Literature
The Broken Earth Trilogy, by N.K. Jemisin, 2015-17. The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky made her the first author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years, as well as the first to win for all three novels in a trilogy. In 2021, she was included in the Time 100, Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. "Jemisin's graceful prose and gritty setting provide the perfect backdrop for this fascinating tale of determined characters fighting to save a doomed world."
Science in the Capital Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2015. Another award-winning trilogy! 40 Signs of Rain, 50 Degrees Below, and 60 Days and Counting (of 2004-7) are now updated with the latest research and published in one volume, titled Green Earth. These "eco-thrillers" combine "cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of climate change." Fans of the Ministry for the Future, (see below) take note! Robinson says "these days we live in a big science fiction novel we are all writing together."
The Big Fix: Seven Practical Steps to Save Our Planet, by Hall Harvey and Justin Gillis, 2022. An accessible, inspiring how-to for concerned people to make the crucial switch from "green consumers" to "green citizens" in order to compel action on climate change. Praised by Al Gore, Bill McKibben, and Elizabeth Kolbert, who calls it "smart, honest, and down-to-earth."
My Days of Dark Green Euphoria, by A.E. Copenhaver, 2022. "Love, lies, and eco-anxiety--an irresistible satire about finding balance in a chaotic world." Winner of the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature, debut novel by a "science communicator and climate interpreter" from Bellevue. As well as poking fun, it also confirms "how promising and inspiring a commitment to saving our planet can be.”
Collapse,How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond, 2005, 2nd ed. 2011. Pulitzer Prize-winning author looks at several societies in history (Easter Island, Greenland Norse) that collapsed, mostly as a result of misusing their natural resources. It raises the urgent question, "How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?"
The World as We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate, ed. by Amy Brady and Tajja Isen, 2022. "Nineteen leading literary writers from around the globe offer timely, haunting first-person reflections on how climate change has altered their lives." The essays "grieve what we've already lost, honor what we still have, and prepare us for whatever may come next." Gets a full 5 stars on Amazon.
We are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth, edited by Dahr Jamail and Stan Rushworth, 2022. "Interviews with people from different North American Indigenous cultures who share their knowledge, experience, and dreams of maintaining the best relationship possible to all of life. A welcome antidote to the despair arising from the climate crisis, We Are the Middle of Forever brings to the forefront the perspectives of those who have long been attuned to climate change and will be an indispensable aid to those looking for new and different ideas and responses to the challenges we face."
The Atlas of Disappearing Places: Our Coasts and Oceans in the Climate Crisis, by Christina Conklin and Marina Psaros, 2021. A guide to global warming's impacts on specific coastal communities around the world, illustrated with unique ink-and-dried-seaweed-technique maps. "A beautiful work of art and an indispensable resource to learn more about the devastating consequences of the climate crisis--as well as the possibilities for individual and collective action."
Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape, by Barry Lopez, 1986. Acclaimed National Book Award winner, now considered a classic of nature writing. "Leads readers on a journey of the mind and heart into a place that grips the imagination and invigorates the soul." I recently heard a webinar panelist declare that this book changed his career path from corporate law to environmental policy!
Erosion: Essays of Undoing, by Terry Tempest Williams, 2019. A beloved writer and environmentalist, "her fierce, spirited and magnificent essays are a howl in the desert" as she sees democracy, support for public lands, and the environment eroding. See her poem below, which accompanies The Council of Pronghorns in the installation section.
Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh, 2021. Combining action-adventure, Bengali folklore, climate change, refugees, and endangered species, written with the author's usual "exuberant style and extraordinary linguistic facility. This important novel is an account of our current world, the one few writers have had the courage to face."(Annie Proulx)
The Drowned World by JG Ballard, 1962. Prescient science fiction set in the year 2145, in which global warming has melted the polar ice caps and abandoned cities are overrun with Triassic-era jungles. "Both a thrilling adventure and haunting examination of the effects of environmental collapse on the human mind."
