Books
With an interest to expand my horizons and understand what is happening to our world, I have done a lot of reading in recent years. I encourage you to explore some of the books listed here, and feel free to discuss any of them with me.
See also my recommended podcasts.
Jason Hickel’s quintessential book on the relationship between colonialism, modern economics, poverty & global warming.
Less is More is the wake-up call we need. By shining a light on ecological breakdown and the system that’s causing it, Hickel shows how we can bring our economy back into balance with the living world and build a thriving society for all. This is our chance to change course, but we must act now.
To truly understand the impact the industrialized nations are having on the planet.
Regenesis is a breathtaking vision of a new future for food and for humanity. Drawing on astonishing advances in soil ecology, Monbiot reveals how our changing understanding of the world beneath our feet could allow us to grow more food with less farming. He meets the people who are unlocking these methods, from the fruit and vegetable grower revolutionising our understanding of fertility; through breeders of perennial grains, liberating the land from ploughs and poisons; to the scientists pioneering new ways to grow protein and fat. Together, they show how the tiniest life forms could help us make peace with the planet, restore its living systems, and replace the age of extinction with an age of regenesis.
To understand the world’s economy and why there is still so much poverty.
For decades we have been told a story: that development is working, that poverty is a natural phenomenon and will be eradicated through aid by 2030. But just because it is a comforting tale doesn’t make it true. Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms, and aid only helps to hide this.
Drawing on pioneering research and years of first-hand experience, The Divide tracks the evolution of global inequality – from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to the present day – offering revelatory answers to some of humanity’s greatest problems. It is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change for the better.
Ross Garnaut’s latest update (Oct 2022), updated for the elected Labor government.
Garnaut outlines new evidence that stronger and earlier action on climate change would be good for jobs and incomes, including in the old gas and coal communities and in rural and regional Australia. He looks at the challenges for the next federal government: how Australia can meet the objectives set at the Paris and Glasgow climate conferences – and the growing costs of not doing so. He shows that our national decisions matter greatly for the world.
The book that started it all for many of the current leaders in this field.
First published in 1977, this volume caused a sensation because of Daly’s radical view that “enough is best.” Today, his ideas are recognised as the key to sustainable development, and Steady-State Economics is universally acknowledged as the leading book on the economics of sustainability.
Published 1972 – The message of this book still holds today: The earth’s interlocking resources – the global system of nature in which we all live – probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology.
The book contains a message of hope, as well: Man can create a society in which he can live indefinitely on earth if he imposes limits on himself and his production of material goods to achieve a state of global equilibrium with population and production in carefully selected balance.
(I’ve not read this one, but have read updates, progress reports.)
In 1972 four young scientists at MIT wrote The Limits to Growth, which shocked the world and became an international best-seller. Using the World3 computer model, the authors looked toward the future, for the first time showing the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet. Now, armed with 30 additional years of data, these authors sound the alarm on humanity’s devastating effects on climate, water quality, fisheries, forests, and other imperiled resources.
I believe Kate Raworth’s model is applicable to urban and economic planning for nations, states and cities to bring them back within the planetary boundaries.
In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies the seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray – from selling us the myth of ‘rational economic man’ to obsessing over growth at all costs – and offers instead an alternative roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. Ambitious, radical and provocative, she offers a new cutting-edge economic model fit for the challenges of the 21st century.
The wonderfully poetic guide to the future beyond growth.
Capitalism is broken. The relentless pursuit of more has delivered climate catastrophe, social inequality and financial instability – and left us ill-prepared for life in a global pandemic. Tim Jackson’s passionate and provocative book dares us to imagine a world beyond capitalism – a place where relationship and meaning take precedence over profits and power. Post Growth is both a manifesto for system change and an invitation to rekindle a deeper conversation about the nature of the human condition.
The book that woke me up to the significance of every degree of warming.
At one degree – the world we are already living in – vast wildfires scorch California and Australia, while monster hurricanes devastate coastal cities. At two degrees the Arctic ice cap melts away, and coral reefs disappear from the tropics. At three, the world begins to run out of food, threatening millions with starvation. At four, large areas of the globe are too hot for human habitation, erasing entire nations and turning billions into climate refugees. At five, the planet is warmer than for 55 million years, while at six degrees a mass extinction of unparalleled proportions sweeps the planet, even raising the threat of the end of all life on Earth.
If you prefer science fiction over reference, then try this sci-fi set in the near future – strikingly real and current.
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis.
A meticulous description of the slow but steady impact that sea level rise will have on the world.
By century’s end, hundreds of millions of people will be retreating from the world’s shores as our coasts become inundated and our landscapes transformed. From island nations to the world’s major cities, coastal regions will disappear. Engineering projects to hold back the water are bold and may buy some time. Yet despite international efforts and tireless research, there is no permanent solution – no barriers to erect or walls to build – that will protect us in the end from the drowning of the world as we know it.
The Water Will Come is the definitive account of the coming water, why and how this will happen, and what it will all mean. As he travels across twelve countries and reports from the front lines, acclaimed journalist Jeff Goodell employs fact, science, and first-person, on-the-ground journalism to show vivid scenes from what already is becoming a water world.
Economic growth isn’t working, and it cannot be made to work. Offering a counter-history of how economic growth emerged in the context of colonialism, fossil-fueled industrialization, and capitalist modernity, The Future Is Degrowth argues that the ideology of growth conceals the rising inequalities and ecological destructions associated with capitalism, and points to desirable alternatives to it. Building on a vibrant field of research, it discusses the political economy and the politics of a non-growing economy. It charts a path forward through policies that democratise the economy, “now-topias” that create free spaces for experimentation, and counter-hegemonic movements that make it possible to break with the logic of growth.
A handbook and a manifesto, The Future Is Degrowth is a must-read for all interested in charting a way beyond the current crises.
The publication of Prosperity without Growth was a landmark in the sustainability debate. Its findings provoked controversy, inspired debate and led to a new wave of research building on its arguments and conclusions.
This substantially revised edition updates those arguments and considerably expands upon them. Jackson demonstrates that building a ‘post-growth’ economy is a precise, definable and meaningful task. He shows how the economy of tomorrow may be transformed in ways that protect employment, facilitate social investment, reduce inequality and deliver both ecological and financial stability.
Prosperity without Growth is no longer a radical narrative whispered by a marginal fringe, but an essential vision of social progress in a post-crisis world. Fulfilling that vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.
The world-renowned historian and intellectual Yuval Noah Harari envisions a near future in which we face a new set of challenges. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century and beyond – from overcoming death to creating artificial life.
It asks the fundamental questions: how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive power? And what does our future hold?
From Naomi Klein, author of the #1 international bestsellers, The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, a must-read on how the climate crisis needs to spur transformational political change
We seem to have given up on any serious effort to prevent catastrophic climate change. Despite mounting scientific evidence, denialism is surging in many wealthy countries, and extreme fossil-fuel extraction gathers pace. Exposing the work of ideologues on the right who know the challenge this poses to the free market all too well, Naomi Klein also challenges the failing strategies of environmental groups. This Changes Everything argues that the deep changes required should not be viewed as punishments to fear, but as a kind of gift. It’s time to stop running from the full implications of the crisis and begin to embrace them.
