyenas wouldn't roll in vomit.</p>When did you stop eating meat and dairy and why do you think some people make the decision and others don’t?
<p>I read <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061711305/animal-liberation/" target="_blank"><em>Animal Liberation</em></a>, by Peter Singer, in my 20s. Even though I loved meat, I haven't eaten it since. I can't wait to try the Impossible Burger!</p>In writing Sprig, I learned so much about pigs, including how smart they are. What do you love most about pigs?
<p>They are so sensitive and emotional. And they're wise. They know what matters in life: warm sun, the touch of loving hands and great food.</p>Similarly, when I wrote Gwen, I found out how remarkable hens are with their own superpowers, including keen eyesight and a strong community that includes watching out for each other.
<p>I agree with you. I love these aspects of their lives. I love how similar they are to us in so many ways, but I also love the otherness of these animals.</p>Speaking of “otherness,” in your book Soul of an Octopus, you came to know Athena, an octopus, as a friend. But can a person really know an octopus?
<p>Until the day I met Athena in 2011, pretty much all of the creatures I got to know personally were vertebrates. We are so like fellow mammals, with whom we share 90 percent of our genetic material.</p><p>I didn't know if I would be able to bring what I understand about other animals to an invertebrate, but I was delighted to see it was true of the octopus. It was clear the octopus was just as curious about me as I was about her.</p><p>There are some animals who aren't interested in you. But when you have an octopus look you in the face and investigate you with her suckers with such an intensity, well, what that octopus taught me [about consciousness] blew me away. When Athena grabbed me, I correctly understood that she wasn't being aggressive, just curious.</p>How do you convince people to consider an octopus as something other than something to eat?
<p>I tell them about my octopus friends, Octavia and Kali and Karma — specific individuals to whom they could relate.</p>I have realized that preaching to people about seeing animals as worthy of the same compassion and dignity as is owed humans doesn’t work. But if preaching isn’t effective, what do you think works to change hearts and minds — and stomachs?
<p>Teach by example. It's the most powerful tool we have. Your love for pigs, told through your stories of Sprig and Gwen, is contagious because of your example. You show how much fun it is to let these animals enrich your life and make others want to be part of it. That's much more appealing than a lecture.</p>Are there one or two calls to action you would ask of people who want to improve the world for animals?
<p>I would suggest that individuals find the action that best suits them. For me, when I was young, working 14 hours a day and making relatively little money, I had no extra time for volunteer work, and my tithes to animal causes amounted to far too little. But I could change my diet, so I did. For another person, an overnight <a href="http://www.eatingwell.com/article/279566/9-healthy-tips-to-help-you-start-eating-a-vegan-diet/" target="_blank">change to vegetarianism or veganism</a> might be too tough, but perhaps they could <a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Volunteer-at-an-Animal-Shelter" target="_blank">volunteer at a shelter</a>.</p><p>I personally hate politics, though I vote and donate. But other people might throw themselves joyously into working toward electing candidates that <a href="https://aldf.org/article/protecting-animals-through-local-legislation/" target="_blank">support conservation and animal welfare legislation</a>. Happily, we can all work with our individual strengths to make the change animals deserve.</p>What about everything we learn daily about climate change and the growing risk of mass extinctions?
<p>Sometimes you don't want to read the headlines. It's so depressing. During the civil rights movement, I was too young to have anything to do with that. But now we can choose to be part of what is definitely a movement, one that recognizes that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/what-the-crow-knows/580726/" target="_blank">nonhuman animals think and know and feel the way we do</a>. We know this based on cognitive and behavioral science. That change has happened within my lifetime, which is fantastic.</p><p>The fact that we live during a challenging time gives us an opportunity to be courageous. I'm thrilled to be able to apply my courage to such a worthy endeavor and with such worthy partners.</p>From Your Site Articles
- 60% of Earth's Wildlife Wiped Out Since 1970 ›
- 'Eating Animals' Drives Home Where Our Food Really Comes From ... ›
- ‘My Octopus Teacher’ Stuns Audiences, Reinforces Power of Nature - EcoWatch ›
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By Rob Moore
As the planet heated up to record-breaking levels, the seas continued to rise and wildfires, storms, floods or other manifestations of climate change made headlines every single day, the stream of climate change literature turned into a deluge.
