Haven’t thought about gifts for the holidays yet? We’ve done the work for you with something for everyone on our bi-annual best books list.
When the Climate & Capital Media team started pulling together lists of climate-related books four years ago, there were far fewer new works to review. But the number has been growing rapidly, with the publication of a diverse array of new fiction and nonfiction books that demonstrate how much the issue of climate change and our efforts to address it dominate our news, work, and thinking. For the first time, our list includes a Booker Prize winner — Orbital, by British writer Samantha Harvey — a science novel that uniquely reflects our earth. The Climate & Capital team wishes you and yours a restful holiday and hope you’ll have some downtime to dive into some of these great reads.
– Blair Palese
Juice
by Tim Winton
Arguably Australia’s most beloved and talented writer, Tim Winton has produced an epic and genre-breaking dystopian work that may well be his magnum opus. Set in the nearly unlivable, overheated future, Juice is all about climate justice. The world, ravaged by climate change, is so hot it feels like “the sun ate everything in sight.” When Winton’s unnamed narrator is 17 he is abducted and, eventually, voluntarily signs up with a secret resistance force that takes him — and us — on page-turning exploits against those who “knew what was coming, what it was costing,” but did the damage anyway. At the time of publishing, Winton said, “my American publishers won’t publish it. That could be because I’m a bad bet. I’d hate to think it was because they were too afraid.” A challenging read but essential for anyone worried about our climate-changed future.
– Blair Palese
Hear Tim Winton talk about Juice in an ABC interview.
What if We Get it Right
by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Is there an antidote to rising climate anxiety? Author and scientist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson thinks so. In a literary landscape often saturated with environmental despair, her book, What if we get it Right emerges as a beacon of transformative optimism. It’s not merely a book about climate change but a bold reimagining of our collective potential.
Johnson, a marine biologist, dismantles the traditional narrative of ecological fatalism. Her approach is refreshingly radical: Instead of cataloging impending disasters, she invites readers to envision a world where humanity successfully navigates the climate crisis.
The book’s strength lies in its interdisciplinary approach. Johnson assembles a mosaic of voices — scientists, activists, indigenous leaders — creating a rich tapestry demonstrating climate solutions’ multifaceted nature.
Her most compelling argument centers on collective imagination. By shifting from a narrative of survival to one of creative transformation, Johnson suggests we can design more equitable, sustainable societies.
– Peter McKillop
The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It (out 2 January 2025)
by Genevive Guenther
Want to understand how the fossil fuel industry has been bullshitting you and why it is so effective? Genevieve Guenther’s soon to be released book is for you. With surgical precision, Guenther dissects the linguistic sleight of hand that has long shielded fossil fuel interests from serious climate accountability. The work is less a traditional environmental treatise and more a forensic examination of how six seemingly innocuous words — alarmist, cost, growth, “India and China,” innovation and resilience — have become potent tools of climate delay.
Guenther, a former Renaissance scholar turned climate communication strategist, reveals how these terms function as rhetorical barriers, transforming climate inaction from a moral failure into a reasonable policy position to deflect urgent environmental transformation.
But Guenther’s book doesn’t just expose linguistic manipulation; she provides a roadmap for resistance, targeting mainstream Democrats who acknowledge climate change but resist radical action.
Provocative, precise, and unflinching, this work is a linguistic battering ram against the fortress of fossil fuel propaganda. Guenther demonstrates that in the battle against climate change, words are as crucial as wind turbines and solar panels.
– Peter McKillop
Nuclear is not the Solution: the Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change
by MV Ramana
Nowadays, it seems every billionaire, private equity titan and tech bro in the world is eager to bring back nuclear power. We suggest they read M.V. Ramana’s “Nuclear is Not the Solution” before they dump billions of dollars of other people’s money into a fundamentally flawed nuclear future. The book is a forensic takedown of atomic energy’s grand promises but reads more like a scientific thriller than a scientific text.
Ramana exposes the truth lost in the fantasies of Bill Gates and other nuclear renaissance proponents. He meticulously exposes the economic black hole of the nuclear infrastructure — astronomical costs, decades-long construction timelines, and a track record of spectacular budget overruns.
What distinguishes this work is Ramana’s global perspective. He doesn’t just critique Western nuclear programs but examines atomic energy’s complex geopolitical landscape, from India’s nuclear ambitions to the worldwide proliferation risks embedded in civilian nuclear technologies.
The author is particularly devastating when discussing safety. Nuclear accidents aren’t theoretical scenarios but documented catastrophes — Chernobyl, Fukushima — each representing systemic failures that extend far beyond immediate radiation risks.
But he doesn’t just argue against nuclear power; he reimagines our entire approach to energy infrastructure. Ramana promotes scalable renewable solutions that can be deployed rapidly and cost-effectively — that is, the opposite of utopian nuclear fantasies that are already transforming global energy landscapes.
– Peter McKillop
Green is the New Red
by Will Potter
Will Potter’s Green is the New Red raises an important question as America braces for Trump 2.0: Could protesters and activists — think animal rights, climate and biodiversity — be designated “domestic terrorists” and jailed for their efforts? It is a chilling possibility in a post-9/11 America.
Potter has experienced the scrutiny of federal agencies firsthand. He recounts harrowing stories, such as that of Eric McDavid, who endured nearly a decade in prison for conspiracy charges stemming from dubious informant activities. These accounts serve not only to illustrate the chilling effects of governmental overreach but also to highlight the broader societal implications of equating nonviolent protest with terrorism.
Potter’s writing is engaging and accessible, blending investigative journalism with personal anecdotes. His central thesis is that mislabeling activists undermines civil liberties and threatens the very fabric of democratic engagement. Does anyone have an over-under on who Trump will name and shame as the first climate “domestic terrorists?”
