Social Change

In its 2001 report on global climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations prominently featured the "Hockey Stick", a chart showing global temperature data over the past 1,000 years. The Hockey Stick demonstrated that temperature had risen with the increase in industrialization and use of fossil fuels. The inescapable conclusion was that worldwide human activity since the industrial age had raised CO2 levels, trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and warming the planet.

The quiet masses: the curse of being shy. Shyness exists in every corner of the world, every level of society, every workplace and school, in boardrooms, bars, churches, and bus stops, in places large and small. The digital age, with all the interconnection it offers, has only made things worse. For those living under the shyness curse, life can be discomforting at best and terrifying at worst. While shyness may seem just as much a part of you as your elbow, the difference between your elbow and your shyness is that you weren’t born with your shyness.

In the last few years, it has become abundantly clear that the effects of accelerating climate change will be catastrophic, from rising seas to more violent storms to desertification. Yet why do nation-states find it so difficult to implement transnational policies that can reduce carbon output and slow global warming? In Oceans Rise, Empires Fall, Gerard Toal identifies geopolitics as the culprit.

We live at a time in which scientists race to reanimate extinct beasts, our most essential ecosystems require monumental engineering projects to survive, chicken breasts grow in test tubes, and multinational corporations conspire to poison the blood of every living creature. No rock, leaf, or cubic foot of air on Earth has escaped humanity's clumsy signature. The old distinctions - between natural and artificial, dystopia and utopia, science fiction and science fact - have blurred, losing all meaning. We inhabit an uncanny landscape of our own creation.

Unless we start addressing the causes of climate change and stop simply navigating its effects, we will be facing a series of unstoppable catastrophes by the time our preschoolers graduate from college. Our world is in trouble - right now. This Is the Way the World Ends tells the real stories of the substantial impacts to Earth’s systems unfolding across each continent.

From the science of greenhouse gases to the intricate logic of cap and trade, Broome reveals how the principles that underlie everyday decision making also provide simple and effective ideas for confronting climate change. Climate Matters is an essential contribution to one of the paramount issues of our time.

Lifestyle habits that “carry” you to increased productivity, better health, and career superstardom? Yes, please! How many times have you tried to change your habits? If you’re like most people, more than you care to think about. And how different is your life now? It’s not your fault; the human brain, by nature, doesn’t want to make significant changes. To build new positive habits, you’ll have to “hotwire” your brain. Building new thinking habits is particularly difficult, especially because our society doesn’t prioritize learning thinking habits.

As global warming accelerates, droughts last longer, floods rise higher, and super-storms become more frequent. With increasing numbers of people on the move as a result, the business of containing them - border fortification - is booming. In Storming the Wall, Todd Miller travels around the world to connect the dots between climate-ravaged communities, the corporations cashing in on border militarization, and emerging movements for environmental justice and sustainability.

In Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion's share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world's megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk.

"At risk." "Low." "Title I kids." If you've worked with students, you've probably heard or said these coded labels that reflect deficit thinking. This focus on weakness is a pervasive, powerful judgment that continues to harm students long after they leave school. It's time for educators to hack deficit thinking, think about SEL and about strength-based teaching, and reframe teaching and learning.

Speculative futures—design approaches that help us visualize new and potential worlds—move us beyond what currently exists into what could one day be. Inspired by art, film, fiction, and industrial design, they use speculation to provoke, imagine, and dream into what lies ahead. Written for futurists, urbanists, and artists looking to enact city-wide transformation—and for listeners at the intersection of disruption, design, innovation, and city living—this book offers creative paths toward urban resilience, using design tools that already exist.

It's no longer news to most of us that our society has a deep-seated racism problem. Christians of all ethnic and economic backgrounds are tired of seeing the ugly legacy of racism play out before their eyes and feeling ill-equipped to respond. Racism presents itself as an undefeatable foe - a sustained scourge on the reputation of the church. In Faithful Antiracism, Christina Barland Edmondson and Chad Brennan take confidence that Christ has overcome the world, including racism, and offer clear analysis and interventions to challenge and resist its pernicious power.

If you struggle with negative thoughts and emotions, you should know that your pain is real. No one should try to diminish it. Sometimes stuff really does suck and we have to acknowledge it. Worry, sadness, loneliness, anger, and shame are big and important, but they can also get in the way of what really matters. What if, instead of fighting your pain, you realized what really matters to you—and put those things first in life? Stuff That Sucks offers a compassionate and validating guide to accepting emotions, rather than struggling against them.

In the tiny farm town of Emmett, Idaho, there are two kinds of people: those who leave and those who stay. Those who leave go in search of greener pastures, better jobs, and college. Those who stay are left to contend with thinning communities, punishing government farm policy, and environmental decay. Grace Olmstead, now a journalist in Washington, DC, is one who left, and in Uprooted, she examines the heartbreaking consequences of uprooting - for Emmett, and for the greater heartland America.

Paul A. Pagnato has tapped into an incredible brain trust of world-renowned experts from a diverse set of challenging disciplines, each having encountered the intersection of exponential growth and transparency. Their honest assessment for turning challenges into opportunities is inspirational. Their work is changing the world, and now through the prism of transparency, the wave of the future is upon us.

Most of us want our lives to have meaning and purpose, but too often we don’t know where to start. Each of us has unique gifts, talents, and perspectives that the world needs right now. We just have to find the courage to realize what they are. By disrupting ourselves first, we gain insights into what blocks us from opportunities to create change, from opening doors and breaking down walls. Once we're living ON purpose, we can step into a life that boldly challenges the world around us. Only then can we become a powerful catalyst for change.

Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. In this installment, Earth Guardians Youth Director and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez shows us how his music feeds his environmental activism and vice versa. Martinez visualizes a future that allows us to direct our anger, fear, and passion toward creating change. Because, at the end of the day, we all have a part to play.

When Helen Keller was very young, she got a rare disease that made her deaf and blind. Suddenly, she couldn't see or hear at all, and it was hard for her to communicate with anyone. But when she was six years old, she met someone who changed her life forever: her teacher, Annie Sullivan. With Miss Sullivan's help, Helen learned how to speak sign language and read Braille. Armed with the ability to express herself, Helen grew up to be come a social activist, leading the fight for people with disabilities and so many other causes.

Layla Saad in this ground breaking discovery on White Supremacy; which is a story, a provocation, and an invitation. On the one hand, it is a reflection by Saad on her own journey as a Muslim woman of African descent growing up in Western society (in her case, in England). On the other hand, this book challenges listener to examine how their own lives contribute to and reinforce the systems of White Supremacy that underlie Western society.

Andreas Karelas has a message we don’t often hear: We have all the tools we need to solve the climate crisis, and doing so will improve our lives, our economy, and our society. But to engage people in the climate fight, we need stories that are empowering, inclusive, and solutions-oriented, not based in fear. Karelas digs into the latest data on the rapidly falling costs and increased efficiencies of clean energy technologies compared to fossil fuels, looks at the rate of job creation in the clean energy sector, and introduces the listener to the inspiring work of climate heroes.