<p>The quantity and quality of research, journalism and fiction writing that revolved around climate change and its impacts in 2019 was impressive.</p><p>Admittedly, I was only capable of reading a small sliver of it all. This year-end list comprises the pieces I recommend you all read. Because my work at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) revolves around the impacts of climate change, particularly the relationship to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding">flooding</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise">sea level rise</a> and climate-driven disasters more generally, my annual reading list reflects that as well. It's a collection of research, policy papers, reporting by journalists and works of climate fiction.</p><p>And this year, because I'm insecure and fear someone judging me by what's not on this list ("How can you not have that on here?!" I know. I know. I hear ya.) I'm including a short compilation of the things that I still intend to read and you do should too!</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/rob-moore" target="_blank">Rob Moore</a> is a Senior Policy Analyst at the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a>. </em></p>
Major Climate Reports
<ul> <li><em></em><a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/" target="_blank"><em>Special Report on Climate Change and Land</em></a>, International Panel on Climate Change</li></ul><ul> <li><a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/" target="_blank"><em>Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate</em></a>, International Panel on Climate Change</li></ul><ul> <li><a href="https://ipbes.net/global-assessment-report-biodiversity-ecosystem-services" target="_blank"><em>Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services</em></a>, IPBES</li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/27687/Arctic_Graphics.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y" target="_blank"><em>Global Linkages: a graphic look at the changing Arctic</em></a>, UN Environment Programme</li></ul><p>These reports detailed just how much the world has changed with 1 degree C of warming in the rearview mirror and how much more dire the situation could become. Widespread changes are already apparent on land, in the oceans, in the cryosphere (that's a fancy word for areas that are always cold), and for all life on Planet Earth. These reports are the most comprehensive view yet on the impacts we're already feeling, those that are unavoidable, and the ones we have to make sure we never realize.</p><p><strong>Takeaway: </strong>The first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge just how big of a problem you're dealing with. And we've got big problems. On the plus side, we've got a good idea of what the big solutions are.</p>Climate Fiction
<ul> <li><a href="https://www.guernicamag.com/climate-fiction/" target="_blank"><em>Climate Fiction: A Special Issue</em></a>, Guernica Magazine, Amy Brady, Editor</li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/mcsweeney-s-issue-58-2040-ad-climate-fiction?taxon_id=1" target="_blank"><em>Issue 58: 2040 AD</em></a>, McSweeney's, Claire Boyle, Editor</li></ul><p>Climate fiction is the hot genre to be writing in these days! This year, both Guernica and McSweeney's elevated the profile of climate fiction with special editions. Addressing the multiple challenges of climate change isn't just a scientific or technical problem … it's also a cultural problem. That's why it's so encouraging that writers, artists and other creative-types are incorporating climate themes into their works, reaching broader and more diverse audiences and subtly helping bring about those cultural changes.</p><p><strong>Side-note: </strong>I had the distinct privilege of working with <a href="https://twitter.com/ingredient_x" target="_blank">Amy Brady</a> at Guernica on an event around <a href="https://www.guernicamag.com/four-storytellers-tackle-climate-change/" target="_blank">climate change and storytelling</a> this year, and was part of a <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/rob-moore/mcsweeneys-and-nrdcs-climate-collaboration" target="_blank">team of people at NRDC that worked with Claire Boyle at McSweeney's on Issue 58</a>. These were such amazing enjoyable projects to be a part of and many thanks to the amazing Elizabeth Corr for coordinating NRDC's involvement in both.</p><p><strong>Takeaway:</strong> Diving deep into climate science isn't for everybody, but everybody shares stories. The stories contained in these editions give all of us a new place that we can start the climate conversation from.</p><ul><li><em><a href="https://www.amitavghosh.com/" target="_blank">Gun Island</a></em>, Amitav Ghosh</li></ul><span></span><p>This book had garnered an enormous amount of attention since it's release and is making many of the "Best Books of 2019" lists. Deservedly so, because it's an arresting and beautifully crafted novel that draws upon Bengali folklore, linguistic history and a globe-spanning story that intersects multiple manifestations of our altered climate.</p><p><strong>Takeaway: </strong>"Amid the freak cyclones and oxygen-starved waters comes the story — or stories — of migration across the ages; tales of escapology, of deprivation and persecution, of impossible yearnings for a new world that bring us, inexorably, to the terrified refugees on the Mediterranean." — <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/05/gun-island-amitav-ghosh-review" target="_blank">The Guardian</a></p>Climate Journalism
