“System Change, Not Climate Change,” we chant during environmental marches. We write the slogan on signs and hashtag it on social media. But how do you change systems when your government denies climate change, silences experts, and promises to increase fossil fuel production?

When my daughter was born in 2014, it was the warmest year on record; each year since has been warmer. Confronted with a crisis that would shape my child’s life, I felt both overwhelmed and determined to act. Eventually, I started a free environmental newsletter called Cool It: Simple Steps to Save the Planet. Through my research, I have come to believe that while engagement and voting are essential at changing systems, we can take immediate action as we wait. The purchases we make—and more importantly, the ones we don’t—and the gardens we grow can support the world we want to live in. Climate change isn’t a dystopian possibility hundreds years away, it’s already here.

In this reading list are seven books to read that offer a sustainable path forward: 

Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy

In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, Camille T. Dungy addressed the first Trump presidency, writing, “In the months after the 2016 presidential election, I often found myself in the company of people, almost always white, who said, ‘This is all so surprising. This isn’t who America is!’ . . . But I was not shocked. For quite some time–since the beginning, really–Black Americans have pointed out that ‘this’ is actually happening.” 

It is now 2025 and “this” is still happening, but even more egregiously. Soil expands the definition of nature writing, inviting in those—such as mothers—who have been excluded from the genre. She is mindful of her readers’ mundane responsibilities because she, too, has to wash the dishes. As Dungy nurtures her garden, pulling up bindweed and growing native plants, she contends with both a pandemic and racism. She weaves these lived experiences together into a book that is wise and sustaining, and through it, she shows us the work we must undertake to create a better future.

Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment by Maxine Bédat

In Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment, journalist Maxine Bédat traces the life cycle of a pair of jeans from the cotton fields of Texas to a textile plant in China to a garment factory in Bangladesh to an Amazon fulfillment center in Washington and finally to a landfill in Ghana. Bédat ends her extraordinary reportage with some concrete action steps for consumers, including an invitation to join the Clean Clothes Campaign. You’ll be haunted by Rima, a textile worker in Bangladesh who is paying for our addiction to fast fashion through unbearable work conditions. 

Year of No Garbage: Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems, and One Woman’s Trashy Journey to Zero Waste by Eve O. Schaub

Could you go a full year without throwing anything away? That’s the challenge Eve O. Schaub embarks on in Year of No Garbage: Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems, and One Woman’s Trashy Journey to Zero Waste. Schaub composts food scraps, recycles glass bottles and cardboard boxes, and even teaches readers about “aluminum foil potatoes,” but what can she do with all the non-recyclable plastic that flows through even the most vigilant of households? Schaub is as funny as she is educational, and you’ll find several ways in this book to reduce your plastic waste. 

Thicker than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis by Erica Cirino

In Thicker than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, Erica Cirino visits the great Pacific garbage patch, describes the plastic found in the stomach of a sea bird, meets scientists working on plastic alternatives, and interviews activists fighting to close the petrochemical refineries of Cancer Alley. Plastic, we learn, is only cheap because we ignore its harms to our health and the environment. Cirino arms readers with alternatives to single-use plastic and advocates for more circular systems. 

Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods by Amelia Pang

Amelia Pang’s Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods begins when a woman in Oregon buys Halloween decorations and finds a note inside: “If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization.” The note was written by Sun Yi, a political prisoner in China whose work unit made the decorations. Journalist Amelia Pang finds and interviews Sun Yi, bringing us both his story of state mandated reeducation and the horrific labor camps where so many of our goods are made. We have all purchased something (probably a lot of things) made by slave labor. The book ends with clear action steps. 

The Day the World Stops Shopping by J.B. MacKinnon

In his evocative and well-researched book The Day the World Stops Shopping, journalist J.B. MacKinnon imagines how life would be different if we stopped shopping. Chapter four is titled “Suddenly, we’re winning the fight against climate change.” Shopping, it turns out, is a big reason we’re heating the planet. The gains we make with renewable energy are canceled out by our escalating consumption. Each decade, we buy more and more things, requiring more and more energy. On the day the world stops shopping, however, we not only win our fight against climate change, but we have more time and richer experiences. MacKinnon is clear that his book’s premise is only a thought exercise, yet he is serious about conscious consumption and how it is the key to saving the planet and ourselves. 

Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard by Douglas Tallamy

In Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard, Douglas Tallamy challenges us to use our yards to support biodiversity. He sounds the alarm on insect collapse and explains why pollinators are essential to our survival. Most importantly, he gives us the information we need to turn our yards into habitats. Tallamy’s book highlights the importance of growing nectar plants like Joe Pye weed and keystone species like goldenrod and how native milkweeds are essential for monarch butterflies.