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, 2021. A novel set between 15th c. Constantinople, Idaho in 2020, and space some time in the future. He says “The world we’re handing our kids brims with challenges: climate instability, pandemics, disinformation. I wanted this novel to reflect those anxieties but also offer meaningful hope.” Now that I've had the pleasure of reading it, I want to emphasize my recommendation---read this book! It's a wonderful story by an amazing storyteller.
The Carbon Diaries: 2015, and Carbon Diaries: 2017 by Saci Lloyd, 2009 and 2010. Young adult novels.
Laura, a student in London, keeps a diary as the UK imposes carbon rationing after weather-related disasters. She attempts to stay grounded as the stresses of rationing and extreme weather tear at the social fabric of her world.
The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood, (Oryx and Crake 2003, The Year of the Flood, 2009, MaddAddam, 2013). (Being adapted into a TV series by HULU). A "bio punk" post-apocalyptic world that "shows us how a new world can come from something which seemed always destined to break." The conclusion points towards the ultimate endurance of community and love.
Overstory by Richard Powers, 2018. Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about humans and trees and their deep connections. Magnificent writing and powerful eco-advocacy.
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2020. An amazing “what-if” mapping out a possible (mostly) positive scenario for the next 50 years. Chock full of great solution ideas, could it be a blueprint for real-life world leaders today?
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, 1993. Considered one of the first climate novels, a forerunner in treating climate change and social inequality.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2019. (non-fiction) Essays intricately interweaving botany, personal experience, and indigenous wisdom. A truly outstanding book.
Poetry
An Uncertain Future, by Mary V. Botten, 2022.
Moving together, we pass through time,
Step by step, no reason nor rhyme.
Pondering on our existence here,
For nothing is certain, nothing is clear.
There are cracks in our foundations, cracks in our base,
This eroding, fragile world in which we are placed.
Immeasurable repairs are needed to restore
Our amazing earth that we should adore.
I feel we are breaking in every which way,
Moral fibre stretched thin and beginning to fray.
We have the gift of a life, a planet too,
Treasured by many but sadly too few.
Staring Through The Window by Justin Raphael Lopez Gutierrez, 2021.
My child, sit by my side,
have a look outside.
What do you see?
The sun and the sands,
the winds and the waves,
the grass and the trees;
They are our responsibility,
yet we have lost the ability
to maintain the beauty bestowed before us.
This magnificent land is ours,
yet we fail to find the hour
to stop and realize the condition we have left it in.
My child, sit by my side,
have a look outside.
What can you say?
I can only pray
that there be a day
where you can gaze upon the bluest of skies just as I once did;
Where you can experience vitality
from this grim reality
that we have turned our land into;
Where the scent of the meadows
suppress the sorrows
that we've sown on our own soil.
My child, sit by my side,
have a look outside.
What must we do?
Restoration is due;
return earth to its true
colors and vibrance and beauty and grace.
Evoke the natural ways,
bring back the breathable days
when the air was pure and fresh and crisp and clear.
It's time to embrace
positive change,
to shatter the pattern
and break the cyclical destruction
of a home undeniably, unquestionably, irreplaceable.
And I know that we are able
to achieve the sustainable
and throw away the days where disposables were our disabilities.
There is no anonymity.
With one collective identity,
we are all accountable
to this sizeable responsibility
So my child, I tell you,
let the rivers flow,
let the flowers grow,
let the people know,
that the earth needs its glow.
It's an awakening
my child, are you listening?
Beyond that window
is a tomorrow full of opportunity,
and today, we must march in unity
because that is what it takes to rebuild this land.
It's at the palm of our hands
and it's time to take the ultimate stand
for a creation so magnificent.
This world is at war, yet again, the victims are the innocent;
There is no moment to be indifferent.
This land needs to heal, we need not be the impediment
And one thing is evident:
My child, we need our future
But it needs us to be present.
Rise: From One Island to Another, by Aka Niviana and Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, 2018. Niviana, an Inuk from Greenland, and Jetnil-Kijiner, from the Marshall Islands, wrote and met in Southern Greenland to perform this offering between legendary "sisters" of two far-distant islands both imperiled by global warming. The cinematography and soundtrack of the film, produced by 350.org, are beautiful and moving as well.
