The climate crisis is reshaping our world, our communities, and our callings. Fortunately, many thoughtful, inspiring books can help us understand what faithful response looks like today. Below is a curated selection of more than fifty titles that I’ve found particularly insightful for individuals, small groups, and congregations. Most are recent publications and available in multiple formats, making them accessible for a wide range of readers.
Please note that this list leans Christian and/or secular because it reflects where I’ve done the most reading. I would be grateful for recommendations from other faith traditions, so please email me with other books you’ve found meaningful so this resource can continue to grow and be useful to as many people as possible.
Most of the books listed here link to our affiliate shop on Bookshop.org. This site supports independent bookstores, helping them remain rooted in and responsive to their local communities. A portion of each purchase through the links below sustains the mission and work of Iowa Faith & Climate Network.
We know that lower-cost options may be available elsewhere, and we honor the many realities people navigate when making purchasing decisions. When you’re able, choosing these links is a meaningful way to align everyday choices with values of community care, economic justice, and our shared commitment to nurturing a more just and sustainable world.
| Title | Author | Themes | Tim’s Notes |
| Active Hope (rev. ed.) | Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone | Resilience, eco-grief, transformation | A friend who works in a similar organization in Australia highly recommends this book. Macy, who died recently, is one of the truly major names in this arena. |
| All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis | Multiple authors | Many themes | Great in audiobook format. Inspirational & written entirely by female authors. |
| A Primer in Ecotheology: Theology for a Fragile Earth | Celia Deane-Drummond | Ecotheology overview | You can find this one for free on Hoopla, if your public library offers that service. |
| A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy | Becky Chambers | Hopeful Sci-fi Novels | Hugo award winner, for a YA audience (i.e. some strong language). Two superb books collected in one volume. Available free on Hoopla, if your public library offers that service. |
| Atlas of a Threatened Planet | Esther Gonstalla | Visual science of climate change | Would be excellent for a church library to have. |
| Braiding Sweetgrass | Robin Wall Kimmerer | Seeing the world differently | One of the best books on the environment ever written. |
| Cathedral on Fire | Brooks Berndt | Small group study | 7-week small group study on the climate crisis. Basic overview. |
| Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred | Victoria Loorz | Outdoor faith & worship | A great choice for thinking about how to create outdoor services/experiences. See also the “Field Guide” in the list for a related book of resources. |
| Climate Action for Busy People | Cate Mingoya-LaFortune | Everyday actions | Very practical look at community research & action. |
| Climate Justice: A Call to Hope and Action (2nd Edition) | Pat Watkins, ed. | Justice | Recommended especially for United Methodist churches with a United Women in Faith group. A course that builds on the 2nd ed. of Climate Justice: A Call to Hope and Action. |
| Climate Resilience: How We Keep Each Other Safe, Care for Our Communities, and Fight Back Against Climate Change | 39 women, nonbinary & gender-expansive climate leaders | Climate resilience | Reflective essays that are easy to read, very personal, and quite varied in their perspectives. |
| Come Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth | Sr. Elizabeth Johnson | Catholic ecotheology | Beautiful, short reflections from one of the best-known Catholic theologians. |
| Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology, and the Pulpit | Leah D. Schade | Preaching | Terrific introduction to preaching with a climate / environmental focus. |
| Cultivating an Ecological Conscience | Frederick Kirschenmann | Agrarian essays | Worthwhile reading for anyone who works in a rural setting or who wants to think about farming, philosophy, and sustainability. |
| Earth Prayers | Elizabeth Roberts | Prayer resource | Short prayers from around the world. We often use this during our events. |
| Earth Gospel | Sam Hamilton-Poore | Prayer resource | Can be used as a 4-week study or simply as a resource book. Recommended to own but not necessarily as a cohort text. |
| Eco Faith | Charlene Hosenfeld | Creating green congregations | Statistics & resource lists are somewhat dated now, but it’s still a decent intro to things churches can do. |
| Ecotheology: A Christian Conversation | Kiara Jorgenson & Alan Padgett, eds. | Ecotheology overview | One of the best overviews of this topic. |
| Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics | Norman Habel & Peter Trudinger | Environmental Hermeneutics | The seminal work on this topic. If you’re looking for something a seminary-level text, this is worth considering. |
| Facing the Climate Emergency, Second Edition: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth | Margaret Klein Salamon (Author) Molly Gage (With) | Climate anxiety | I often see this book recommended by trusted sources but have not yet read it. |
| Field Guide to Church of the Wild | Victoria Loorz | Outdoor faith; how-to | See “Church of the Wild” above. |
| Fifth National Climate Assessment | Various authors | Science | Everyone should at least download this to have on hand…before it disappears. If it does, contact me for a copy. |
| Getting to the Heart of Science Communication | Faith Kearns | Science communication | Exellent for those who want to dig into how to communicate hard science topics well. |
| Here Comes the Sun | Bill McKibben | Solar power | Ideal for congregations interested in encouraging people to move to solar power or who plan to themselves. |
| Hope Dies Last | Alan Weisman | Climate leaders/stories | I’ve been listening to this occasionally. Many other books on this list are better, but I’d recommend this as an audiobook. |
| Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis | Elin Kelsey | Science of hope | Great overview of why hope is critical for making change & what the science says about that. Very readable book. |
| Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet | Kate Marvel | Human emotions and climate | I’d put this in my top 5 climate books I’ve read. Excellent approach to focus on emotions, but there’s plenty of accessible science throughout. |
| Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope | Joëlle Gergis | Climate solutions | Explores the science in an unflinching way but also blends in themes of hope and justice. Gergis is an author of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report. |
| If God Were a Great Big Bear | Paul Harbridge | Ecotheology for kids | A new storybook. Recommended for a church library. |
| In Deep Waters: Spiritual Care for Young People in a Climate Crisis | Talitha Amadea Aho | Climate anxiety & teens | Really thoughtful & beautiful book from a pastor who does a lot of ecology work with youth, though you’ll have to work a bit to pull out specific ideas for your context. |
| Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth: How to Live with Care and Purpose in an Endangered World | Kate Schapira | Climate anxiety | Reflective and practical questions for digging in deeply on questions worth thinking about related to climate anxiety, politics, and more. A must read! |
| Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart | Brian McLaren | How to move forward | A guidebook of sorts for building a new kind of climate-informed community. Much to chew on here. |
| Love God, Heal Earth | Sally Bingham | Religious perspectives | Older, but still worthwhile reading. |
| Love in a Time of Climate Change: Honoring Creation, Establishing Justice | Sharon Delgado | Wesleyan theology & eco-justice | Ecotheology for those who come from a Wesleyan tradition. |
| Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice | Mallory McDuff | Inspiring climate action by women | The newest book by the author of Sacred Acts (also on this list). It comes highly recommended from others. |
| Making Peace with the Land | Fred Bahnson & Norman Wirzba | Theology and Agriculture | Ecotheology from a somewhat more theologically conservative Christian point of view. |
| Parenting in a Climate Crisis | Bridget Shirvell | Parenting | Could make an interesting book for a group of parents to work through together. |
| Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage | Dianne Glave | History & justice | Explores the tradition of black environmentalism, encouraging urban populations to return to the land. |
| Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature and Spirit | Lyanda Lynn Haupt | How to live in an imperiled planet | One of the most beautifully-written books related to climate I’ve come across. |
| Sacred Acts: How Churches are Working to Protect Earth’s Climate | Mallory McDuff | Congregational climate action | In-depth and practical examples of what other churches have done. |
| Savi and the Memory Keeper | Bijal Vachharajani | YA Novel | A wonderful, somewhat mystical novel about memory and climate change. |
| Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World | Katharine Hayhoe | Science, communication | The basic primer on our climate crisis for people of faith. |
| Singing the Psalms with my Son: Praying and Parenting for a Healed Planet | T. Wilson Dickinson | Parenting | A friend who works in a similar organization in Australia highly recommends this book. |
| Termination Shock | Neal Stephenson | Novel | Considers what could happen if a rogue individual employed geoengineering on his own. Eerily prescient. |
| The Art of the Commonplace | Wendell Berry | Agrarian essays | Everyone should read a Berry book some day. More than one, really. |
| The Bill McKibben Reader | Bill McKibben | Environmental essays | I’ve read most of McKibben’s books. This one’s not my personal favorite, but it’s a good overview of his thinking. |
| The Climate Book | Greta Thunberg & others | Climate science | If you want to really dig into the science, this is chock full of info. |
| The Earth and the Fullness Thereof | Paul Santmire | Basic ecotheology | Santmire’s many books are definitely worth reading at some point, and they’re generally quick and easy reads. |
| The Heat Will Kill You First | Jeff Goodell | Why heat matters | Sobering exploration of heat, our adaptations to it, and why it matters so much. |
| The Ministry for the Future | Kim Stanley Robinson | Novel | The first chapter will stick in your mind forever. Robinson is one of the most prolific, best-regarded writers of cli-fi. |
| The Overstory | Richard Powers | Novel | This is in my top 5 favorite novels of all time. Contains several occasionally connected stories that all have trees as a core theme. Pulitzer prize winner. |
| The Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentary | David Rhoads, H. Paul Santmire | Preaching | For anyone who follows the liturgical cycle, this book explores what it would mean to observe a liturgical season of creation. |
| The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World | Robin Wall Kimmerer | Learning from the natural world | A tiny book that packs a real punch. Explores alternate economies, especially gift economies. Amazing. |
| The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature | Gerald May | Nature and psychology | The final book by May, who was Senior Fellow in Contemplative Theology and Psychology at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Bethesda, Maryland. |
| Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World | Kimberly Nicholas | Life in a time of climate change | A highly readable book that explores what individuals can do to tackle climate change. |
| What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures | Ayana Johnson | Hopeful climate solutions | I have yet to read this book, but I’ve had many people recommend this one to me. |
| When God was a Little Girl | David Weiss | Ecotheology for kids | A little tough to find, possibly, but a worthwhile addition to a children’s library. |
| Looking for still other options? | – | – | This publisher is the place to start when looking for climate-related books. https://islandpress.org/books |