A depressing reading list for a future worth living
My climate fiction reading list for 2024
First time here? Story Voyager is a climate fiction newsletter I email to subscribers. I am currently writing a cli-fi series, There Is Hope, about life on a planet devastated by climate change and the things that give people hope. Start by reading the first story, Human Island, here. Or you can dive into my narrative documentary about the history of climate change in the Holocene here.
Happy New Year, my dear story voyagers 🥳! I hope that you had an enjoyable holiday season with your loved ones. I’m back from a long awaited and much needed vacation and I’m ready to kickstart the year here on Story Voyager with my 2024 climate & fiction reading list.
One year ago, I shared for the first time my climate fiction reading list which got a great response from you in the comments section and helped me keep track of my cli-fi reading in2023. Last year, my reading list went out to 117 subscribers. This year, we are a community of more than 1750 story voyagers, and I hope some of you will find this reading list helpful.
We have a future worth living
In the 2015 Paris climate agreement, all nations agreed to make all necessary efforts to hold global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. By 2023, we had an average temperature 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than in pre-industrial times, we set the record for global fuel emissions, with CO2 emissions peaking at 424 ppm in May 2023 (vs. 280 in 1860), we witnessed the most climate extremes with July 2023 being the hottest month on record.
As we start a new year, we’re looking toward reaching a global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels between 2030 and 2035, with a 50% probability based on the current climate models. Why is the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold so critical? For the simple fact that beyond this threshold, it is harder to anticipate and handle the climate catastrophes caused by climate change.
However, there is still a window of opportunity for us to turn things around in the next six years and avoid reaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold, given that the whole world takes swift action. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change created an overview of the actions we can take to reduce CO2 emissions in the short term. They also include the feasibility level of each potential action and the lifetime cost. There’s a potential to reduce 44% of CO2 emissions from food production, 67% from land transportation, and 66% from buildings alone by 2050.
Recently, Celeste Briefs wrote Why it’s hard for me to talk about climate change, an article about climate anxiety among the younger generations. At the end of her post, she mentions that Story Voyager and my ‘furious hope in the face of our current climate crisis’ inspired her to write about her grief. Her article is a raw and moving read, I highly recommend it.
A couple of years ago, I read for the first time that young people experience profound distress because of growing up with the threat of climate change, and it’s one of the main reasons why I decided to dedicate this newsletter to climate fiction. I noticed that a lot of adults have high hopes that the youth will save the planet from climate change, and I find it immoral and wrong to put this burden on the younger generations. As we grow older and the realities of adult life settle in, it’s hard to lose sight of the big picture. What do we leave behind for future generations? How do we contribute to bringing back hope to our youth?
As any psychologist will tell you, the antidote to anxiety is taking action. And what better way to do that than by reading a book and getting informed about climate change?
Want to do more? If you would like to take more action, I’m organizing a daily life project related to climate change in February, and this time, I invite you all to participate. Read until the end of this newsletter for more details.
My climate & fiction reading list for 2024
I selected the non-fiction climate books on this year’s list based on my research needs for two of my ongoing projects here on Story Voyager:
A climate fiction series, There Is Hope, about life on a planet devastated by climate change and the things that give people hope. You can start reading the series here.
A narrative documentary series about the history of climate change in the Holocene. You can read the first two episodes here: The Great Dying and the Little Ice Age: Unraveling a climate mystery and Taming the ice: The climate power of ancient farmers.
The climate fiction books on this year’s list are a mix of recommendations that I received from you in the comments section of Story Voyager and other finds. I only have six out of twelve books on that list for now, and I would like your support in selecting the remaining six.
Below, I split the books into two categories:
Climate for the climate non-fiction reading list.
Fiction for the climate fiction or cli-fi reading list.