Excerpt:
From these islands
we ask for solutions.
From these islands
we ask
we demand that the world see beyond
SUV’s, ac’s, their pre-packaged convenience
their oil-slicked dreams, beyond the belief
that tomorrow will never happen, that this
is merely an inconvenient truth.
Let me bring my home to yours.
Let’s watch as Miami, New York,
Shanghai, Amsterdam, London,
Rio de Janeiro, and Osaka
try to breathe underwater.
You think you have decades
before your homes fall beneath tides?
We have years.
We have months
before you sacrifice us again
before you watch from your tv and computer screens waiting
to see if we will still be breathing
while you do nothing.
My sister,
From one island to another
I give to you these rocks
as a reminder
that our lives matter more than their power
that life in all forms demands
the same respect we all give to money
that these issues affect each and everyone of us
None of us is immune
And that each and everyone of us has to decide
if we
will
rise
Earthrise by Amanda Gorman, 2018. (first National Youth Poet Laureate) A Climate Reality project dedicated to Al Gore.
Excerpt:
Climate change is the single greatest challenge of our time,
Of this, you’re certainly aware.
It’s saddening, but I cannot spare you
From knowing an inconvenient fact, because
It’s getting the facts straight that gets us to act and not to wait.
So I tell you this not to scare you,
But to prepare you, to dare you
To dream a different reality,
Where despite disparities
We all care to protect this world,
This riddled blue marble, this little true marvel
To muster the verve and the nerve
To see how we can serve
Our planet. You don’t need to be a politician
To make it your mission to conserve, to protect,
To preserve that one and only home
That is ours,
To use your unique power
To give next generations the planet they deserve.
Still, by Miriam Mosqueda (Indigenous Mexican/American poet and artist) 2021.
Where I call home
Corn stalks stretch to the sky
Intertwined with cables
And rooftops
A backyard
Not a farm or a field
But we still call this home
For the corn seeds and for us
We both ended up here
Trying to find new ways to be
New places to plant
To grow
We still call this home
Even if we live in diaspora
Forced displacement
On ever changing land
That we’re in relation to
And never in ownership of
As guests
On this soil that so graciously hugs corn seeds into sprout into stalk into life
For us
The year our skies were red with rage from wildfires
Ash fell from above
Floating down and coating our garden gray
Smoke in the air and our lungs
We still placed corn seeds to earth
When a refinery was built next to our family home in Mexico
Out the window we could see it
On the other side of large brick walls were tanks and metal cylinders
trucks moved in and out
Things we’ve never seen before
And we still placed corn seeds to earth
600 gallons of oil were spilled into the water near us this year
Closing access to waterways
poisoning all it touches
A danger greed refuses to see
And we still placed corn seeds to earth
We still call this home
Dad says corn is the gold
Our little soil bed of memories
A prayer held in seeds
Thousands of years old
Corn gives us life when life around us
is changing
We both ended up here
Trying to find new ways to be
New places to plant
To grow
And grow
And grow
We still call this home
Speaking Tree by Joy Harjo, 2015. (U.S. Poet Laureate, Myskoke Creek nation)
I had a beautiful dream I was dancing with a tree —Sandra Cisneros
Some things on this earth are unspeakable:
Genealogy of the broken—
A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre,
Or the smell of coffee and no one there—
Some humans say trees are not sentient beings,
But they do not understand poetry—
Nor can they hear the singing of trees when they are fed by
Wind, or water music—
Or hear their cries of anguish when they are broken and bereft—
Now I am a woman longing to be a tree, planted in a moist, dark earth
Between sunrise and sunset—
I cannot walk through all realms—
I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—
What shall I do with all this heartache?
The deepest-rooted dream of a tree is to walk
Even just a little ways, from the place next to the doorway—
To the edge of the river of life, and drink—
I have heard trees talking, long after the sun has gone down:
Imagine what would it be like to dance close together
In this land of water and knowledge. . .
