In recent years, the question of the environment and climate crisis has grown from a mild concern to one of the major global issues being discussed. Committing to environmental concern and appreciation, University of Notre Dame Press has several titles that highlight the issues and efforts surrounding environmental issues, both causes and solutions.
Below, we highlight two titles that provide new perspectives for readers to consider in how they approach the issues surrounding the climate crisis, both individually and in larger contexts like community and global society.
An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity looks to our society as both a cause and a way to improve global sustainability. Talking through massive concepts like consumerism and high-energy dystopia, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen examine the root causes, and what we can expect in the future as the climate crisis continues. According to them, the inevitability of a drastic societal change is inevitable and it is crucial that we begin to prepare now. A philosophical approach, the authors lay the foundation for a new way of thinking about the climate crisis, both secular and religious, and challenge readers to approach this upcoming apocalypse with a renewed sense of urgency and care. The result is an accessible and essential guide to how humanity will not only survive but gain a new sense of appreciation for the living world.
Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land reflects on humanity’s relationship with the land around them and their own spiritual life. Author Norman Wirzba shows that a human life is inextricably entangled with the nature around them, and that individual flourishing must also include the flourishing of the habitats that nourish and sustain our life together. He pulls from years of traditions where a human’s daily life revolved around the land, in growing food and sustaining their community and uses this framework to approach an agrarian mindset to modern climate questions. He also explores how reconnecting with the land can help foster a new spiritual life, contributing to new ways to pray, hope, and connect with others. In growing together, not only can personal transformation be found, but it lays the groundwork for a change in political and economic policies that reflect a more balanced and sustainable way of living off the land.
Both of these titles look toward an individual change that then ripples outward. Whether it be a new outlook or new routines, sustainability is something that begins with the individual before making its way to a grander societal movement. In stepping up in our own lives, we can begin to step up for our communities, and we must continue this attitude all the way to the big questions of economy or policy. These titles remind us that we all share the one earth together, and we must all step up together to sustain it.
If you are interested in other environmental titles from University of Notre Dame Press, we also have Lessons from Walden: Thoreau and the Crisis of Modern Democracy, Religion and the New Ecology: Environmental Responsibility in a World in Flux, Unearthed: The Economic Roots of Our Environmental Crisis, and Land!: The Case for an Agrarian Economy.