Reading Resources (plus podcasts and videos)

Please edit this wiki and share/recommend material you think might be useful to other members on this wiki. Things you might include in the listing are:

  • the topic of the reading
  • why you found the reading useful/interesting
  • who the intended audience for the reading might be
  • if the reading is behind a paywall, who’s paywall?

Books

Compost This Book suggested by @Nic_McPhee in the composting section.

Articles

Can tax save the planet? An article from Tortoise’s Trees: Saviours of the Planet series written by economist Chris Goodall. A straight forward non-technical explanation of how a carbon tax can work, some of the drawbacks and possible solutions.

REI’s Opt to Act Plan Recommended by @bormanann in the replies below, this article gives you a list of one environmentally friendly item a week to do. Begun December 2019 continuing through November 2020.

Academic article on Material Recycling and the Myth of Landfill Diversion Added elsewhere in this discourse by @EdB

Community Resilience Building Workshop, Summary of Findings, March 2022

Podcasts

Analysis, produced by the BBC, had an episode titled, Human vs The Planet that they described thus

How to think radically about the environment without being an eco-fascist.

As Covid-19 forced humans into lockdown, memes emerged showing the earth was healing thanks to our absence. These were false claims – but their popularity revealed how seductive the dangerous idea that ‘we are the virus’ can be.

At its most extreme, this way of thinking leads to eco-fascism, the belief the harm humans do to Earth can be reduced by cutting the number of non-white people.

But the mainstream green movement is also challenged by a less hateful form of this mentality known as ‘doomism’ – a creeping sense that humans will inevitably cause ecological disaster, that it’s too late to act and that technological solutions only offer more environmental degradation through mining and habitat loss.

What vision can environmentalists offer as an antidote to these depressing ideas? And how can green politics encourage radical thinking without opening the door to hateful ideologies?

You can also listen to it on the BBC web site here

39 Ways to Save the Planet made by the BBC in collaboration with The Royal Geographical Society

Some of the topics covered so far include:

  • Zero Carbon Farm
  • Bamboo is Better
  • Ocean Farmers
  • Siberian Rewilding
  • Sublime Seagrass

Each episode is less than 15 minutes long and they drop weekly. (About 20 episodes are already available as of 29th April 2021.)

Episodes are available from:

Videos

Three pioneers who predicted climate change (5mins) From BBCIdeas in partnership with The Open University. Also at this link you will find a series of of short videos about Sustainable Thinking. For example:

  • What if everyone in the world planted a tree? (3mins)
  • What’s behind denialism? (4mins)
  • Can fashion ever be sustainable? (4mins)
1 Like

Hi all, I just found this blog from REI, with helpful weekly steps to reduce waste and generally become more aware of how small steps, taken collectively, start to make bigger changes:

The Opt to Act Plan:
https://www.rei.com/blog/stewardship/the-opt-to-act-plan?cm_mmc=email_com_gm--bc_j4u--021520&ev36=18432635&rmid=j4u&riid=33820926&ev11=1&mi_u=33820926&obem=CmCOSaZpElkfuFgf1q7I0tbnVFzhHHLYl6b8Uq0bvHQ%3D&bc_lcid=t6351603883769856lw5859022674526208li0#February

2 Likes