CLIMATE JUSTICE RESOURCES
Books and Articles on:
Race, Climate and Race and Climate - Grandmothers are recommending:
NON-FICTION BOOKS
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz Beacon Press, 2014
The third of a series of six ReVisioning books which reconstruct and reinterpret U.S. history from marginalized peoples' perspectives.
We are the Land: A History of Native California, by Damon B. Akins & William J. Bauer Jr., University of California Press, 2021. This book is the most comprehensive examination of its kind, centering the long history of California around the lives & legacies of the Indigenous people who shaped it. Recounts the centrality of the Native presence from before European colonization through statehood—paying close attention to the persistence & activism of California Indians in the late 20th & early 21st centuries. An eminently readable text designed to fill the glaring need for an accessible overview of California Indian history.
Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, Deborah Miranda, Heyday Books, 2013. In this beautiful & devastating book – part tribal history, part lyric & intimate memoir, the author tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, news clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems.
Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing by Clayton Thomas Mueller. This is a very compelling book about an urban Cree man, and his journey towards becoming the highly respected climate activist leader that he is today. This is an unusual book that is filled with insight, spirit, wisdom, inspiration and reality.
Reparations Now Toolkit, m4bl.org, 2020. https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/reparations/
This Toolkit explores the long history of struggles for reparations for Black people, lays out key facts, concepts, and international human rights law underlying reparations demands, & provides case studies of struggles for reparations at the institutional, local, state, and international levels. The toolkit was created to provide a foundational definition of what reparations are, to advance the argument that reparations are essential, and to support organizers seeking reparations…in order to advance our collective struggles for Black liberation.
Hoodwinked in the Hothouse: Resist False Solutions to Climate Change by climatefalsesolutions.org, 3rd edition 2021. Free online. Easy-to-read, concise-yet-comprehensive compendium of the false corporate promises that continue to hoodwink elected officials and the public, leading us down risky pathways poised to waste public dollars on a host of corporate snake-oil schemes & market-based mechanisms. Hoodwinked provides a robust framework for understanding the depth of real solutions and how they should be determined. Instructive for activists, impacted communities and organizers.
A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis. Vanessa Nakate, Harper Books, 2021. This is a first book by a young Ugandan woman climate activist who has brought Africa’s plight into the picture of world-wide climate justice. You may remember that she was the one whose image was cropped out of a photo of 5 white climate activists at the World Economic Form in 2020. She says, “In the end, you know, we cannot eat coal, we cannot drink oil.”
Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America. Katie Worth, Columbia Global Reports, 2021. A thin little gem that reviews where this country is at in terms of the climate crisis and the ways in which the fossil fuel industry is hard at work to limit climate education in public schools AND how courageous teachers are bucking those forces with great creativity. If you think CA is representative of the climate curriculum across this country, you really need to read this book.
ORGANIZATIONS:
350.org, International movement working to stop and ban all fossil fuel projects by cutting off financing through divestment & defunding. Works for a fast & just transition to 100% renewable energy by supporting community-led energy solutions. 350bayarea.org is building a grassroots climate movement in the Bay Area so that all who live here equitably share clean air, water & soil in a safe, healthy & thriving post-carbon future.
Thirdact.org is people over the age of 60 mustering political and economic power to move Washington & Wall Street in the name of a fairer, more sustainable society & planet. Campaigns: Protect Our Vote & Bug the Banks to cut the financial lifeline of the fossil fuel industry.
Sierraclub.org seeks to explore, enjoy, & protect the wild places of the earth; to promote the responsible use of the earth’s ecosystems & resources; & to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.
Honorearth.org (Honor the Earth) works to create awareness & support for Native environmental issues & to develop needed financial & political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities. Established by Winona LaDuke & others in Anishinaabe Territory in Minnesota, Honor the Earth is committed to restoring a paradigm that recognizes our collective humanity & our joint dependence on the Earth.
Stopline3.org organizes, educates, and advocates to stop Line 3, built by Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline company responsible for the largest inland oil spill in the U.S. Line 3 has expanded a dying tar sands industry & violated the treaty rights of the Anishinaabe peoples by crossing numerous watersheds in Minnesota which are central to the cultivation of heritage wild rice.
Stopthemoneypipeline.com Coalition of over 175 organizations holding the financial backers of climate chaos accountable with multiple campaigns demanding that financial institutions stop funding, insuring, and investing in climate destruction, e.g. BlackRock, the world’s leading investor in fossil fuels and Chase, the biggest global funder of the fossil fuel industry.
Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) Supports action campaigns by youth in addressing climate change in several countries. Their collaborate work includes leadership training for youth. To date 25 million youth have learned about the climate emergency and how to get involved in campaigns to address it. https://acespace.org
SOURCES FOR CURRENT CLIMATE NEWS:
Stand-Stand, originally named Forest Ethics, began “nearly 20 years ago to challenge corporations and governments to treat people and the environment with respect, because our lives depend on it. . . Over the years, our approach has evolved from a dedicated focus on forest protection to taking on some of the root causes of climate change and environmental injustice.” https://www.stand.earth
Food and Water Watch
“Food & Water Watch fights for safe food, clean water, and a livable climate for all of us. We protect people from the corporations and other destructive economic interests that put profit ahead of everything else.” https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/
Center for Biological Diversity “Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.” https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
Beacon, highlights climate news in depth along with urls to other significant articles. Published by the Southern Environmental Law Center. https://grist.org/beacon/
Canarymedia.com – Newsletter chronicles the transition to a decarbonized economy and society, focusing on how to divest your 401(k) from fossil fuels, solar, EV charging, & climate tech finance. https://www.canarymedia.com
Climate One Radio Nearly 60 stations air Climate One weekly. Check your local listings for broadcast times. Also on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify
https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/on-the-air
Crucial Years, Weekly emails provide a mix of science, politics, economics, and movement-building with idea that we must work together to meet the most dangerous, and most interesting, challenge of our lifetimes. https://billmckibben.substack.com/about
Energy Wire – E&E news, A subscription based news service providing essential energy and environmental news for professionals in the field. https://www.eenews.net/publication/energywire/
Heated, A newsletter for people who are pissed off about the climate crisis. https://heated.world
Los Angeles Times, Boiling Point. Weekly commentary and articles focusing on California climate issues. Free, sign up for newsletter at: membership. www.latimes.com
Native News Online, Delivers daily news affecting the lives of Native Americans nationwide, with a mission to improving the lives of Indigenous peoples. https://nativenewsonline.net/about-us
NYT Climate Solutions, Articles from around the world on efforts to combat climate change. https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/climate-solutions Paywall may apply
Oil Change International Supply reports, briefings and posts that work to expose the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitate the coming transition towards clean energy https://priceofoil.org
Volts, Email and podcast newsletter about technology, politics and decarbonization policies. https://www.volts.wtf/p/welcome-to-volts?s=r
Yale Environment 360, An online magazine published by the Yale School of the Environment, featuring opinion, analysis, reporting and debate
on global environmental issues. https://e360.yale.edu/about
1000 GRANDMOTHERS BOOK GROUP READINGS
The 1000 Grandmothers Book Group is reading books by BIPOC authors. As a group of largely Euro-centric grandmothers we want to deepen our understanding of race, culture, history, and language in our fight for climate and environmental justice. Below are the books read to date:
Life in the City of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Mueller. “Clayton Thomas-Meller - Cree poet and environmental warrior dedicated to decolonization has crafted an awesome, lyrical memoir that captures the experiences of urban indigenous youth facing poverty, drugs, alcohol, domestic violence, and juvenile detention. This beautifully written book is required reading for everyone who cares about justice for the survivors of genocide who continue to survive in colonized conditions,” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. This is among her most magical novels. She notes that the Native American language of her ancestors “includes intricate forms of human relationships and infinite ways to joke,” and she fully explores that spectrum in these pages: A zany crime caper gives way to the horrors of police brutality; lives ruined flip suddenly into redemption; the deaths of half-a-million Americans play out while a grumpy ghost causes mischief. But the abiding presence here is love.
Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Poet Warrior is a wonderful hybrid text that mixes memoir, poetry, songs, and dreams into something unique that opens a window into the most important events of Harjo's life and invites readers to reconnect with themselves — as well as with the land and the knowledge of their people.
All about Love: New Visions by bell hooks. ll About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks' "Love Song to the Nation" trilogy. All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society, and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring, compassion, and strength in our homes, schools, and workplaces.
Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Citizen is “a provocative meditation on race”. An examination of microaggressions (and macro) -- how they are received, the impact they have. Told in prose, poetry, and images. It is available as a live reading on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-E0gk4ZNRM
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy, and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? Very good storytelling and beautifully put together.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. Dunbar-Ortiz is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades, working with Indigenous communities on sovereignty and land rights and helping to build the international Indigenous movement.