<ul><li><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25112019/american-climate-shared-experience-disaster-essays-science-video-project" target="_blank"><em>American Climate: The Shared Experience of Disaster</em></a>, Inside Climate News</li></ul><em></em><p>Stories of people whose lives have been deeply affected by climate change aren't just the subject of fiction, they're an all too real part of the world we live in. Inside Climate News collected these first-hand accounts from survivors of the wildfires in Paradise, California; Hurricane Michael in Mexico Beach, Florida; and from those affected by widespread flooding throughout the Midwest.</p><p><strong>Takeaway: </strong>These personal stories are a visceral reminder that the impacts of climate change aren't some theoretical possibility but are already a reality for many in the U.S.</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-other-kind-of-climate-denialism" target="_blank"><em>The Other Kind of Climate Denialism</em></a>, Rachel Reiderer, The New Yorker</li></ul><p>When faced with the enormity of the challenges of climate change, people can enter a form of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-denial">climate denialism</a>. No, not denying that it's occurring or that humans are the cause; but denying that anything can be done about it. This essay examines David Wallace-Wells' book, <em>The Uninhabitable Earth</em>, and the work of many others, including NRDC's own <a href="https://twitter.com/MaryHeglar" target="_blank">Mary Heglar</a>, to examine how we overcome this social-psychological barrier to action.</p><p><span></span><strong>Takeaway:</strong> Hey, it's okay to be fearful, or feel overwhelmed, or be angry because those are the feelings that inspire us to act.</p><p><a href="http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/despairing-about-climate-crisis/" target="_blank"><em>Despairing About the Climate Crisis? Read This</em></a>, Earth Island Journal, Interview with Dr. Susi Moser by Laurie Mazur<br></p><p>Along the same lines, this interview with Dr. Susi Moser, "talks about communicating bad climate news, the benefits of 'functional denial,' the varied flavors of hope, and the better world we can build in the wreckage of life as we know it." Dr. Moser has been working on climate change issues for a long time from multiple angles. She's seen her share of failures, or at least things that have not come fully to fruition. Still, she remains hopeful because there are so many things we can do, but just haven't yet.</p><p><span></span><strong>Takeaway: </strong>It's not whether you fall down or fail. It's whether you pick yourself up and keep trying.</p>NRDC Flood Reports
<ul><li><em></em><a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-weber/going-under-post-flood-buyouts-take-years-complete" target="_blank"><em>Going Under: Long Wait Times for Post-Flood Buyouts Leave Homeowners Underwater</em></a>, Anna Weber and Rob Moore, Natural Resources Defense Council</li></ul><span></span><p>As sea levels rise, flooding becomes more prevalent and other types of hazards lead people to the conclusion that it's time to relocate, what assistance is available to help make that happen? This report examined more than 30 years of FEMA data on that agency's efforts to finance buyouts of flood prone homes. The typical project takes more than five years to complete after a flood happens. That's not gonna cut it — and the current paradigm for doing buyouts definitely can't scale up to meet the future demand driven by climate change. Inside this report you'll find several recommendations for how buyouts could become more equitable, more efficient and more widely available.</p><p><strong>Takeaway: </strong>As the old saying goes, "Build it and they will come." With buyouts the corollary is, "If people want to leave, we should unbuild it." Okay, that's not too snappy a phrase, but we'll keep working on it. Meanwhile, you can hear about the buyout experience directly from Kentucky resident <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-long-does-it-take-get-fema-buyout-flooded-home" target="_blank">Olga McKissic</a>, who pursued a buyout for years before her repeatedly flooded home was finally demolished this summer.</p><ul><li><em><a href="https://www.eli.org/vibrant-environment-blog/changing-flood-insurance-changing-climate" target="_blank">Changing the National Flood Insurance Program for a Changing Climate</a>, </em>Environmental Law Reporter, Michael Burger and Dena Adler, Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law; Joel Scata and Rob Moore, Natural Resources Defense Council</li></ul><span></span><p>This paper lays out ways to fix a program that we should already be relying upon to adapt to the growing number of floods that come with climate change. Some of the fixes? Give people accurate information about flood risks and past damages to their home or a home they're buying. Improve community compliance with minimum standards and codes. And if people want to move to higher ground (and doing so would actually save the flood insurance program some dough) then why aren't we doing that?! </p><p><strong>Takeaway:</strong> The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. And, currently, that's what the flood insurance program is all about: flood, rebuild, repeat. But it doesn't have to be that way. Congress just keeps it that way.</p>Climate Non-Fiction
