The 50th anniversary of Earth Day will be celebrated on Wednesday, April 22!
On the days leading up to Earth Day and beyond, do make sure to enjoy the lovely scent of fresh air and fragrant blossoms, clean up some litter, plant a tree, or simply enjoy companionship with nature!
Here are some other ways to exercise your responsibilities toward planet Earth while social distancing.
And listed below are ebooks (available on Overdrive) that will help you think about the earth you inhabit, and the part you can play in conserving natural resources and ensuring their sustainability for future generations.
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal
Explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition—in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos—to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan
The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans.
The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen
As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet’s history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet’s five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future
The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac
The authors outline two possible scenarios for our planet. In one, they describe what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a carbon neutral, regenerative world. They argue for confronting the climate crisis head-on, with determination and optimism.
How to Give Up Plastic: A Guide to Changing the World, One Plastic Bottle at a Time by Will McCallum
An accessible guide to the changes we can all make—small and large—to rid our lives of disposable plastic and clean up the world’s oceans
101 Ways To Go Zero Waste by Kathryn Kellogg
This is a practical, friendly blueprint of realistic lifestyle changes for anyone who wants to reduce their waste.
The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren
Illuminates the link between human habits and our imperiled planet. Hope takes us through the science behind the key inventions—from electric power to large-scale farming to automobiles—that, even as they help us, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like never before.
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush
Rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. This book guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place.
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells
This is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress.
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer
We have turned our planet into a farm for growing animal products, and the consequences are catastrophic. Only collective action will save our home and way of life. And it all starts with what we eat—and don’t eat—for breakfast.
Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River by David Owen
An eye-opening account of where our water comes from and where it all goes. How a patchwork of engineering marvels, byzantine legal agreements, aging infrastructure, and neighborly cooperation enables life to flourish in the desert —and the disastrous consequences we face when any part of this tenuous system fails.
-Archana, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian