Earth Day for Adults

Inspirational and motivational non-fiction reads for Earth Day.

Updated April 15, 2023
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The climate book
Thunberg, Greta
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER We still have time to change the world. From climate activist Greta Thunberg, comes the essential handbook for making it happen. You might think it's an impossible task: secure a safe future for life on Earth, at a scale and speed...
Fire and flood : a people's history of climate change, from 1979 to the present
Linden, Eugene
Paper Book
Winner of the American Meteorological Society's Louis J. Batton Book of the Year Award From a writer and expert who has been at the center of the fight for more than thirty years, a brilliant, big-picture reckoning with our shocking failure to address climate change. Fire and...
Heart to heart : a conversation on love and hope for our precious planet
Bstan-?dzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV
Paper Book
From His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mutt's cartoonist and award-winning author Patrick McDonnell comes a powerful and timely gem of a book on how to heal our relationship with the planet and each other. At the Dalai Lama's residence in Dharamsala, India, an...
Under a white sky : the nature of the future
Kolbert, Elizabeth
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? RECOMMENDED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND BILL...
The uninhabitable earth : life after warming
Wallace-Wells, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon."--Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY...
All we can save : truth, courage, and solutions for the climate crisis
Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER . Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward. "A powerful read that fills one with, dare I say . . . hope?"-The New York Times ...
A brief history of Earth : four billion years in eight chapters
Knoll, Andrew H.
Paper Book
Harvard's acclaimed geologist "charts Earth's history in accessible style" (AP) "A sublime chronicle of our planet." -Booklist, STARRED review How well do you know the ground beneath your feet  Odds are, where you're standing was once cooking...
Guardians of the valley : John Muir and the friendship that saved Yosemite
King, Dean
Paper Book
Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography *"We see through this book the immense power of language...to change the minds of lawmakers and tourists alike." --The New York Times Book Review *"A poignant portrait of an era when mere...
Full of life : exploring Earth's biodiversity
Thomas, Isabel
Paper Book
Science meets design in this graphically stunning introductory tour of Earth's amazing biodiversity This artful and accessible guide to Earth's Tree of Life - the reference tool used by scientists to organize the incredible variety of living things on our planet - helps young readers...
Fatal conveniences : the toxic products and harmful habits that are making you sick -- and the simple changes that will save your health
Olien, Darin
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling author of SuperLife and cohost with Zac Efron of the hit Netflix series Down to Earth, Darin Olien offers invaluable advice for addressing the health of our bodies and the health of the planet by identifying common products and behaviors that are...
The great displacement : climate change and the next American migration
Bittle, Jake
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the 2024 Carnegie Medal for Excellence "The Great Displacement is closely observed, compassionate, and far-sighted." --Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Under a White Sky The untold story of climate migration in the United...
The end of Eden : wild nature in the age of climate breakdown
Welz, Adam
Paper Book
New Yorker Best Book of the Year "Exquisite."-DAVID WALLACE-WELLS "At once an elegy and an exhortation."-ELIZABETH KOLBERT "A book that goes deeper than any before into the meaning of the climate breakdown for all the rest of creation."-BILL McKIBBEN...
Wasteland : the secret world of waste and the urgent search for a cleaner future
Franklin-Wallis, Oliver
Paper Book
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 BY THE NEW YORKER, THE GUARDIAN, and KIRKUS REVIEWS An award-winning investigative journalist takes a deep dive into the global waste crisis, exposing the hidden world that enables our modern economy--and finds out...
Crossings : how road ecology is shaping the future of our planet
Goldfarb, Ben (Environmental journalist)
Paper Book
Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they're practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as entirely alien forces of death and disruption. In Crossings,...
The parrot and the igloo : climate and the science of denial
Lipsky, David
Paper Book
In 1956, the New York Times prophesied that once global warming really kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deniers had control of the climate story, Senator James Inhofe and his family built an igloo on the Washington Mall and plunked a sign on top: AL GORE'S...
The devil's element : phosphorus and a world out of balance
Egan, Dan
Paper Book
A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 * A Smithsonian Staff Favorite of 2023 The New York Times best-selling author on the source of great bounty--and now great peril--all over the world. Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal...

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