Climate reading list

Climate reading list

These are the climate readings that have been most influential as we’ve started Watershed. Please send us recommendations or feedback as you look through.

The problem statement

• Background on climate fundamentals
  • IPCC 1.5 report: Inspirational message that the current trajectory is disastrous but it's not too late to redirect to a good outcome.
  • Latest emissions gap report
  • Berkeley Earth: rigorous verification of core climate science.
  • Climate change after pandemic
• Visualizations
  • Our World in Data on where emissions come from by country & by sector
  • A best-of compilation from the wonderful work of Robert Rohde
  • Earth’s carbon cycle
  • A year of atmospheric CO2
• On feedbacks and tipping points
  • Nine ‘tipping points’ that could be triggered by climate change
  • Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system

Human cost:

• The social cost of carbon
• WHO on climate change
• The economics of climate change
• World bank on climate change
• The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

Cost to the natural world:

• Chasing Coral
• Sixth Extinction

Solution paths

Clean energy

The big good news: Clean energy generation is now the least expensive in many geographies. Only one piece of the puzzle but a very, very important piece.

• Core data
• Commentary on how this happened and how to replicate the success
• Case study of how this happened in the UK
• Video lecture on state of US transition
• Demand-matched clean power: How to move to 100% clean electricity given the diurnal and seasonal variation of solar and wind

Where do emissions come from?

• Global greenhouse gas emissions data
• Climate data explorer

Scenario modeling

• Project Drawdown: Table of Solutions (also an excellent book)
• Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy
• Bill Gates: How to Avoid Climate Disaster
• Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now (also a book by John Doerr)
• Interactives
  • U.S. energy policy solutions
  • En-ROADS simulator

Interesting opinion pieces:

• Saul Griffith
• Brett Victor
• John Doerr and Hal Harvey on climate solutions

The role of corporations

• Bill McKibben: Money Is the Oxygen on Which the Fire of Global Warming Burns
• NYTimes on corporate climate programs
• How to tell if net zero goals are serious
• A quick explainer about net zero from Grist

Great ongoing subscriptions

• Twitter accounts
  • @hausfath
  • @Peters_Glen
  • @RARohde
• Podcasts
  • My Climate Journey
  • Outrage and Optimism
  • A Matter of Degrees
  • Watt it Takes
• Best climate-specific news site: CarbonBrief