<p><em><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/building-a-resilient-tomorrow-9780190909345?cc=us&lang=en&" target="_blank">Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption</a></em>, Alice Hill & Leonardo Martinez-Diaz</p><p>With the world already having warmed by 1 degree C, the impacts of climate change are being felt in the U.S. This insightful book offers up some real solutions for how communities can cope with the vulnerabilities that have already been exposed and those that will be in the future.</p><p><strong>Takeaway</strong><strong>:</strong> If you were to boil this down to two sentences: First, don't make your problems worse by making bad decisions that you'll regret in the future. Second, start figuring out how to address the vulnerabilities you know you have, then the ones that are foreseeable.</p><p><em><a href="http://michaelklare.com/" target="_blank">All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change</a></em>, Michael Klare</p><p>As the Trump administration has dismantled our nation's response to climate change, the Pentagon has been remarkably successful at continuing to address the issue in its own way. This fascinating book looks at why the Pentagon views climate change as a huge national security risk. Climate change threatens its bases, climate change puts additional operational pressure on the military, and climate change may hasten the destabilization of governments, exacerbating regional tensions.</p><p><strong>Takeaway:</strong> Keep this close by for the climate throwdown with your conservative national security conscious family members. It may just bring them around.</p>What I Should Have Read, Am Still Going to Read, and You Should Read Too!
<ul> <li><em><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374160807" target="_blank">The Geography of Risk: Epic Storms, Rising Seas, and the Cost of America's Coasts</a></em>, Gil Gaul</li></ul><ul> <li><em><a href="https://islandpress.org/books/new-coast" target="_blank">A New Coast: Strategies for Responding to Devastating Storms and Rising Seas</a></em>, Jeffrey Peterson</li></ul><ul> <li><em><a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/sea-level-rise" target="_blank">Sea Level Rise: A Slow Tsunami on America's Shores</a></em>, Orrin Pilkey and Keith Pilkey</li></ul><ul><li><em><a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/an-ecotopian-lexicon" target="_blank">An Ecotopian Lexicon</a></em>, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson and Brent Ryan Bellamy, Editors</li></ul>From Your Site Articles
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By Danielle Nierenberg and Katherine Walla
As the holiday season ramps up for many across the world, Food Tank is highlighting 15 children's books that will introduce young eaters, growers and innovators to the world of food and agriculture. Authors and organizations are working to show children the importance — and fun — of eating healthy, nutritious and delicious food, growing their own produce, and giving food to others in need.
<p>The books on this list show that food provides more than calories — it also connects people across cultures, countries and culinary traditions. From these books, children and adults alike can learn that even non-perfect foods can be tasty and that diverse people, like diverse vegetables in a garden, can make the world a beautiful place.</p><p>Food Tank is highlighting 15 children's books that show how food, nutrition and agriculture are springboards to connecting with one another this holiday season:</p>
<p class=""> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2019/12/15-childrens-books-celebrating-food/" target="_blank">Food Tank</a>. </em><em></em></p>
1. Before We Eat: From Farm to Table by Pat Brisson, illustrated by Mary Azarian
<p>Adopted by the USDA's Agriculture in the Classroom program, <em>Before We Eat</em> shows that before food gets to the table, many people work hard to make our plates full. The book reminds readers that nourishing one person involves a team of fishers, farmers, ranchers and farm workers to enrich our food system. The expanded edition includes features about school gardens and the farm-to-school movement for budding activists and community leaders ready to make a change.</p>2. Can You Eat? by Joshua David Stein, illustrated by Julia Rothman
<p>Food critic Joshua David Stein rhymes through familiar foods and other goofy, common items for a simple and fun exploration of what can — and cannot — be eaten. Through laughter and smiles, children will see how fun it is to have variety in their diet and explore the abundance of biodiversity in the edible world.</p>3. Everyone Eats! by Julia Kuo
<p><em>Everyone Eats</em> explores a diversity of eaters: the cute animals and critters that make up our ecosystem. Kuo features each animal and the foods they eat that are familiar, edible and even nutritious to readers. Each page will show toddlers how to be fearless in eating these healthy snacks and also that humans and animals are more alike than they thought — therefore, it is important to protect their habitats.</p>4. Farm Anatomy, Nature Anatomy, and Food Anatomy by Julia Rothman
