So many books, so few days! I’m not going to even get to a whole raft of significant ones! Arrrrgh! What’s a person to do?
Cheat, of course.
So today, I’m sharing two books on a theme: The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy, by Michael Mann and Tom Toles, and Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation, by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda.
Eminent climate scientist Michael Mann (Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State) and Washington Post political cartoonist Tom Toles collaborated to produce The Madhouse Effect, a primer on climate change that debunks many climate change denial arguments and explains why we humans really do need to act—and quickly—to keep the worst from happening. By the way, if you want to really learn about the science of climate change, Mann is presenting a free on-line college course on climate science for non-scientists on the MOOC website EdX. (I’m currently taking the course myself.)
In Resisting Structural Evil, author Cynthia Moe-Lobeda presents a vision of environmental and social justice rooted in her deep study of Christian ethics. (It happens that I went to middle school with Cynthia, although she was one grade ahead of me and I didn’t know her well, but we inhabited overlapping social circles.) The book argues that Christian teachings and tradition impel believers to recognize their responsibility for all interconnected life on this planet, and describes how some Christian churches have responded to the ecological crisis based on this awareness.
There are so many more books I would like to recommend on this topic, but will stop at two for now. I think these are a good place to start reading. Your future self will thank you.