Social Change

In The Nature of Nature, world-renowned environmental thinker and activist Vandana Shiva argues that food is the currency of life, a thread woven throughout the web of all life, indivisible from Earth and its natural systems. When this interdependence is ruptured—as it is now—the conditions for the “metabolic disorder” of climate change and countless other ecological imbalances come into being.

Scrolling through our daily newsfeeds we see violence and cruelty, turmoil and injustice, fake news and clickbait, and worsening environmental and social crises—just a few of the dark currents feeding a tidal wave of pessimism. In the face of so many challenges, how can we stay optimistic? And, more important, why should we? In The Bright Side, Sumit Paul-Choudhury answers these pressing questions, arguing that optimism is not only essential for overcoming the challenges we face, but also fundamental to human wellbeing

Vivek Chibber provides a clear and accessible map of how capitalism works, how it limits the power of working and oppressed people, and how to overcome those limits. The capitalist economy generates incredible wealth but also injustice.

With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our “fight” mentality. With an entire chapter unpacking the climate change denier’s point of view, he advocates for expanding our exclusive focus on carbon emissions to see the broader picture beyond our short-sighted and incomplete approach. This refocusing away from impending catastrophe and our inevitable doom cultivates meaningful emotional and psychological connections and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the Earth.

Many books teach the mechanics of using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to compete in business. But no book addresses how to harness the incredible power of social media to make a difference. The Dragonfly Effect shows you how to tap social media and consumer psychological insights to achieve a single, concrete goal.

In Electrify, Saul Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint - optimistic but feasible - for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith's plan can be summed up simply: Electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future.

Renowned investor and climate champion Tom Steyer has been on the forefront of the climate war for well over a decade, leveraging his investment expertise, business knowledge, and community-organizing skills to support sustainable climate solutions. In this accessible book, he explains how capitalism is an effective tool for scaling climate progress, offers his candid take on fossil fuel enablers, and explains why immediate action on the climate front will be an investment in our economy and our key to a healthy and viable future.

From renowned classicist Edith Hall, Aristotle's Way is an examination of one of history's greatest philosophers, showing us how to lead happy, fulfilled, and meaningful lives.

Rejecting the old Left/Right ideologies, Rand develops a more pragmatic view capable of delivering practical solutions to this critical problem. A renewed capitalism harnessed to the task is the only way we might replace fossil fuels fast enough to mitigate severe climate risk. If we leave our dogma at the door, Rand argues, we might just build an economy that survives the century.

When your work is inextricable from your identity, your community, and your own liberation, you need a unique praxis of care to sustain it—and for mission-driven activists, organizers, and changemakers working under oppressive systems, making space to center vital needs like rest, self-care, and healthy boundaries isn’t as simple as clocking out. Practicing Liberation reorients collective justice work toward a model that transforms the effects of injustice, harm, and oppressive systems into resilience, joy, and community care.

In The Environmentalist’s Dilemma, award-winning journalist Arno Kopecky zeroes in on the core predicament of our times: The planet may be dying, but humanity’s doing better than ever. To acknowledge both sides of this paradox is to enter a realm of difficult decisions: Should we take down the government or try to change it from the inside? Is it okay to compare climate change to Hitler? Is hope naive or indispensable? How do you tackle collective delusion? Should we still have kids? And can we take them to Disneyland?

A Harvard-trained lawyer and mediator tells busy couples how to stop fighting and start communicating. Listeners will learn how to identify the bad verbal habits, instinctive responses, and emotional reasoning that can cloud judgment and ultimately lead to the deterioration of otherwise healthy relationships. With exercises, examples, and sample scripts, Puhn's modern voice presents simple five-minute strategies to create immediate, positive changes and provide long-lasting communication skills that couples can continually employ when faced with conflict.

Dealing with social issues is uncomfortable, and often messy, but you can build habitats of trust where kids and adults can make their thinking visible and cultivate empathy; where expression, identity, and social literacy matter. There is no magic formula for making the world a better place. It happens in the moments we embrace discomfort and have candid conversations.

Un sincero y revelador análisis de las posibilidades energéticas de nuestro futuro. Así pues, este libro aborda temas tan importantes como la improbable y difícil tarea de descarbonizar el planeta, en parte por la estrecha relación entre la producción de alimentos y los combustibles fósiles, pero también destapa realidades incómodas, como la dependencia de las economías modernas respecto de la alta producción de amoníaco, metal, cemento y plástico.

Even as climate change dominates the headlines, many of us still think about it in the future tense—we imagine that as global warming worsens over the coming decades, millions of people will scatter around the world, fleeing famine and rising seas. What we often don’t realize is that the consequences of climate change are already visible, right here in the United States. In communities across the country, climate disasters are pushing thousands of people away from their homes.

It's easy to get discouraged by the headlines. It can often feel as if God has left the building, like we are on our own. We want to believe God's promises to us, and we search for signs of his continuing restoration of the world in which we live. Now, with passion and heart, two leading experts on Christianity and culture cut through the chaos and uncertainty to show listeners how God is powerfully active and intensely engaged in fulfilling his promise to restore all things unto himself.

Providing a post-COP26 perspective on the climate emergency, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide acknowledges that it is now practically impossible to keep this side of the 1.5°C dangerous climate change guardrail. The upshot is that we can no longer dodge the arrival of a disastrous, all-pervasive climate breakdown that will come. Bill McGuire explains the science behind the climate crisis, painting a blunt but authentic picture of the sort of world our children will grow old in, and our grandchildren grow up in, a world that we catch only glimpses of today.

We live in troubled times: climate crisis, war and authoritarian ‘populism’ are just some of the challenges we are currently facing. Never has there been such a need for a new approach to politics – nor such an opportunity for one.

The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide (CO2), and these CO2 emissions are a major driver of climate change. Carbon capture offers a path to climate change mitigation that has received relatively little attention. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Howard Herzog offers a concise guide to carbon capture, covering basic information as well as the larger context of climate technology and policy.

Most books about the environmental crisis are densely academic, depressingly doom-laden, and crammed with impersonal statistics. We Are the Weather is different--accessible, immediate, and with a single clear solution that individual readers can put into practice straight away. A significant proportion of global carbon emissions come from farming meat. Giving up meat is incredibly hard and nobody is perfect--but just cutting back is much easier and still has a huge positive effect on the environment.