It can be hard to confront the daily background hum of absolutely dire climate news. Through willful ignorance, political cowardice, and corporate greed we’ve all but insured our grandchildren life on a barely habitable planet. And yet there is much we can do—for each other, for our communities, for the natural world—to fight the inevitable, to undertake a rearguard action in a war against the most complicated enemy of them all: ourselves.
–Jonny Diamond, Editor in Chief
19 Writers on Where They Locate Hope Amidst Climate Change
Mary Annaïse Heglar • Jeff VanderMeer • Bill McKibben • Elizabeth Kolbert •
Omar El Akkad • Ben Okri • Heather Houser • Elizabeth Rush • Margaret Renkl • Megan Mayhew Bergman • Amy Brady • Sumanth Prabhaker • Ben Ehrenreich • Joanna Pocock • Michelle Nijhuis • Madeline ffitch • Steve Edwards •
Lauren Markham • Lydia Millet
How to Save the Planet, One Level of Change at a Time
One ball lobbed back and forth in climate change discussions is not just who’s to blame, but who should change their behaviors. Does it matter if one person recycles, when the vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from just a few corporations? At Lit Hub, we’ve been publishing experts on climate change since 2015. If there’s a consensus among them, it’s that there’s enormous room for change, at every level of impact. Here are a few ways in, as individuals, communities, governing bodies, and storytellers.
INDIVIDUAL
How to Help the Environment—and Yourself—by Fostering Insect-Friendly Habitats
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Would You Give Up Air-Conditioning If You Knew It Would Save the Planet?
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Lydia Davis on Making the Decision Not to Fly
COMMUNITY
Sustainability Sounds Good, But We Need Regenerative Farming
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Facing Crisis Together: On the Revolutionary Potential of Mutual Aid
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Finding Utopias Where We Can: On Hopeful Living as Resistance
GOVERNMENT
The Case for Nationalizing American Fuel Industries—Right Now
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We Need an Agroecological Revolution
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Would Meaningful Climate Change Policy Stand a Better Chance as a Centrist Issue?
GLOBAL
Naomi Klein’s Advice for the Next Generation of Climate Activists
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Climate Change is Here… So How Do We Adapt?
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Sir David Attenborough: Nature Shows That Prosperity Doesn’t Mean Endless Expansion
NARRATIVE
Meeting Climate Panic with Stories of Agency
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How Writing a Children’s Book is an Antidote to Doomsday Thinking
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How Contemporary Novelists Are Confronting Climate Collapse in Fiction
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Every Day is Earth Day: 365 Books to Start Your Climate Change Library
Part One: The Classics
Part Two: The Science
Part Three: Fiction and Poetry
Part Four: The Ideas