<p>This collection of books from Julia Rothman joins intricate illustrations with entertaining facts and guides about the food world. Covering topics from life on a farm and the natural world to global kitchens and cuisines, Rothman shows how food, farms and nature intersect to create a delicate — but exciting — system. Readers of all ages will be able to add to their knowledge of history, practical skills, and understanding of the food system and ecosystem.</p>5. Farming by Gail Gibbons
<p>Gibbons' introduction to farming shows that farming is a busy practice throughout the year. Not only are animals born, fields tended, and crops harvested, but farmers are also incorporating new technologies and adapting to the forces of nature. The newest edition of <em>Farming</em> uses the same bright colors and simple illustrations, with added expertise on agricultural science and updated farming procedures.</p>6. Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
<p><em>Fry Bread</em> tells the story of a modern Native American family through the role fry bread plays in their family and community. The powerful poetry shows that even a staple food can say so much about family, history, memory and community. In the end, Maillard shows how the bread serves as a tool to promote connectivity between communities and among nations.</p>7. Just Ask! By Sonia Sotomayor, illustrated by Rafael López
<p>Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor joins with López on a book that celebrates not only diversity in a garden, but also diversity in mankind. In <em>Just Ask</em>, children can celebrate the different abilities that kids have by reading about children starting a community garden. In building the garden, the kids ask each other often-ignored questions to encourage readers to do the same: This book shows children that when encountering someone different than them, it is best to just ask and celebrate everyone's unique abilities. In the end, Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor hopes children realize that, just like in a garden, diversity makes the world more vibrant and wonderful.</p>8. My Food, Your Food by Lisa Bullard, illustrated by Christine M. Schneider
<p>In <em>My Food, Your Food</em>, leading character Manuel enjoys food week in class. As each child reminisces about a special meal their family cooks and eats — and special ways they eat them — Manuel realizes that food across cultures is incredibly different. But by enjoying the diverse food traditions, eating with chopsticks, forks and hands, Manuel realizes that eaters across cultures are actually surprisingly alike.</p>9. Pancakes to Parathas: Breakfasts Around the World by Alice B. McGinty, illustrated by Tomoko Suzuki
<p><em>Pancakes to Parathas</em> explores unique breakfasts from country to country. Although the breakfasts differ across the twelve countries, like Australia, India, Japan, and Brazil, readers will find that the meal joins eaters at dawn to get their day started. The bold illustrations help children imagine breakfasts like soured soybeans and coffee — with lots of milk — as they explore what children around the world feast on in the morning.</p>10. Right This Very Minute by Lisl H. Detlefsen, illustrated by Renee Kurilla
<p>Detlefsen offers children a look at where food comes from before they see it in stores and restaurants. Whenever a child says they're hungry right this very minute, this book will remind them of food's incredible journey, from farmer to plate. Showing the variety of farmers involved in making different meals — including orchardists, beekeepers, and livestock, grain, and vegetable farmers — the book reminds children that the supply chain connects them to farmers all around the world.</p>11. See What We Eat!: A First Book of Healthy Eating by Scot Ritchie
<p>In <em>See What We Eat</em>, character Yulee and her four friends take a tour of her aunt's farm, pick apples and make apple crisp for a potluck dinner. Each stop on the tour helps the children understand more about an important component of a balanced meal: fields of grain, gardens of vegetables, hen houses and the barn for dairy and protein, and an orchard of fruit. Finally, the characters come together with a multicultural group of neighbors for a big potluck meal.</p>12. The Good Egg by Jory John and Pete Oswald
<p>In <em>The Good Egg</em>, an extremely good egg finds it hard to keep being good when the other eggs are being rotten. In his dozen, the other 11 eggs behave badly, so the good egg attempts to take charge to perfect the bunch. However, the pressure starts to wear its shell; the good egg self-reflects and eventually realizes that not everyone can be perfect and it is important to be good to others — no matter if they have brief moments of rottenness.</p>13. The Popcorn Book by Tomie dePaola
<p>Twins Tony and Tiny in <em>The Popcorn Book</em> love popcorn — but don't know how or where it is made. The twins join together to cook and learn about their favorite snack, exploring what exactly it is, how it is stored and its cultural significance in legends and stories from North America and Europe. In this 40th anniversary edition, however, dePaola joins with experts to present expanded historical facts, highlighting the role popcorn historically played in Native American communities and how they prepared the snack.</p>14. We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines
