Alexander, B. Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis. Johns Hopkins UP, 2023.  Yale Climate Connections review here.

Aron, A.R. (2023). The Climate Crisis: Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social Movements. Cambridge.  An excellent overview of many intersecting aspects of the climate crisis, suitable for advanced undergraduates or specialists looking for the bigger picture. Website here.  Available online at McHenry Library.  

Berger, J.J.  Solving the Climate Crisis: Frontline Reports from the Race to Save the Earth. Seven Stories Press, 2023.

Dietz, M. and Garelts, T.  (2014). Routledge handbook of the climate change movement.  Dated but worth looking at in historical context.  

Eckberg, K. , Forchtner, B., Hultman, M., and Jylhä, K.M. (2023). Climate obstruction: How denial, delay, and inaction are heating the planet. Routledge.  Review here.

Fressoz, J.B.  (2024). More and more and more: An all-consuming history of energy.  Harper-Collins. The long-awaited English version of Sans transition by the celebrated French historian of science and energy.  Also recommended: Fressoz’s Chaos in the heavens: A forgotten history of climate change (2024), Happy apocalypse: A history of technological risk (2024)  and The shock of the anthropocene: The Earth, history, and us (2017). 

 

From the publisher’s summary: 

We have long been taught that humanity’s relationship with energy is one of progress, with wood superseded by coal, coal by oil, oil by nuclear—until at some future point everything will be replaced by “green” energy. But the long-held belief in transition and sustainability is completely untrue, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz argues….More and More and More forces readers to confront hard truths, including how “transition” was originally promoted by energy companies, not as a genuine plan, but as a way to put off any meaningful change. 

Friedemann, A. (2021). Life after fossil fuels: A reality check on alternative energy. Springer  Friedemann is also author of When the trucks stop running: Energy and the future of civilization (Springer, 2016), and you can find her blog and extensive resources here.

Grasso, Mark, ed. (2025). Emerging themes in climate obstruction: A PLOS mini-collection.  Overview and individual article links here.

Hawken, P.  (2025).  Carbon: The Book of Life.    A useful reminder that we don’t have a carbon/climate problem, but a cultural problem. Eloquently evocative of all that connects us; popular science writing at its best from the author of Drawdown and Regeneration. Review here.

Johnson, A.E., ed. (2024). What if we get it right? Visions of climate futures. Penguin/One World. Edited volume of conversations, poetry, data, and art with scholars, activists, and cultural luminaries from Bill McKibben to Colette Pinchon Battle to Adam McKay to Wendell Berry.  Substack and supplemental website here.

→ Also recommended: Johnson and Katherine Wilkinson’s All we can save: Truth, courage, and solutions for the climate crisis. 2020.  Penguin/One World. Website supplementing the book: All we can save project.

Malm, A. and Carton, W. (2025). Verso. The long heat: Climate politics when it’s too late.  The latest installment by the acclaimed (and controversial) ecological historian Andreas Malm, author of Fossil capital: The rise of steam power and the roots of global warming (2015, Verso), How to blow up a pipeline: Learning to fight in a world on fire (2020, Verso), The progress of this storm: Nature and society in a warming world, White skin, black fuel: On the dangers of fossil fascism (with the Zetkin Collective, 2021, Verso),  Fighting in a world on fire: The next generation’s guide to protecting the climate and saving the future (Verso, 2023), Overshoot: How the world surrendered to climate breakdown (with W. Carton, 2024, Verso) and The destruction of Palestine is the destruction of the Earth (2025, Verso). 

Mann, M. Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis.  Public Affairs 2023.  Science News review here.

Marschner, N., Richter, C., Patz, J., and Salheizer, A., eds. (2024). Contested Climate Justice – Challenged Democracy:  International Perspectives.  The internationally and disciplinarily diverse authors of these 14 academic essays cover climate obstructionism from the greenwashing of the Japanese government to extractivism and environmental racism in Chile to culture wars in Spain to a quite interesting “A Typology of Climate Obstruction.”

Morris, H.E.  (2025). Apocalyptic authoritarianism: Climate crisis, media, and power.  Oxford UP. From the publisher’s summary: “Media scholar Hanna E. Morris reveals how national anxieties following the 2016 presidential election have shaped American news coverage of climate change in ways that severely limit how it has come to be known, imagined, and contended with.”

Neubauer, L. and Repenning, A. (2023). Beginning to end the climate crisis: A history of our future. Trans. and annotated by S. von Mering.  Brandeis UP.  Two European activists offer an inspiring overview of the (esp. youth) European climate justice movement.

Otto, Friedericke.  (2025). Climate inequality: Why we  need to fight global inequality to combat climate change.  Greystone. Comparing the differential effects of eight extreme weather events on different societies, climatologist and co-founder of the World Weather Attribution organization Otto makes the case that fighting climate change alone is not enough. Yale Climate Connections interview with the author here.

→ Supplemental reading: Huber, Matt. (2022). Climate change as class war: Building socialism on a warming planet.  Verso.

Prasad, R. R.  (2025). The role of universities in climate change adaptation and mitigation: A case study of Fiji and Indonesia.  Springer.

Reimers, F.  (2021). Education and climate change: The role of universities. Springer.

Solnit, R. Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility. 2023.  Review here.

Stephens, J. (2024, Dec.) Climate justice and the university: Shaping a hopeful future for us all. Johns Hopkins UP.  From the publisher’s summary:

Amid the worsening climate crisis and intensifying inequities, higher education can play a powerful role in addressing the intersecting crises facing humanity. Institutions of higher education hold untapped potential to advance social justice and reduce climate injustices. However, universities are not yet structured to accelerate social change for the public good. In Climate Justice and the University, Jennie Stephens reimagines the potential of higher education to advance human well-being and promote ecological health.

Von Mering, S. et al, eds. (2025). Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism.  654 pages.  Absolutely comprehensive and inspiring!  From the publisher summary: 

The Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism introduces contemporary forms of grassroots climate activism from around the world through the lenses of a variety of academic disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. Focusing on bottom-up case studies, it showcases innovative and creative approaches, as well as the knowledge of those working towards swift decarbonisation, just transitions, and climate justice.