Welcome to the ultimate list of the best eco friendly books you can buy in 2024. It’s a bit of an oxymoron when you consider trees have to be cut down to actually make them, but there’s our definitive list of the best eco friendly books 2024.
To qualify, these books help us to lead a green lifestyle in some way or other. They need to be about ecology, carbon, or just plain old school saving the environment. Perhaps they teach us about ways to save the environment, or could be a fell-good story about the environment? If they promote or teach about infrastructure like Yorkshire wind farms as an example, that’s even better.
Best Eco Friendly Books
How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything
by Mike Berners-Lee
This eco friendly book is one we used to get data for our research on your mobile phone’s carbon footprint, so we can attest to it giving really good data and in a way that is easy for everyone to understand.
Get your copy here.
Beyond Carbon Neutral: How We Fix the Climate Crisis Now
by Samuel M. Goodman
Beyond Carbon Neutral isn’t another one of those books you can buy and tells you how dire the situation is and we’re all going to explore thanks to this man-made disaster. This is a book that tries to give practical solutions to the problems we’re facing right now.
In some ways, Goodman’s book tells us things we should know already, but not all of us do. If you know of someone who’s totally clueless about saving the environment, this is a great book to give them. Likewise, if you’re a seasoned environmentalist, it will confirm the shady nature of our world you’re already aware of. With this book as a tool, you may develop a few new ideas on taking practical action or convincing climate sceptics to change their ways a little bit.
Get your copy here.
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter
by Ben Goldfarb
Eager reveals that the belief we have in the modern day of what a healthy landscape in North America and Eurasia looks like and how it functions is totally wrong. The view we have has been distorted by the fur trade that once trapped and killed millions of beavers from its lakes and rivers.
The loss of beavers lead to the erosion of streams, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost the habitat beavers helped maintain. Yes, losing beavers has helped to exacerbate climate change and we now must learn to coexist with our furry friends if we’re going to get through the coming climate catastrophy.
There is a growing number of people who recognise that ecosystems including beavers are far healthier for all plants, animals and humans too. From the deserts of Nevada to the Scottish highlands, people are hard at work restoring these industrious rodents to their former haunts.
Buy it on Books Please.
No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference
by Greta Thunberg
No One is Too Small to Make a Difference provides a defining record of a seismic political and cultural moment to save our planet. Speeches by Thunberg are published along with family photographs in this essential read from one of the most powerful voices of our time.
It’s definitely worth buying this book from a young woman who can see the dangers we’re facing at such a young age, much like David Attenborough, who she met during a documentary appearance last year.
Buy Greta’s book from Waterstones.
The Uninhabitable Earth
by David Wallace-Wells
There’s still an opportunity to change things on our world for the better, but we need to act now. If inly we can all update ourselves on the situation and what can be done next. Yes, this is the perfect book if you need to get up-to-date on our climate emergency. The Uninhabitable Earth spans over 200-odd pages, covering the past, present and future of our planed during this time of runaway global warming.
Get it today from Foyles.
How to Give Up Plastic
by Will McCallum
We all need this eco friendly book, Guide to Changing the World, One Plastic Bottle at a Time because let’s face it, plastics are everyone’s problem. Will McCallum is the head of oceans at Greenpeace UK, so he knows a thing or two about the complexity of life and eco systems in our world’s water realms.
How to Give Up Plastic manages to help us understand ,the part we’re playing in this disaster. It frames the current state of plastic pollution worldwide, emphasising the environmental consequences of our throwaway, single-use culture. It’s not only about telling us the state of things right now, this great book also provides us with practical steps we can take to improve the environment.
Don’t Even Think About It
by George Marshall
Apparently our brains have been wired, presumably by nature, to ignore climate change in direct opposition to nature itself. Really though, it is the choices on information we choose to take heed of or ignore that has lead us the the precipice of a climate disaster. We usually choose to ignore the problem, making climate change a “wicked problem”. it is a complicated challenge with no clear enemy and no silver-bullet solution, which are things our brains are designed to look for. Just check out the plot to any action movie. Or any movie for that matter. Not only do we need science, but just like a movie, we need emotional, compelling narratives to help more people change.
Buy it from Blackwells.
Merchants of Doubt
by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway have managed to draw parallels between the tobacco industry’s immediate and sustained response to secondhand smoke worries and our contemporary way of thinking about climate. We have seen a few industry-backed scientists lead a coordinated campaign to cast doubt on climate science. They have been cherry-picking facts, misrepresenting views and celebrating unregulated capitalism.