<p>In <em>We Are the Gardeners</em>, Gaines and her children describe their experience starting their family garden, from challenges and hurdles to new wisdom they hope to share. The family details their experience starting with a single fern plant, joining together to protect pollinators and soil dwellers, and standing up to the face of adversity: the faces of pesky rabbits who gnaw at their vegetables. Throughout the book, readers can learn how challenging — yet rewarding — starting a garden can be.</p>15. What’s On Your Plate?: Exploring the World of Food by Whitney Stewart, illustrated by Christiane Engel
<p>Stewart takes readers on a tour through the food traditions of 14 countries, highlighting that plates around the world are incredibly diverse. Exploring Brazil, Spain, Morocco, India, China and more, Stewart explores the people, cooking practices, food, and ways of thinking that make each place unique. And with easy recipes, readers will be able to try the meals that are connecting them to families around the globe.</p><a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=This+holiday+season%2C+give+the+children+in+your+life+the+gift+of+knowledge+about+the+food+system%21+%23FoodTank+is+highlighting+15+books+that+help+young+people+learn+about+agriculture+and+food+traditions.&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffoodtank.com%2Fnews%2F2019%2F12%2F15-childrens-books-celebrating-food%2F&via=foodtank"><span></span></a>
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Solar panels at the Renewable Hydrogen Fueling and Production Station on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. U.S. Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Barker / Released
By Tara Lohan
Three years into the Trump administration, its anti-climate and anti-science agenda is well established. Despite dire warnings from the world's leading scientists about the threats from rising greenhouse gas emissions, the administration has stubbornly continued to deny climate change, obstructed and undermined efforts to curb it, and moved again and again to roll back existing regulations that help reduce emissions.
<p>Under Trump there's only one government agency whose top officials continue to take the threat of climate change seriously, albeit out of the public spotlight: the Department of Defense.</p><p>As international threat expert Michael T. Klare recounts in his new book, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627792493" target="_blank"><em>All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change</em></a>, U.S. military leaders view climate change as a threat to the country's security — as well as global stability. <a href="http://michaelklare.com/" target="_blank">Klare</a> explores what they're doing about it, mostly behind the scenes.</p><p>With long experience studying national security issues, Klare is currently director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. He's written extensively about the military and global resources, including <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Race-Whats-Left-Scramble-Resources/dp/1250023971" target="_blank"><em>The Race for What's Left</em></a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Oil-Consequences-Dependency-Petroleum/dp/0805073132/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=Blood+and+Oil&qid=1574885619&s=books&sr=1-7" target="_blank"><em>Blood and Oil</em></a>.</p>
<p>"While discussion of climate change has indeed largely disappeared from the Pentagon's public statements, its internal efforts to address the effects of global warming have not stopped," Klare writes.</p><p>Klare begins by tracing the evolution of the Pentagon's understanding of the potential dangers of climate change, which goes back more than a decade. The Department of Defense has published numerous reports and briefs since and is currently conducting an assessment of the climate-related threats to the hundreds of U.S. military bases at home and abroad. While the study isn't complete, results so far have shown that half of all bases face at least one climate-related threat. Many face several.</p><p>What Pentagon analysts are most concerned about is not endangered species, like some other government agencies, but other humans.</p><p>"They see climate change as ratcheting up global chaos, which in turn means a greater likelihood of U.S involvement in ugly foreign wars," writes Klare.</p><p>In some places climate-related disasters such as droughts, heat waves and hurricanes may trigger mass migrations and failed states; in others climate change may not be the sole threat or even the greatest, but it could make a bad situation catastrophic. It's considered a "threat multiplier" — one that, in the age of globalization, can lead to far-reaching failures of energy, food and health systems.</p><p>"Try to picture a food-price crisis occurring at more or less the same time as a major pandemic and a mass migration event: the resulting chaos, distress and contention are almost unimaginable," he writes.</p><p>As climate change worsens, the U.S. military will face more humanitarian crises. Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013 and the quick succession of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017 gave a preview of what's to come — and the extensive resources needed.</p><p>Climate-related threats to food and water can also trigger what Klare calls "failed-state syndrome," like in Mali where resource scarcity, social unrest and natural disaster helped create political upheaval. Countries like Nigeria and Saudi Arabia could face similar threats.