Books and Articles on:
Race, Climate and Race and Climate - Grandmothers are recommending:
NON-FICTION BOOKS
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz Beacon Press, 2014
The third of a series of six ReVisioning books which reconstruct and reinterpret U.S. history from marginalized peoples' perspectives.
We are the Land: A History of Native California, by Damon B. Akins & William J. Bauer Jr., University of California Press, 2021. This book is the most comprehensive examination of its kind, centering the long history of California around the lives & legacies of the Indigenous people who shaped it. Recounts the centrality of the Native presence from before European colonization through statehood—paying close attention to the persistence & activism of California Indians in the late 20th & early 21st centuries. An eminently readable text designed to fill the glaring need for an accessible overview of California Indian history.
Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, Deborah Miranda, Heyday Books, 2013. In this beautiful & devastating book – part tribal history, part lyric & intimate memoir, the author tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, news clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems.
Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing by Clayton Thomas Mueller. This is a very compelling book about an urban Cree man, and his journey towards becoming the highly respected climate activist leader that he is today. This is an unusual book that is filled with insight, spirit, wisdom, inspiration and reality.
Reparations Now Toolkit, m4bl.org, 2020. https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/reparations/
This Toolkit explores the long history of struggles for reparations for Black people, lays out key facts, concepts, and international human rights law underlying reparations demands, & provides case studies of struggles for reparations at the institutional, local, state, and international levels. The toolkit was created to provide a foundational definition of what reparations are, to advance the argument that reparations are essential, and to support organizers seeking reparations…in order to advance our collective struggles for Black liberation.
Hoodwinked in the Hothouse: Resist False Solutions to Climate Change by climatefalsesolutions.org, 3rd edition 2021. Free online. Easy-to-read, concise-yet-comprehensive compendium of the false corporate promises that continue to hoodwink elected officials and the public, leading us down risky pathways poised to waste public dollars on a host of corporate snake-oil schemes & market-based mechanisms. Hoodwinked provides a robust framework for understanding the depth of real solutions and how they should be determined. Instructive for activists, impacted communities and organizers.
A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis. Vanessa Nakate, Harper Books, 2021. This is a first book by a young Ugandan woman climate activist who has brought Africa’s plight into the picture of world-wide climate justice. You may remember that she was the one whose image was cropped out of a photo of 5 white climate activists at the World Economic Form in 2020. She says, “In the end, you know, we cannot eat coal, we cannot drink oil.”
Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America. Katie Worth, Columbia Global Reports, 2021. A thin little gem that reviews where this country is at in terms of the climate crisis and the ways in which the fossil fuel industry is hard at work to limit climate education in public schools AND how courageous teachers are bucking those forces with great creativity. If you think CA is representative of the climate curriculum across this country, you really need to read this book.
ORGANIZATIONS:
350.org, International movement working to stop and ban all fossil fuel projects by cutting off financing through divestment & defunding. Works for a fast & just transition to 100% renewable energy by supporting community-led energy solutions. 350bayarea.org is building a grassroots climate movement in the Bay Area so that all who live here equitably share clean air, water & soil in a safe, healthy & thriving post-carbon future.
Thirdact.org is people over the age of 60 mustering political and economic power to move Washington & Wall Street in the name of a fairer, more sustainable society & planet. Campaigns: Protect Our Vote & Bug the Banks to cut the financial lifeline of the fossil fuel industry.
Sierraclub.org seeks to explore, enjoy, & protect the wild places of the earth; to promote the responsible use of the earth’s ecosystems & resources; & to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.
- https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2021/03/putting-cart-horse-diversity-environmental-movement
Honorearth.org (Honor the Earth) works to create awareness & support for Native environmental issues & to develop needed financial & political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities. Established by Winona LaDuke & others in Anishinaabe Territory in Minnesota, Honor the Earth is committed to restoring a paradigm that recognizes our collective humanity & our joint dependence on the Earth.
Stopline3.org organizes, educates, and advocates to stop Line 3, built by Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline company responsible for the largest inland oil spill in the U.S. Line 3 has expanded a dying tar sands industry & violated the treaty rights of the Anishinaabe peoples by crossing numerous watersheds in Minnesota which are central to the cultivation of heritage wild rice.
Stopthemoneypipeline.com Coalition of over 175 organizations holding the financial backers of climate chaos accountable with multiple campaigns demanding that financial institutions stop funding, insuring, and investing in climate destruction, e.g. BlackRock, the world’s leading investor in fossil fuels and Chase, the biggest global funder of the fossil fuel industry.
Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) Supports action campaigns by youth in addressing climate change in several countries. Their collaborate work includes leadership training for youth. To date 25 million youth have learned about the climate emergency and how to get involved in campaigns to address it. https://acespace.org
SOURCES FOR CURRENT CLIMATE NEWS:
Stand-Stand, originally named Forest Ethics, began “nearly 20 years ago to challenge corporations and governments to treat people and the environment with respect, because our lives depend on it. . . Over the years, our approach has evolved from a dedicated focus on forest protection to taking on some of the root causes of climate change and environmental injustice.” https://www.stand.earth
Food and Water Watch
“Food & Water Watch fights for safe food, clean water, and a livable climate for all of us. We protect people from the corporations and other destructive economic interests that put profit ahead of everything else.” https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/
Center for Biological Diversity “Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.” https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
Beacon, highlights climate news in depth along with urls to other significant articles. Published by the Southern Environmental Law Center. https://grist.org/beacon/
Canarymedia.com – Newsletter chronicles the transition to a decarbonized economy and society, focusing on how to divest your 401(k) from fossil fuels, solar, EV charging, & climate tech finance. https://www.canarymedia.com
Climate One Radio Nearly 60 stations air Climate One weekly. Check your local listings for broadcast times. Also on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify
https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/on-the-air
Crucial Years, Weekly emails provide a mix of science, politics, economics, and movement-building with idea that we must work together to meet the most dangerous, and most interesting, challenge of our lifetimes. https://billmckibben.substack.com/about
Energy Wire – E&E news, A subscription based news service providing essential energy and environmental news for professionals in the field. https://www.eenews.net/publication/energywire/
Heated, A newsletter for people who are pissed off about the climate crisis. https://heated.world
Los Angeles Times, Boiling Point. Weekly commentary and articles focusing on California climate issues. Free, sign up for newsletter at: membership. www.latimes.com
Native News Online, Delivers daily news affecting the lives of Native Americans nationwide, with a mission to improving the lives of Indigenous peoples. https://nativenewsonline.net/about-us
NYT Climate Solutions, Articles from around the world on efforts to combat climate change. https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/climate-solutions Paywall may apply
Oil Change International Supply reports, briefings and posts that work to expose the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitate the coming transition towards clean energy https://priceofoil.org
Volts, Email and podcast newsletter about technology, politics and decarbonization policies. https://www.volts.wtf/p/welcome-to-volts?s=r
Yale Environment 360, An online magazine published by the Yale School of the Environment, featuring opinion, analysis, reporting and debate
on global environmental issues. https://e360.yale.edu/about
1000 GRANDMOTHERS BOOK GROUP READINGS
The 1000 Grandmothers Book Group is reading books by BIPOC authors. As a group of largely Euro-centric grandmothers we want to deepen our understanding of race, culture, history, and language in our fight for climate and environmental justice. Below are the books read to date:
Life in the City of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Mueller. “Clayton Thomas-Meller - Cree poet and environmental warrior dedicated to decolonization has crafted an awesome, lyrical memoir that captures the experiences of urban indigenous youth facing poverty, drugs, alcohol, domestic violence, and juvenile detention. This beautifully written book is required reading for everyone who cares about justice for the survivors of genocide who continue to survive in colonized conditions,” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. This is among her most magical novels. She notes that the Native American language of her ancestors “includes intricate forms of human relationships and infinite ways to joke,” and she fully explores that spectrum in these pages: A zany crime caper gives way to the horrors of police brutality; lives ruined flip suddenly into redemption; the deaths of half-a-million Americans play out while a grumpy ghost causes mischief. But the abiding presence here is love.
Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Poet Warrior is a wonderful hybrid text that mixes memoir, poetry, songs, and dreams into something unique that opens a window into the most important events of Harjo's life and invites readers to reconnect with themselves — as well as with the land and the knowledge of their people.
All about Love: New Visions by bell hooks. ll About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks' "Love Song to the Nation" trilogy. All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society, and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring, compassion, and strength in our homes, schools, and workplaces.
Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Citizen is “a provocative meditation on race”. An examination of microaggressions (and macro) -- how they are received, the impact they have. Told in prose, poetry, and images. It is available as a live reading on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-E0gk4ZNRM
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy, and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? Very good storytelling and beautifully put together.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. Dunbar-Ortiz is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades, working with Indigenous communities on sovereignty and land rights and helping to build the international Indigenous movement.