To drink deep what is undrinkable
The Council of Pronghorns by Terry Tempest Williams, 2011
We, the Council
of Pronghorn
have convened
as witnesses
to this moment
in time
when our eyes
wish to peer
into the hearts
of humans
and ask
what kind
of world
are you creating
when we can
no longer
run as Windhorses
but are relegated
to watching
behind fences
dreaming, dreaming
of Spirit
Migrations?
An Earth Song by Langston Hughes, 1925
It's an earth song,—
And I've been waiting long for an earth song.
It's a spring song,—
And I've been waiting long for a spring song.
Strong as the shoots of a new plant
Strong as the bursting of new buds
Strong as the coming of the first child from its mother's womb.
It's an earth song,
A body song,
A spring song,
I have been waiting long for this spring song
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier (after Wallace Stevens) by Craig Santos Perez, 2016 (poets.org)
I
Among starving polar bears,
The only moving thing
Was the edge of a glacier.
II
We are of one ecology
Like a planet
In which there are 200,000 glaciers.
III
The glacier absorbed greenhouse
gases.
We are a large part of the biosphere.
IV
Humans and animals
Are kin.
Humans and animals and glaciers
Are kin.
V
We do not know which to fear
more,
The terror of change
Or the terror of uncertainty,
The glacier calving
Or just after.
VI
Icebergs fill the vast ocean
With titanic wrecks.
The mass of the glacier
Disappears, to and fro.
The threat
Hidden in the crevasse
An unavoidable cause.
VII
Oh vulnerable humans,
Why do you engineer sea walls?
Do you not see how the glacier
Already floods the streets
Of the cities around you?
VIII
I know king tides,
And lurid, inescapable storms:
But I know, too,
That the glacier is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the glacial terminus broke,
It marked the beginning
Of one of many waves.
X
At the rumble of a glacier
Losing its equilibrium,
Every tourist in the new Arctic
Chased ice quickly.
XI
They explored the poles
For offshore drilling.
Once, we blocked them,
In that we understood
The risk of an oil spill
For a glacier.
XII
The sea is rising.
The glacier must be retreating.
XIII
It was summer all winter
It was melting
And it was going to melt
The glacier fits
In our warm-hands.
James Franco, I Was Born in Into a World, 2016
I was born into a world
Before recycling was a thing,
Before oil wars,
When the biggest world
Threat was nuclear.
The only extinct thing
Was the Dodo,
We consumed and junked.
Then we were told about
Droughts, and disappearing
Rainforests.
About melting ice caps,
And we fought Iraq
For a second time,
Like father like son,
We needed our oil
Because we didn’t want
Those electric cars.
At one time there were
Huge monsters that
Walked where we walk,
Nature swallowed them easy.
Or maybe you believe
It all started with Adam and Eve,
But they too were kicked
From the garden
As are we,
With our poison beaches
Run down towns
And our atmosphere
That kills.
I write a poem
And preach to the converted.
We send out loud messages
To ourselves,
That our world is dying:
1984, Blade Runner,
Armageddon, The Road.
I’ve yet to read a book,
Or watch a film about a future
I’d like to live in.
Fortunately for me,
I’ll die before the earth,
But I’d like a place for my
Computer chip self
To click and beep
In bright, clean happiness.
Maura Dooley, Still Life with Sea Pinks and High Tide, 2016
Thrift grows tenacious at the tide’s reach.
What is that reach when the water
is rising, rising?
Our melting, shifting, liquid world won’t wait
for manifesto or mandate, each
warning a reckoning.
Ice in our gin or vodka chirrups and squeaks
dissolving in the hot, still air
of talking, talking.
Matthew Olzmann, Letter to Someone Living 50 Years from Now, 2017
It begins with,
"Most likely, you think we hated the elephant,
the golden toad, the thylacine and all variations
of whale harpooned or hacked into extinction..."
Lynna Odel, November, 2020
It begins with,
"If I can't save us
then let me feel you
happy and safe
under my chin..."
Camille T Dungy, A Massive Dying Off, 2011
It begins with,
“When the fish began their dying you didn’t worry
you bought new shoes...”
For entire poem
Molly Fisk, Particulate Matter,2018 (about the CA wildfires)
It begins with,
“If all you counted were tires on the cars left in driveways and stranded beside the roads…”