</p><p>There's also the potential for clashes among the world's heavyweights. A melting Arctic will open up access to shipping, drilling and other kinds of economic exploitation, which could prompt <a href="https://therevelator.org/arctic-melts-nations-race/" target="_blank">conflict between Arctic neighbors</a> like the United States, Russia, Norway and Canada. Not coincidentally, the United States recently restocked its Cold War stash of military equipment and weapons housed in caves in Norway, presumably in the case of conflict with Russia, writes Klare.</p><p>And across the world, China could go head-to-head with India over vital flows in the Brahmaputra and other rivers as melting Himalayan glaciers curtail water resources. A similar situation over water conflict could emerge between India and Pakistan, too, writes Klare.</p><p>And then there are the threats emerging at home. The military is already dealing with rising seas, increased inland flooding, and more severe hurricanes and wildfires. These aren't small problems: The Department of Defense mobilized more than 30,000 personnel in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.</p><p>Klare's review of both foreign and domestic threats from climate change is exhaustive and alarming, especially on top of what we already know about how climate change threatens vital ecosystems and species across the globe.</p><p>He makes a convincing case that there's ample reason for military leaders to be concerned — not to mention the rest of us: "It follows that if the armed services are worried about the safety and survival of <em>their</em> vital systems, we should be equally worried about our own."</p><p>Of course, many of us already are worried, which is why the last part of the book — what the Pentagon is actually doing about all of this — is so important… and also a bit disappointing. Klare reveals that many of the military's efforts to "go green" — for example, by using fewer fossil fuels — have been less about environmental concerns than strategy. Convoys to carry gasoline to remote military outposts are vulnerable to attack; using solar or other technologies to power barracks or vehicles reduces that risk.</p><p>And some programs were, well, less than they first appeared. For example, in 2006 the <em>USS Stockdale</em> set off as a part of the "Great Green Fleet," so named because the boat was using some "alternative fuels" to reduce its dependence on oil. But Klare reveals that the boat was actually running on a mix of 90% oil and 10% liquefied beef fat. It's hard to imagine that's either a green or scalable replacement for the petroleum used to power a destroyer across an ocean.</p><p>Other efforts have yielded better results, though. Today the different service branches use more solar and other renewables. And efforts are underway to vastly increase fuel efficiency of planes and ground vehicles.</p><p>And along the way they've achieved some measurable results: From 2011 to 2016, the DoD's consumption of petroleum for operating forces declined 20%. The energy supplied by renewables at home has also climbed 12% over 2003 levels.</p><p>Klare lists a few other statistics, but it's hard to put all of it into context as the book fails to mention the <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a28198372/us-military-carbon-pollution-study/" target="_blank">overall climate footprint</a> of the U.S. military — which other sources point out is more than in most other countries. There's also no mention of the sweeping environmental, social and related implications of U.S. imperialism, a significant omission.</p><p>Indeed the idea of the U.S. military being a big green savior is a tough pill to swallow. Sen. Elizabeth Warren found that out earlier this year, when she introduced the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1498" target="_blank">Department of Defense Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act</a>, which seeks to ramp up the military's potential when it comes to renewables and energy efficiency.</p><p>She received some swift backlash from progressives, including author and activist Naomi Klein who <a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/1128702248282935296" target="_blank">tweeted</a> that, "The most powerful war machine on the planet is never going to be 'green.'"</p><p>Still, Klare claims that "given the immense size of the U.S. military establishment and its proven ability to embrace technological innovation, the Department of Defense is one of the few institutions in American society with the capacity to make a real difference in slowing the pace of warming."</p><p>But will that be enough? If climate change worsens the threats the military has identified, and makes military action more likely, the chances of reducing our armed forces' carbon footprint will get even slimmer. As Klare's own reporting shows, the vast, worldwide social and political upheaval that we'll likely experience due to climate change means we badly need civilian, as well as military, arms of government to get on board.</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/pentagon-climate-change-klare/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2641547447#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>
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An important theme runs through November's new environmental books: We're stronger together than apart.
