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3 Reasons You Should Read a Book This Earth Day

Spring

Last Updated on April 24, 2023

Want to know how you can help the planet this Earth Day? Read a book about sustainability!

Let me explain why this matters: Reading can help us see things from a different perspective and expand our imagination. If we’re going to solve the climate crisis, we can’t just know the problem, we also have to imagine what a brighter future can look like.

3 Reasons You Should Read a Book This Earth Day

This post was sponsored by WorldCat.org. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

Reading books that contain these climate solutions helps us visualize what a world without plastic pollution or fossil fuels could look like. 

For Earth Day, I’ve collaborated with WorldCat.org, an online resource to find books in local libraries. I partnered with them to create a book list to help inspire others to shift towards zero waste.

This list can be found on WorldCat.org’s Sustainability topic page

The materials found in this list and WorldCat.org’s Sustainability topic page are intended to provide educators, parents, students, and the general public with an understanding of the most important and meaningful resources for Earth Day and sustainability throughout the year.  

I hope that this list and the other resources found on WorldCat.org’s Sustainability topic page and in libraries around the world educate people on things they can do to be more sustainable in their daily lives. 

Here are 3 simple reasons you should read a book this Earth Day (and some of my personal favorites).

3 Reasons You Should Read a Book This Earth Day

learn a new perspective

Learning about the climate crisis from a different perspective can be eye opening and informative. For example, the climate crisis disproportionately affects those who suffer from socioeconomic inequalities, including many people of color. 

Yet many of the voices we hear in the environmental movement are predominantly white males

The irony is Indigenous peoples protect 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity, although they comprise less than 5% of the world population. Not to mention many pipelines and even some renewables are often commissioned to be built on their land without their consent.

Learning to pass the mic and hear from often marginalized voices is essential to fighting climate change. BIPOC communities are those most impacted by the climate crisis, so they already have the solutions. We just need to listen. 

I suggest reading Robin Wall Kimmer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass. Kimmer is a Native American woman who is a mother, a scientist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

One of Kimmer’s messages in Braiding Sweetgrass is that a lot of environmental jargon is conveyed with fear and doom, and that humans are overall bad for nature. But Kimmer expresses that our earth needs us just as much as we need it. All flourishing is mutual: When we tend to the land, the land tends to us. 

Another unique perspective is A Terrible Thing to Waste by Harriet A. Washington, which talks about how Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers. 

Washington investigates how exposure to heavy metals, neurotoxins, deficient prenatal care, bad nutrition, and even pathogens are the chief agents responsible for harming communities of color and what can be done to remedy it.

Opening yourself up to these perspectives can make you a better advocate for the planet and its people.

3 Reasons You Should Read a Book This Earth Day

discover problems and their solutions

If a book only presents the problem without a solution, that’s just lazy. It also feeds into climate doomism, aka the belief that we’ve already done irreversible damage to the planet. 

That doesn’t fuel change or motivate anyone. And it isn’t true: There’s so much we can still do to help our earth.

This is why it’s important to focus on books that provide direct action tips that you can individually and collectively take. All of the books on my list offer this balance.

For example, in my book 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste, I don’t just present you with the plastic pollution problem, I give you over 101 different ways to solve it. While you don’t have to do all of them, doing even just one (like starting a compost heap or switching to reusable menstrual products) can make an incredible difference.

The thing about climate change is you can be overwhelmed with the complexity of the problem, but still fall in love with the solutions. No one solution will fix it all: But collectively, they have a lasting impact.

Reading a wide variety of books that address different environmental issues (and providing their solutions) can help with this. I suggest checking out my sustainable reading list here. 

RELATED: Best Books for Eco-Friendly and Sustainable Living

3 Reasons You Should Read a Book This Earth Day

find inspiration for a better future

In order to imagine a brighter future ahead, we need to have an image of what that could look like. Reading a book that illustrates this is the perfect way to envision a better future.

You may have noticed that a lot of fiction focuses on apocalyptic events and scenarios. If this is the narrative we are constantly being fed, it can be hard to imagine a positive future where everything works out.

There’s a lot of climate narrative that tells us “we have to stop global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius before things get bad.” What “bad” looks like is more extreme weather events and sea level rise, which affects our food supply, economy, and literally everything on earth.  

While this is absolutely true, and we’re already at 1.1 degrees celsius, we must never rely on fear mongering to dictate this message. And we can acknowledge the problem while also dictating (and acting on) the solutions. 

This is why I love the book All We Can Save: It not only has tons of different perspectives on the climate crisis, but also so many solutions. It inspires us to see, yes, we have lost a lot: But we can still save so much of our beautiful earth.  

A huge thank you to WorldCat.org for sponsoring this post! If you’d like to see my full  sustainability book recommendations, be sure to check them out here. Also, don’t forget to visit WorldCat.org’s Sustainability topic page to learn more about all the climate solutions out there.

So, will you be reading a book about sustainability for Earth Day this year? Will you be even more sustainable by borrowing the book from a library? Let me know in the comments!

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