May Meeting Recap and Future Plans

Let me just begin by expressing my appreciation once again for a group that can handle serious and candid discussions about books and whatever’s on our minds! Speaks for our trust in and respect for one another.

We agreed that the Gates book was an important and comprehensive study of the problem, clearly stated. It will be broadly influential in a positive way and we felt that we learned a lot from it.

Critiques—not enough on regenerative farming, too much on his own untested projects and the somewhat dated influence of Smil, not much recognition of the across-the-board economic and lifestyle overhaul that has to happen. About his focus on nuclear power—Such a knotty problem, yet so much potential; we’d like to study it more! (in Climate 411? 😊)

General discussion on our direction as a group:

I felt that we would have read the Gates book on our own anyway, and are daily reading similar articles and are sharing similar information with one another via email on a nearly daily basis. So for book group, why not stretch ourselves with other approaches sometimes—political, economic, psychological, philosophical, social? Others agreed that the focus on this or that “climate solution’ may not be what will enrich us most now, although it’s certainly encouraging and useful to read about them!

Along those lines, please be on the lookout for good “how” books about:

Dealing with all this psychologically

Reaching/persuading others

Political will, public opinion

Deep systemic/ economic change

Indigenous wisdom/philosophy

More topics? Please add

Here are some book suggestions so far—

Leslie Davenport books: Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change: A Clinician's Guide

by Leslie Davenport and M.D., Lise Van Susteren, | Jan 19, 2017

Climate Psychology: On Indifference to Disaster (Studies in the Psychosocial)

Part of: Studies in the Psychosocial (37 Books) | by Paul Hoggett | Jun 12, 2019

All the Feelings Under the Sun: How to Deal With Climate Change

by Leslie Davenport and Jessica Smith | Sep 28, 2021

Ishmael series (by Quinn)

Braiding Sweetgrass by Kimmerer

More? Please add

For June 2, we are going philosophical! Learning to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scranton. It is quite short, and more uplifting than it sounds 😊 We have a copy and the library has two. We will let you know as soon as we finish and are happy to share.

In addition, we decided to watch and discuss a documentary available on Netflix called Seaspiracy.

And thanks to Jason for more articles from The Economist! Always interesting.

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Please weigh in on these issues and suggestions!