The Climate Witness Project is blessed to have a great group of regional organizers across North America, working to mobilize people of faith and churches to live into our moral call and duty to care for creation. As we kick off the fall season, we asked each of them to recommend favorite books or current resources they are reading around the climate crisis. Here’s what they said:
“Presently, I am reading a book from Brian McLaren called The Galapagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey. I like how the descriptive nature of his writing creates a beautiful picture for the reader of God's world. The intent of the book is for the reader to take this journey to the Galapagos with him, the author. We are to be aware of how he is experiencing this trip to the Galapagos and how his spirit and his faith are being influenced by all of it. It has reminded me to stop and look at all the beauty around me and give praise to the Creator of all it. Brian McLaren has become an advocate for climate change and the ensuing issues. His books, Everything Must Change, and Life After Doom are other books that talk about these issues. Lots of great reading!”
The Galapagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey by Brian D. McLaren
Everything Must Change by Brian D. McLaren
Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart by Brian D. McLaren
““Doomscrolling” and diving deeper and deeper into the trouble the Creation is in can breed inaction and despair. We need to be clear-eyed, but we also need hope. There are several books out now that provide hope that leads to effective action. Data Scientist Hannah Ritchie’s Not the End of the World is one of these. She addresses 8 critical topics from air pollution to overfishing. While not sugar coating anything, she dispels the myths that the data doesn’t support and points the way to effective individual, corporate and policy action.”
Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie
“My recommendation would be Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is a well researched, believable, and profoundly thoughtful novel about how the near term future (perhaps 2050-2100, though he never states it explicitly) will play out as the climate crisis progresses. He manages to weave together compelling human stories, national and international policy efforts, ecological disasters, and social shifts in a way that is not at all utopian, but is ultimately hopeful. If you want a deep dive into a projection of all the global complexities of the climate crisis told in the form of a well-written story, this is your book. Additionally, Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart by Brian McLaren would be another suggestion. While I’m yet to read this next book myself, I have received very strong recommendations from a number of Christian leaders I highly respect. As I understand it, the book is about how the Christian movement can find its way into a new and life-giving expression in the context of the major and multi-faceted global suffering that is coming to us all through the progression of the climate crisis if we don’t take continued actions towards mitigation and repair.”
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart by Brian D. McLaren
“I’ve recently been engrossed in the continued study of the intimate interconnectedness of our relationship between the land, our foods, health and the climate crisis. This led me to a very interesting book by David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé called The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health. This book emphasizes that rebuilding soil health is essential for cultivating nutritious food, which leads to stronger, healthier bodies. It also details how interactions between people, animals, and soil microbes are crucial for building a healthy gut microbiome”
The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health by David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé
Regeneration is a beautiful work of hope, inspiration, and action, discussing diverse ways that communities across the globe are addressing climate change. Paul Hawken approaches the bold challenge of ending the climate crisis in one generation with rigor and realism, stating that while global warming is a decades-long journey, "ending the crisis means that by 2030 collective action by humanity will have reduced total greenhouse gas emissions by 45 to 50 percent." Hawkin then portrays stories of the varied ways this work takes place across nations, ecosystems, communities, and sectors. I love Regeneration because it's a beautiful coffee table book that I leave out to start conversations with guests, or pick up and page through the beautiful photography and gain some inspiration. Regeneration provides tangible ways to engage the masses in climate action, focusing on a strategy of synthesizing and building rather than fighting or combatting.
Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation by Paul Hawken
So We and Our Children May Live - Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis by Sarah Augustine and Sheri Hostetler (2023)
From co-author Sarah, a Pueblo descendant, I was reminded of the long view that reveals that the profit focused consumer cultures and economies we are immersed in are relatively new creations. This begs the question of how people of faith can create new cultures and economies centered on God's vision of the flourishing of the whole creation. Sarah points to Indigenous cultures as a source of radically different cultures and economies. I was reminded by Sheri, a Mennonite, that yet today there are Amish and Mennonite communities that model setting limits around consumption of energy and tech. Together, Sarah and Sheri make a compelling point that the root of the climate change problem is cultures and economies based on the myth of limitless growth through limitless extraction and consumption. Shifting to a green economy without addressing the structural injustices in our cultures and economies continues the myth of limitless extraction. Instead, they say, "We need to divest from systems of death emotionally, intellectually, imaginatively, theologically and economically. We need to begin to imagine and build new economic and cultural structures that are in alignment with the Kingdom of God." (pg161) Study guide available.
On Care for our Common Home - Encyclical Letter Laudato Si by Pope Francis by Pope Francis (2015)
Pope Francis took the name Francis after St. Francis of Assisi. Francis of Assisi was known for many things - including a very unique relationship with nature. In Catholicism, Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of ecology and the patron saint of animals. In the song Canticle of the Sun, Francis of Assisi refers to Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, and Sister Water. And Francis sees all these brothers and sisters as offering praise to God who created all things - including humans. Pope Francis holds Francis of Assisi as a model of relationship with the non-human creation and calls for an "ecological conversion" "Living our vocation to be protectors of God's handiwork is essential to a live of virtue; it is not an option or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience". This book has birthed the Laudato Si Movement - a Catholic movement for ecological and climate justice that partners with all people of good will.
Our Regional Organizers are here to guide and assist you on your climate action and justice journey. If you would like to connect with any of them in your region, please contact us at cwp@crcna.org and we would be happy to put you in touch with them and get you started.
Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
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