<p>For one author that means fostering the ability of people and wildlife to coexist. For a group of experts, it involves working hard to adapt to the threats of climate change. And two new books make the case for diversifying the environmental movement — because we all need each other.</p><p>You'll find our selections for November's 12 most noteworthy eco-books below. Check them out, pick the ones (or pairs) that are best for you, and then prepare to do some illuminating and world-changing reading — and maybe pull a few friends along while you're at it.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-books-november-2019/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>
Our Wild Calling: How Connecting With Animals Can Transform Our Lives — and Save Theirs by Richard Louv
<p>The author of the classic <em>Last Child in the Woods</em> returns with a howling-good new book about the scientific, moral, ethical and spiritual need for human-animal coexistence. (Hint: It will help the animals, too.)</p>Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption by Alice C. Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz
<div id="1da34" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="LMZOBC1576661200"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1190604190160052224" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">To ensure health care delivery during extreme events, communities must “harden” the system to weather extremes. Tha… https://t.co/qgZykFtEXK</div> — Alice Hill (@Alice Hill)<a href="https://twitter.com/Alice_C_Hill/statuses/1190604190160052224">1572697133.0</a></blockquote></div>A New Coast: Strategies for Responding to Devastating Storms and Rising Seas by Jeffrey Peterson
<p>With climate change already causing problems for coasts and other communities and habitats around the world, we'd better start planning how to adapt for a risky and uncertain future. These two new books by former officials in the Obama administration concentrate on developing actionable successes to minimize the damage and ensure that the systems we depend upon can persist.</p>Engage, Connect, Protect: Empowering Diverse Youth as Environmental Leaders by Angelou Ezeilo
<p>The founder of the Greening Youth Foundation provides a critique of the too-white environmental movement and a toolkit for engaging younger participants from African-American, Latino and Native American communities.</p>Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial edited by Sarah D. Wald, David J. Vázquez, Priscilla Solis Ybarra and Sarah Jaquette Ray
<p>More than a dozen top minds come together to examine thoughts and cultural processes otherwise ignored by the environmental movement.</p>The Case for the Green New Deal by Ann Pettifor
<div id="7d64b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="NFM60I1576661200"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1190189414196137984" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">To protect the systems that sustain life on earth, we need to do more than just reimagine the economy – we have to… https://t.co/fmxAHsj6DB</div> — Kirsten de Keyser 🌍 (@Kirsten de Keyser 🌍)<a href="https://twitter.com/KirstenInCamden/statuses/1190189414196137984">1572598243.0</a></blockquote></div>A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen and Thea Riofrancos
<p>Radical publisher Verso Books brings us two new volumes about the Green New Deal this month. Each tackles the topic from a different perspective (the first covers economics, while the second focuses on politics), but both see it as a critical way to address the inequality that causes so many of the world's problems.</p>American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave by Dana R. Fisher
<p>What can we learn from the wave of resistance that blossomed after the election of President Donald Trump? And can efforts like the Climate Strike make a difference in 2020 and beyond? Fisher looks deep into the data to reveal how this movement can keep making progress.</p>Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse by Roger Hallam
<p>One of the cofounders of Extinction Rebellion provides a call to action inspired by Thomas Paine's original Revolutionary War-era <em>Common Sense</em> but updated for a modern, warmer world and the need for civil disobedience.</p>All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change by Michael T. Klare
<p>If the Pentagon worries about floods, disease, drought, climate refugees and so many other threats, then the rest of us should, too.</p>Recycling by Finn Arne Jørgensen
<p>A fascinating examination of how we transform some things into other things — physically and culturally. This book follows a selection of products through the supply chain, from creation to disposal to re-creation. Along the way it aims to prove that recycling isn't just important for the planet; it also plays a vital psychological role for those of us participating in the process.</p>Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River by Eric Kuhn and John Fleck
<p>The authors examine the Colorado River's history of mismanagement, providing both a cautionary tale and a look ahead at how we can (hopefully) resolve the mistakes of the past — and maybe avoid similar problems on other rivers.</p><p>That's our list for this month, but you'll find dozens of other recent eco-books in the <a href="https://therevelator.org/tag/revelator-reads/" target="_blank">"Revelator Reads" archive</a>.</p>From Your Site Articles
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