2022: A year in books for climate solutions
The topics that challenged, moved and changed us the most. From Indigenous Knowledge to Revolution
The days between Christmas and New Year always make me nostalgic and it’s the perfect time of the year to remember, reminisce and reflect. How apt that we ended the year on letter ‘R’. In fact, the time between New Year and the 6th of January is a special ‘time out of time’ (in Austria we call them ‘Rauhnächte’) – 12 days that sit in between the solar and the lunar calendar and bridge the gap between the two. We wanted to use the time to look back at the year and reflect on all the books we read and topics we discussed. The beauty of the book club for us was always the feeling that with every book we read, the picture in our heads becomes clearer and richer. The understanding of what the climate crisis actually is and what work needs to be done in order to tackle it is becoming more accessible and manageable with every single book we read. Over the past two and a half years the book club has given us an opportunity to educate ourselves together with like minded people who want to learn, understand and use this knowledge to take action. Each of us in our very own ways, with our own skills, passions and communities. We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has made it to one or more of our book club meet ups, also the people who have read the books but may not have made it to a meet up, everyone who reads our newsletter and supports our work from the sidelines. We couldn’t do it without you and you have kept us going even when we felt like it was pointless because how is a book club ever going to change the world? We don’t know and we probably won’t find out but the reality is that it doesn’t have to. What it has changed is the way we think and talk about the most pressing issue of our time and it has helped us form a community of amazing humans around us. All of you so ready to get the work done. And on that note, onwards and upwards. 2023 here we come.
Highlights of 2022
Here’s what our book club attendees thought:
We started with Tyson Yunkaporta's gem of a book Sand Talk in which he described Australian indigenous ways of telling stories and solving problems. And we ended the year with Blueprint For Revolution - a book with many a tip on how to build successful non-violent movements. There was so much in between all of that as well though. Personally I LOVED Humankind by Rutger Bregman for its debunking of social experiments. If you need something to restore your faith in humanity, this one's a good one. Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life blew my mind. Did you know that lichens are a symbiosis of fungi and algae and can survive in space and decompose stone?! The whole book put so many concepts on its head and it was simply delightful. Finally I need to mention Calum Angus' A Natural History Of Transition. Many books were on the table for letter Q / Queer ecology in this alphabet of climate solutions. And this collection of short stories was simply 'weird and wonderful' as one book club attendee put it. It explored transformations of people and environments in beautifully crafted sentences that conjured fantastic images. It has been a good year for books in this book club and I'm excited for what awaits in 2023.
– Sandra Pallier, Designer and co-organiser of climateaction.tech
I’ve loved being a part of the ATF book club this year, it’s a great little community and it’s nice to see familiar faces each month. The books I’ve enjoyed reading the most have been Human Kind by Rutger Bregman and BluePrint for Revolution by Srdja Popovic, these have both taught me the power of people and in particular the importance of community. What I especially love about ATF, is the diversity of the books that they choose. Having someone choose the book and topic for you really gets you out of your own bubble.
– Shalyn Wilkins, Product & Service Designer
Our most popular topics this year were the most challenging.
Two topics that challenge the ‘traditional’ or conventional way of thinking about the world. Those were the topics that divided the group but also resulted in the most lively discussions. The first one was Indigenous Knowledge, which was the topic we started the year with. We read Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta, which turned our western way of thinking on its head massively.
Closely followed by ‘Mushrooms’ our topic for June. We explored the hidden universe of fungi through ‘Entangled Life’ by Merlin Sheldrake and were yet again blown away by ideas and narratives that challenge the way we have been taught to think about the world.
We tried something new – how to go from reading to acting
This year we trialed a new format with two of our book club topics. We invited experts in our chosen topics to help us deepen the knowledge and understanding of what we had just read and put it into action.
For the topic of Language we invited British-Turkish author Pelin Turgut who took us through a writing exercise that allowed us to collect with nature in a very unique way.
It was a pleasure to dive in with the And the future bookworms and revisit a significant tree from our childhood. I invited the group to write their tree a letter - and, later, to receive a response. I was moved by one woman who remembered the great UK storm of 1987 and her grief at seeing the fallen trees on her walk to school through Victoria Park. Almost everyone has a significant tree from childhood - we just need to remember them.
– Pelin Turgut Storyteller, Author, Coach
For the letter P we read ‘Play’ by Dr. Stuart Brown, which came highly recommended by Lucy Hawthorne who ran an incredible workshop on how to apply play principles to climate action. It was one of our most popular events ever!
"What struck me about the workshop was how hungry for playfulness everyone was. It brought home a yearning for positivity, expression, connection and joy in our lives, and that in the context of climate change people are trying to work out how to have all this good stuff without diluting or ignoring climate reality. Understanding how to embrace the light and the dark simultaneously is part of living in a complex and uncertain world. And The Future's enthusiastic willingness to do just this and embrace climate play was a heart-warming and very motivating part of my year.”
– Lucy Hawthorne, founder of Catalysts Club, facilitator
A final note from Tash:
My gut reaction when Lisa asked for just one, was Garden Jungle by Dave Goulson (topic J for jungle). Future Sea by Deborah Rowen Wright (topic O for ocean conservation) probably had the most impact on me: I wasn’t looking forward to it but it was a joy to read and have more or less given up eating salmon and prawns since and we’ve also invested in some chemical free sunscreen. I loved that O for ocean conservation followed N for nature conservation and I love that book too, Feral by George Monbiot. I simply can’t choose, and that’s ok, because all the conversations we’ve had over the year follow a similar theme, we’re making a difference, and seeing as we’re positive about climate change, everything comes back to this quote:
If you’re worried that it’s too late to do anything about climate change and we should all just give up, I have great news for you: that day is not coming in your lifetime. As long as you have breath in your body, you will have work to do.
– Mary Heglar