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20 Sustainability Books for Your Summer Reading List

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Kelsy Black

The Sustainable Pittsburgh team has compiled some of their favorite reads on the many topics covered under the sustainability umbrella: equity, environmentalism, circular economy, food systems, diversity, and more. Be sure to look for them at your local bookstore or library!

Climate Change & Environment 

  • The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells
  • This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus The Climate by Naomi Klein
  • Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken
  • The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming by Eric Holthaus
  • Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway 
  • Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  • The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
  • The Overstory by Richard Powers (Bonus: Fiction!) 

Social Equity and Diversity

  • Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
  • The Tradition by Jericho Brown
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahisi Coates
  • How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Food Systems

  • Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity
    by Lester R. Brown
  • Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman
  • In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

Circular Economy

  • Green Swans: The Coming Boom In Regenerative Capitalism by John Elkington
  • The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability–Designing for Abundance by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
  • The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win by Jeffrey Hollender and Bill Breen

Sustainable Communities 

  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
  • Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
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Posted in Sustainable PGH InsiderTagged book list, circular economy, Climate Change, Diversity, food systems, social equity, sustainability, sustainability 101, sustainability reading, Sustainable communities

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