Essential Reads 12.2022
Sustainability has become a growing topic of conversation and debate in recent years, as more and more individuals, organizations, and nations are becoming aware of the need to reduce their environmental impact. With this increased focus on sustainability comes an abundance of books that discuss different aspects of sustainable living. From practical guides to help make homes more energy-efficient.
Related Reading
Link to article
Link to article
Link to article
But what are the essentials of understanding the impact of human behavior on climate change? As part of our ongoing series is suggested reading from various industry and subject matter experts who can bring light to the matter from multiple perspectives.
The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg
"We still have time to change the world. The essential handbook for making it happen comes from Greta Thunberg, the world's leading climate activist. You might think it's impossible to secure a safe future for life on Earth at a scale and speed never seen, against all odds. There is hope – but only if we listen to the science before it's too late.
In The Climate Book, Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts – geophysicists, oceanographers, and meteorologists; engineers, economists, and mathematicians; historians, philosophers, and indigenous leaders – to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster. Illuminating and often shocking grayscale charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, and illustrations underscore their research and arguments. Alongside them, she shares her stories of demonstrating and uncovering greenwashing worldwide, revealing how much we have been kept in the dark. The climate is one of our biggest challenges, she shows, but also our most significant source of hope. Once given the complete picture, how can we not act? And if a schoolchild's strike could ignite a global protest, what could we do if we tried?
We are alive at the most decisive time in the history of humanity. Together, we can do the seemingly impossible. But it has to be us, and it has to be now."
From NPR: "Impressively, in The Climate Book, Thunberg, and team—which includes well-known names like Margaret Atwood, George Monbiot, Bill McKibben, and Robin Wall Kimmerer—explain and offer action items in 84 compelling, bite-size chapters . . . The cumulative impact on my understanding of the crisis through [the books] data, cross-cultural reflections, and paths for step-by-step change became mesmerizing."
Shop E-book: Apple.com / BarnesandNoble.com
Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard @calderalab
"Ten years after its original publication, Penguin Books has released a completely revised and expanded edition of Yvon Chouinard's classic memoir, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, with more than 40 percent new material and featuring a new foreword by Naomi Klein, author of the bestselling book This Changes Everything.
In the new edition, Chouinard explains how his business and environmental views have evolved in a decade marked by global recession and intensifying environmental crisis as well as unprecedented success for his company—bringing great opportunities as well as hard challenges for Patagonia along the way. We are pleased to share the preface from the second edition with you today.
The original intent in 2005 for writing Let My People Go Surfing was for it to be a philosophical manual for the employees of Patagonia. I never expected at that time that this simple book would be translated into ten languages and be used in high schools and colleges and even be influential in large corporations. Even Harvard University has done a case study on our company. We have always considered Patagonia an experiment in doing business in unconventional ways. None of us were certain it was going to be successful, but we did know that we were not interested in "doing business as usual." Well, we have survived and even thrived for close to half a century, even longer than that if you include our first company, Chouinard Equipment for alpinists. Patagonia Works is now the name of our company, which includes under its umbrella our clothing company, Patagonia, Inc., and a food company, Patagonia Provisions. We are also invested in several other like-minded start-up companies. Ironically, we have become the large company that we never dreamed of, nor wanted to become.
We are still family-owned and we continue to enjoy our work, and I don't feel that we have had to compromise our values in becoming this large company. We have no intention to sell out or to become a public company, which would compromise on our mission "to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis."
Shop E-book & Paperback: Apple.com / Amazon.com / Patagonia.com
The World Is On Fire, But We're Still Buying Shoes by Alex Leach @alecleach_
“Former Highsnobiety Style Editor and founder of Instagram account @future__dust, Alec Leach examines why we continue to buy so many clothes, despite all we know about fashion and its impact on the planet. With behind-the-scenes insights and philosophical musings supported by infographics and magazine-style pull quotes, Leach takes readers on a journey through the inner workings of consumerism and online culture, touching on sneaker hype, greenwashing and mindfulness along the way. The result is a manifesto for a slower, more intentional relationship with fashion, one that's better for us and better for the planet, too.
From GQ: "The title of Alec Leach's debut book doesn't mince words: The World Is On Fire But We're Still Buying Shoes. The question at the core of the book is equally as direct. We know fashion is bad for the planet, so why are we still shopping? Leach, a former fashion editor turned sustainability consultant, set out to see if he could find some answers. The result is a deeply curious and of-the-moment meditation on contemporary consumerism, hype culture, and how the fashion industry's obsession with streetwear has created one frenzied drop after another with no signs of slowing down.
But Leach, who spent nearly five years at the streetwear publication Highsnobiety, isn't here to point fingers at anyone for liking clothes. "We all deserve nice things to wear," he tells me from his office in Berlin. Navigating shopping and sustainability isn't so black and white, and Leach is the first to admit there isn't a silver bullet solution. "I didn't want to be preaching some commandments of shopping as if I have all the answers," he says. It's refreshing to read someone write about fashion's global environmental crisis in a tone that, while still urgent, has a deeper understanding of the emotional side of clothing.”
Shop Paperback: AlecLeach.com.com / SneakinPeace.com
The Story of More: How We Got To Climate Change And Where To Go From Here by Hope Jahren @realhopejahren
“The essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it. "Hope Jahren asks the central question of our time: how can we learn to live on a finite planet?" (Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction).
"Hope Jahren is the voice that science has been waiting for." —Nature
Hope Jahren is an award-winning scientist, a brilliant writer, a passionate teacher, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. In The Story of More, she illuminates the link between human habits and our imperiled planet. In concise, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions—from electric power to large-scale farming to automobiles—that, even as they help us, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like never before. She explains the current and projected consequences of global warming—from superstorms to rising sea levels—and the actions that we all can take to fight back. At once an explainer on the mechanisms of global change and a lively, personal narrative given to us in Jahren's inimitable voice, The Story of More is "a superb account of the deadly struggle between humanity and what may prove the only life-bearing planet within ten light years" (E. O. Wilson).”
Shop E-book & Paperback: Apple.com / Amazon.com