This goes beyond scientists nowadays and every climate denier off the street parrots off the same arguments and choose to ignore reality, something Cranky Uncle, one of our top fun environmentally friendly smartphone apps helps you learn to spot and counter. It’s a common theme in our history and one that is still playing out today: Thanks to a few very powerful people, facts have been twisted, guiding the every-day person down the path of unregulated, corporate-friendly ventures, destroying our planet. The result? Global warming has accelerated along with our society’s doubt about it.
Though it can be pricey, you can buy this eco friendly book from AbeBooks.co.uk.
Kenya’s Art
by Linda Trice
Tackling climate change it isn’t just about activism when kids also can make a huge difference by upcycling old things instead of throwing them away. Broken crayons can be melted down into new ones, broken toys could be repaired, old ones combined with new ones to create something new. Inspired by a trip to an art museum, this is exactly the kind of thing Kenya does.
Get it from Waterstones.
The Blue Giant
by Kattie Cottle
This book is the second in Cottle’s series of great environmental books for kids. Focusing on the fact that our oceans are full of garbage and no one seems to notice, the tale starts when Meera and her mother spend a day at the beach. The mother and child meet a blue giant who rises out of the ocean and shows them what the problem is.
Together, they start the clean-up process under the waters and then continue on the beaches. Meera’s great example of cleaning attracts some of her friends to help and the environmental cleanup continues from there. The Blue Giant is a great example of how one person trying to make a change can lead to more action by others that really changes the world.
Buy this book from Amazon.
Don’t Let Them Disappear
by Chelsea Clinton and Gianna Marino
A lovely non-fiction book about the animals we’re lucky enough to share our planet with. Clinton and Marino pack in a lot of interesting information about our planet’s amazing creatures and what makes them special. This children’s eco friendly book includes facts about extinction, the human-caused threats to each animal, and beautiful, warm artwork to go along with it.
Get this from Waterstones.
The Lorax
by Dr Seuss
This literary classic first published in 1971, is a story ahead of its time in warning about the danger posed to the earth and its natural beauty. As to be expected from a Dr Seuss book, the beautiful illustrations are combined with the most creative words and rhymes. The Lorax delivers us an important message that ‘what is threatened must be protected’. This is a message we must start applying to all of our environmental concerns immediately.If you really care enough about something, then you’ll do everything you can to protect it and that’s the message this classic gets across superbly.
Available from almost everywhere, but we suggest Amazon.
Stalking the Wild Asparagus
by Euell Gibbons
Euell Gibbons is an author who travelled North America looking for edible wild plants he could make into delicious dishes. This book includes recipes for vegetable and casserole dishes, breads, cakes, muffins and even twenty different pies! Imagine making pie with edible wild plants? We can also learn how to make numerous jellies, jams, teas, and wines, discovering how easy it is to sweeten them with wild honey or even home made maple syrup. Yum!
Available from Waterstones.
Desert Solitaire
by Edward Abbey
Penned while he was a ranger at Arches National Park in the USA, Desert Solitaire is one of Edward Abbey’s most critically acclaimed works. His first foray into the world of non-fiction writing, this choice in our list of eco friendly books provides a rare view into one man’s quest to experience nature in its purest form.
Abbey reflects on the condition of the dwindling amount of true wilderness we have remaining and the future of a civilization that as yet, cannot accept living in the natural world alongside its own desire to keep living to its own, sometimes irrational moral code. Now more than ever, Abbey’s desire for us to preserve the natural beauty of the West must be heeded.
Get this book on Amazon rated at over 4.5 stars from north of 2,000 reviews.
Live Green
by Jen Chillingsworth
The climate crisis is huge and that can make implementing even the smallest change seem daunting. Just getting people to take it seriously is nearly impossible. Live Green helps you take on the challenge of living a greener life bit by bit, breaking it down week by week, making sure the actions suggested are both manageable and consistent. One good and simple thing you could do is get an environmentally friendly mobile phone and contract. Full of useful advice and eye-opening tips, this book could help you make a huge difference to your life and the destiny of our planet.
Google offer a book preview.
Buy Live Green now from Waterstones.
How to Save the World For Free
by Natalie Fee
Is the word ‘free’ your favourite word? Even if it isn’t, there are a lot of people out there who love that word and maybe things that don’t cost money will help encourage those who may not have an active interest in saving our planet to do something? How to Save the World for Free dishes out a heap of tips and tricks designed to aid the fight against climate change and pollution, without costing anything at all.
Buy it now from Hachette / Bookshop.org.
Now you’ve read through our list of eco friendly books, do you think there are any more books worthy of being added to your home library? Or even any you think we should remove?