Ten inspirational texts about climate change

Carbon Brief

Climate and environmental issues can be pretty dry.

Yet books and readings have inspired some of the world's top climate thinkers, writers and journalists to get involved in climate change-related work.

Mike Mann

Professor of meteorology at Penn State University. Author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.

"Two books that inspired me as a young scientist were The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen J. Gould and The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Gould and Sagan were both heroes of mine, premier scientists in their domains (evolutionary biology and planetary science respectively), and also gifted communicators.

"Both books explore the pernicious societal impact of antiscience and pseudoscience. In Gould's case, the bad science behind early 20th century dogma contending a racial basis to human intelligence. In Sagan's case, it was the tendency for human beings to hold irrational views about matters such as faith healing, extrasensory perception, and UFOs.

"Both exemplify how scientists can be effective advocates for an informed public discourse over societally-relevant matters of science."

David MacKay

Professor of engineering at the University of Cambridge and former chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

"I recommend Challenged By Carbon by Bryan Lovell. This is an unusual book, intertwining two stories, one of them 55 million years old, and one less than 55 years old. For the older, slower story, Dr Lovell delves into the details of the geological history of Iceland, the North Atlantic, and the North Sea.

"The younger, rapidly-moving story is the `insider's view' of how the oil industry, in the last 15 years, changed its mind about human-caused climate change. Starting from positions of climate inactivism (by which I mean 'yeah, it may be true, but there's lots of uncertainty and there's no point doing anything, and we oppose greenhouse-gas-reduction treaties') or outright denial, the big oil companies, driven by the science, changed their tunes."

Ro Randall

Psychotherapist researching climate change.

"My choice isn't an old favourite but a new one, Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate [published last week]. Klein covers all bases with a clear systematic understanding of the issues.

"She's curious about the everyday denial which allows us to simultaneously know but ignore the significance of climate change. She's courageous in investigating our abuse of nature. She's savvy about politics and the deadly influence of free-market fundamentalism. She takes on the arguments about growth.

"She's clear-headed about the need for state intervention. She's encouraging about the possibilities of building solidarity. She's empathic with and angry about the suffering of ordinary people. And she weaves it all together in clear, compelling prose. Everything you need in one book."

Oliver Morton

Briefings editor of the Economist and author of Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet.

"Two big influences on me: The Ages of Gaia, by Jim Lovelock – probably his best book. I already had a sense of earth system science and of the deep past, so the book simply fascinated me, and deepened both my knowledge of and my feelings about the planet. If I hadn't been prepared for it I think it would have blown my mind completely.

"And the Martian Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. These excellent books are not just among the best science fiction novels of recent decades. Their central theme of terraforming makes them a long and subtle look at political and personal beliefs in the context of changing how a planet works.

"The estrangement that comes from making the debate about Mars and not (directly) the Earth makes the effect all the stronger, opening up the question of what it really means to be an environmentalist."

Alice Bell

Researcher and writer on the politics of science, technology and the environment. Contributor to the Road to Paris blog.

"The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart doesn't offer a eureka moment. As the author stresses, our knowledge of climate change has been an elongated process of multiple discoveries, scientific and political.

"Such granular development might seem a bit depressing and/or boring. But this book is both engrossing and liberating. It's a useful explainer of how we got to here with respect to climate change, but it's also a book of hope. Above all, it's a story of social awareness and change, with a real sense that more change is possible."

James Painter

Climate journalism researcher and head of journalism fellowship programme at Oxford University's Reuters Institute.

"It is virtually impossible to write a successful novel about climate change. The science gets in the way, the characters too easily become advocates for action or villains for opposing it, or plots can be too driven by visions of apocalypse.

"Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver is the exception. Her knowledge of etymology is worn lightly, her characters are drawn with sympathy and insight, and her narrative is compelling. She even knows about science communication. The scientist at one point complains that 'as long as we won't commit to knowing everything, the presumption is we know nothing'."

Katharine Hayhoe

Director of the Climate Science Centre at Texas Tech University and science advisor to climate change documentary series 'Years of Living Dangerously'.

"Red Sky Warning by Gus Speth places climate change within the larger context of human society and development on this planet and what it will take to ensure a truly sustainable life for ourselves and our kids."

Mark Brandon

Climate scientist and ice expert at the Open University. 

"I love Fixing Climate by Robert Kunzig and Wallace Broecker because it plays to my natural optimistic personality. It's a book of two halves.

"In the first we get a fantastic overview of how climate history was discovered by one of the pioneers. It spells out what the climate problem is and what may very likely happen in the near future.

"In the second half Kunzig and Broecker explain what we could actually do to solve the situation we have mostly unknowingly created. It's very well written and is compelling stuff. I am surprised it is not more popular."

Max Boykoff

Climate media researcher and associate professor, Colorado University.

"I can point to Jeremy Leggett's The Carbon War. Published in 2001, it is an early take on the politics of climate change. His sharp accounts of the foundational science-policy interactions at the international scale still make this a useful set of insights that shed light on continuing climate change politics in 2014.

"The crescendo of the book in Kyoto in 1997 is worth revisiting as we move through critical UN climate meetings in Lima, Bonn and Paris over the next 15 months or so. It inspired me to do work I continue doing now on the cultural politics of climate change – my heavily dog-eared and marked up copy remains close by in my office."

Jonathon Porritt

Environmentalist and author of Capitalism As If the World Matters.

"I would like to put forward Reinventing Fire by Amory Lovins and others at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Lovins has been summoning up visions and blueprints for an ultra-low-carbon world for around 40 years, so he really knows what he's talking about by now. Reinventing Fire fizzes with intellectual and practical energy of every kind. It's like sticking your finger into a scintillating and wholly uplifting energy source – without the pain!"

This is an edited extract of an article that appeared on Carbon Brief and has been reproduced with permission. For the original article, and full list of 25 texts, click here.