Unlike another much-discussed problem of the moment, “there is no vaccine for climate change,” says social researcher Rebecca Huntley, whose How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference is one of several forthcoming titles that urge the public to step up.
Can Fixing Dinner Fix the Planet?
A professor of global food policy and ethics at Johns Hopkins, Fanzo has spent decades researching nutrition across four continents. Her book examines “how food systems could be changed to promote healthy, sustainable, and equitable diets,” she writes, and details “actions we must take as individuals and as members of local, national, and international communities” in order to preserve the environment and sustain societies worldwide.
The Climate Diet
Greenberg, whose 2010 look at the commercial fishing industry, Four Fish, won a James Beard award, suggests 50 steps toward reducing one’s carbon footprint. Data-bolstered tips include driving more responsibly—engine idling, he writes, accounts for 1.6% of annual U.S. carbon emissions—and switching from a gas stove to an electric one (a move that may not sit well with some of the James Beard crowd).
The Day the World Stops Shopping
Canadian journalist MacKinnon tackles what he refers to as “the consumer dilemma”: buy less and the economy collapses, buy more and you’re contributing to climate change. He contrasts the materialism of the big-box store–dependent United States with the subsistence culture of a hunter-gatherer society in Namibia, for instance, and discusses the “countercurrents to consumer culture flowing, whispering of other ways we could live.”
Every Day Is Earth Day
Climate facts and accompanying graphics are presented in a gift-ready package on colorful, 100% Forest Stewardship Council–certified paper. Dyer details a three-point plan for effectively washing dishes by hand rather than in the dishwasher, and devotes a two-page spread to celebrating a more environmentally friendly Christmas, among other tips.
How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference
In this “self-help guide for the climate age,” as Huntley calls the book in the introduction, the author, a social researcher in Australia and a member of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Corps, encourages more inclusive, and more heartfelt, conversations. She addresses the various emotions that arise in discussions about climate change, with the goal of leaving readers “better equipped to talk about the climate with the people around you.”
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