Eco friendly reading recommendations!

Happy Sunday fellow eco concsiously minded. 

Today, I want to recommend some environmental literature that is still on my to-read list, that I think is worth reading: 

1st book out is "The Nature Fix" written by Florence Williams. From the recommendation at Amazon: "The Nature Fix demonstrates that our connection to nature is much more important to our cognition than we think and that even small amounts of exposure to the living world can improve our creativity and enhance our mood. In prose that is incisive, witty, and urgent, Williams shows how time in nature is not a luxury but is in fact essential to our humanity. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas―and the answers they yield―are more urgent than ever."

2nd book out is "Earth in Human Hands" by David Grinspoon. From Amazon: "For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made--up until this point, inadvertently--to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence."

I also have two recommendations of books that I have almost finished, but not written a review of yet, which is: 

"Silent Sprint revisited" by Conor Mark Jameson - (from Amazon) "American scientist and author Rachel Carson is said to have sparked the modern day environmental movement with the publication of Silent Spring in 1962. She made vivid the prospect of life without birdsong. But has her warning been heeded? Fifty years on, Conor Mark Jameson reflects on the growth of environmentalism since Silent Spring was published. His revealing and engaging tale plots milestone events in conservation, popular culture and political history in the British Isles and beyond, tracing a path through the half century since 'zero hour', 1962. Around this he weaves his own observations and touching personal experiences, seeking to answer the question: what happened to the birds, and birdsong, and why does it matter?" 

And my fourth book recommendations is one of those books that even thought you've finished it, you've never really finished with it - it is "The Ecology of Wisdom" by Arne Næss. From Amazon: "These writings, full of Naess’s characteristic enthusiasm, wit, and spiritual fascination with nature, provide a look into the remarkable philosophical underpinnings of his own social and ecological activism, as well as an inspiration for all those looking to follow in his footsteps. This is an essential anthology from one of modern environmentalism’s most important and relevant voices."

I hope these books can be an inspiration for furthering your environmental journey, and if you have any books on the topic that you can recommend, feel free to write them in the comments below. 

The world without us - by Alan Weisman

I started this book without knowing too much about its content, except that it would describe what will happen to our world if we were all to disappear tomorrow. With this seemingly bleak outlook I started reading, and was instantly surprised by, given the premises for the book, how little troublesome it was to read. 

First of all, the language is beautiful. With sentences like:

‘Unless humankind’s Faustian affair with carbon fuels ends up tipping the atmosphere past the point of no return, and runaway global warming transfigures Earth into Venus, at some unknown date glaciers will do so again.’  

Weisman does a good job at describing what will remain after us, mostly underground cities. But with chapters with names like ‘Polymers Are Forever’ and ‘The Petro Patch’ it’s easy to see where we are headed. It is an environmentalist book through and through. Weisman has gone to some great lengths and apparently traveled the world in the attempt to cover all our misdeeds towards the climate. 

What is most distressing however is not that the concrete will break up and New York will once again be a green canopy, but how long after the toxins we have engineered are staying in our environment. One example is PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) that we stopped using in the 70’s due to how animals who came in contact with it started mutating and changing gender. After remains of PCB were dug deep into the earth, that again found it’s way back into the water (spoiler: Everything finds it’s way back into the water), these toxins have now reappeared in the Arctic, where they are found in breastmilk in Innuit women, and in the fat tissues in seals and fish. 

Weisman leaves us with a thought on the choice ahead — if we as a species will bring the rest of Life with us, or tear it down, with a friendly reminder that we can't really do it alone if nature isn't with us. This is, to my belief, perhaps the core of this book, how closely we are linked with nature. 

If you are into in-debt explanations and a more naturalistic approach to climate change, this could well be the book for you.