Recommendations

Nature

  • Seek & Merlin <> Two great free apps that allow you to ID species with your phone. Seek works with your camera - just point it at the organism you want to ID. Merlin works with your microphone to ID birds by sound. I recommend managing your notifications so that you can use these apps without allowing the rest of the noisy world to come barging unbidden into your brain through your phone! Speaking from experience!

  • The Nature Handbook: A Guide to Observing the Great Outdoors by Ernest H. Williams Jr. <> A great mix of cool nature anecdotes and solid ecology. Especially useful for nature outside the city.

  • Secret Life of the City: How Nature Thrives in the Urban Wild by Hanna Bjørgaas <> Also a great mix of cool nature anecdotes and solid ecology. Especially useful for nature in the city.

  • Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education by David Sobel <> A concise, must-read for anyone who will interact with kids! No one will work to save nature unless they first love it! Build bonds with nature in developmentally-appropriate ways so that kids love nature.

  • The Overstory by Richard Powers <> A profound book about humans and the Earth. While it is about people, perhaps one of the only books that manages to step outside of our human umwelt for narratives about people! people! people! I take some issues with some of the ecology but the majesty Powers conveys more than makes up for it. Outrageously long, but still very much worth it!

  • Supernormal Stimuli by Stuart McMillen <> Excellent short online graphic novel-style explanation of something we should all be aware of! Relevant to your understanding of nature and yourself. Super important: Be sure to read the text after the graphics end!

Sustainability

  • The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow <> Profound evidenced-based anthropological reframing of earlier human societies and what it tells us about human possibilities in the future. Deconstructs ideologies about “civilizational progress.” If I could only recommend ONE book, it would be this one!

  • Impact caps: why population, affluence and technology strategies should be abandoned by Blake Alcott <> Everyone keeps talking about making things more efficient in the name of sustainability on the assumption that the use of the thing will stay constant and thus impact will go down. It almost never works out that way, and thus total consumption tends to go UP as things become more efficient! In this short but dense academic paper, Alcott changed my entire thinking on the real way forward for sustainability. Essential reading!

  • Agroecology by Stephen Gliessman <> There will be no sustainability without sustainability of the food system! Chapters 1 & 2 summarize the technical problems and the solutions, and Chapters 24, 25, & 26 summarize the social problems and the solutions (Chapter 24 is magic stuff - must read!)

Morality

Art

  • Rivers and Tides by Thomas Riedelsheimer <> A documentary about incredible sculptor and nature artist Andy Goldsworthy - very inspiring for those who like to be creative in nature!

  • Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out Of Balance by Godfrey Reggio <> From 1982 - this non-narrative art movie probably shaped my love of timelapse and playing with scale. It’s probably harder on the modern humans than I would be today (that was still a minority position back then!), but still very much worth a watch!

  • The House On the Rock by Alex Jordan, et al. <> A custom house and massive collection in southwestern Wisconsin that should spark curiosity in anyone who likes things that are offbeat. Me and my family have been here literally dozens and dozens of times. Among a million other things, there are room-sized music machines that would be worth the trip alone! Pro tip: take your time!

Community science, volunteering, restoration (in Northeastern Illinois)

Economics

  • Economix by Michael Goodwin and Dan E. Burr <> Funny! Comprehensive! Graphic novel format! If you feel like economics is something important that you want to understand but can't stand the thought of a boring or dense book, this is the book for you!

  • Disassembly Required: A Field Guide to Actually Existing Capitalism by Geoff Mann <> Deep! Difficult! But no better way that I've been able to find to understand what is actually happening (instead of someone’s economic ideas about what should be happening based on theory but presented as if it is actually happening, if you know what I mean).

  • Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber <> Long! Fascinating! Busts so many myths! Will change the way you understand history, economics, debt, slavery, and the moment that we are currently in.

Theories of change & Building trust across ideological differences

  • How To Change Your Mind (Freakonomics Podcast) <> Talks about the Illusion of Explanatory Depth (my favorite cognitive bias) among other things, super excellent!

  • I Never Thought of It That Way by Mónica Guzmán <> A must-read about navigating the dangerous tribal red-blue politics of the moment

  • Strangers In Their Own Land by Arlie Hochschild <> Understanding another viewpoint is not the same thing as justifying it. Understanding is essential! From the description: “When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a bewildered nation turned to Strangers in Their Own Land to understand what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots. Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, had spent the preceding five years immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold.”