– Peter McKillop
600ppm: A novel of Climate Change
by Clarke W. Owens
In 600ppm, the author envisions a harrowing future where the climate crisis has fully unfolded. Set in 2051, the novel depicts a United States fractured by environmental collapse: coastal cities are submerged, the Midwest is a barren desert, and resources are strictly rationed. Against this backdrop, Jeff Claymarker, a disillusioned 26-year-old, becomes entangled in a conspiracy after his friend is falsely accused of murder.
Owens’s strength lies in his world-building, vividly portraying the grim consequences of political inaction. The novel is part thriller, part cautionary tale, as Jeff uncovers a government secret with devastating implications. While occasionally weighed down by expository moments, 600ppm remains gripping and timely, urging readers to confront the urgency of our climate future. Owens’s characters, particularly Jeff, lend emotional depth to this dystopian narrative. The result is a chilling and thought-provoking novel that asks not just what might happen if we fail to act, but what it means to fight for a better world.
– Peter McKillop
Plastic
by Scott Guild
The first sentence says it all: “The episode opens on a plastic woman driving home from work.” Is this life or a show? Is the central character Erin a plastic humanoid whose joints leak toxins in the heat, or a person with thoughts, emotions and desires? Yes, of course.
Plastic is tailored for the digital age: “smart,” ironical and funny, with loose threads of longing and truncated spiritualism. It’s at once dystopian and hopeful, futuristic and yet oddly real, right now, in this age of climate crisis and plastic everywhere around us, and confusion over what to do about that, or whether even to pay attention to it, and how to live life at this deceptively perfectly fine and yet apocalyptic moment.
Plastic has rightly been compared to Barbie, but it also recalls those other profound beguilers, Brazil, The Truman Show, and One Hundred Years of Solitude. But it’s completely different, of course. Crypto-era catchy and contemporary. It’ll make you think, and imagine.
– Barclay Palmer
Orbital
by Samantha Harvey
The Booker Prize’s first novel set in space, Orbital, is a stunningly-written homage to Earth. Six astronauts from five countries orbit our planet on board the international space station 16 times a day. Harvey describes in incredibly realistic detail what life on a 356-foot (109 meter) station is like and the metaphysical reflections such an existence conjures up for those who live the experience. Earth is “fluid and lustrous,” and even, amazingly, “unearthly.” Harvey calls her short novel “space pastoral.” Throughout, she lays out the impact of our space travel ambitions alongside the urgency of our global climate crisis. As holiday reads go, you can’t do better than the opportunity Orbital gives us all to consider how rare our small blue-green planet — the only known place in the universe where life as we know it can thrive — really is.
– Blair Palese
Planet Aqua: Rethinking our Place in the Universe
by Jeremy Rifkin
In his latest environmental discourse, Jeremy Rifkin shatters conventional wisdom with Planet Aqua, a radical manifesto that reframes our understanding of Earth. Rifkin argues that we have critically misunderstood our planetary home, by viewing it as a land planet when it is, in fact, fundamentally a water planet.
So what does that matter? Rifkin argues that our current infrastructure and economic models need to be more connected to water’s intrinsic life-giving properties. The book details how climate change is triggering a “hydrosphere rebellion,” with water systems dramatically reshaping global ecosystems. Rifkin’s proposals are equally bold — suggesting legal rights for rivers, distributed water networks, and a comprehensive “Blue Economy” strategy.
Planet Aqua is more than a book; it’s a call to fundamental societal transformation. Rifkin challenges readers to reconsider every aspect of human organization: how we engage with nature, pursue science, govern societies, and conceptualize economic life.
Planet Aqua is an essential read for policymakers, environmentalists and anyone concerned about our planet’s future.
– Peter McKillop
Navigating the Polycrisis: Mapping the Futures of Capitalism and the Earth
by Michael J. Albert
Many of us can recall vividly that moment when we realize that something icky or tedious that we feel forced to do — such as eating spinach, exercising or flossing our teeth — suddenly tastes delicious or makes us feel miraculously better.
Such is this book because, let’s face it, who wants to navigate the polycrisis? It’s already weighing heavily on us even as we avert our eyes, and take little nibbles when we have to.
This book, an apparent assignment from a Scottish professor, openly reviews our “age of interconnected systemic crises with no clear end in sight,” complete with “deeper challenges… from the climate and mass extinction crises to future pandemics… an unsustainable and unstable global food system, the brewing new cold war… populism… the nascent threat of weaponized synthetic biology, and the destabilizing impacts of artificial intelligence on work, war, and human freedom.”
And yet, as if recalling the oft-quoted life lessons from the children’s book, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Albert shows that only by going through these issues rather than trying (and failing) to go around them, can we get to the proverbial “other side.” He notes that with “an optimism of the will… transformation during this century of upheaval is possible… worth believing in and fighting for… and can even allow us to (discover) joy.”
Try this spinach. You might unexpectedly like it.
– Barclay Palmer
The Disaster Tourist
by Yun Ko-eun
This darkly satirical novel follows Yona, a programming coordinator for Jungle, a company specializing in tours to disaster-stricken areas -— and explores the degree to which the pursuit of profit drives our climate crisis.
When Yona is sent to evaluate a failing tour on the island of Mui, she uncovers a plot to fabricate an environmental catastrophe to boost tourism. Yun Ko-eun blends elements of eco-thriller, feminist narrative, and social commentary into a compact critique of unchecked capitalism and its impact on both human lives and the environment.
The narrative takes unexpected turns, eventually shifting from a slow-burning critique to a fast-paced thriller. It’s a timely and unsettling read that will leave readers questioning their own relationship with disaster narratives and the ethics of tourism in vulnerable communities. This book, first published in Korean in 2020 and then translated for English readers only gets more relevant as time passes.
– Kari Huus
