Climate news resources, op-eds, commentary, popular books
Climate News Aggregators
Climate central https://www.climatecentral.org/
Inside Climate News https://insideclimatenews.org/
Daily Climate https://www.dailyclimate.org/
Climate Desk https://www.climatedesk.org/
Covering Climate Now – collaborates with journalists and newsrooms to incorporate climate reporting
Blogs, Substacks & Online Commentaries
Heated – substack of climate journalist Emily Atkins https://heated.world/
Hot Take – substack of climate critics Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt https://hot-take.ghost.io/
Grist – environmental blog, lots of climate coverage https://grist.org/
The Conversation, environment & energy section – Academics and scholars translate their work for a public audience https://theconversation.com/us/environment
Ecowatch – Policy, science, and other experts cover environmental topics including climate change https://www.ecowatch.com/
US Government Climate blogs
Ask NASA Climate blog – NASA scientists communicating about their climate work https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/
USAID Climate Links – climate blog from US international aid agency, focusing on development and humanitarian sector https://www.climatelinks.org/blog
Climate.gov – NOAA site covering climate change https://www.climate.gov/
Major Newspapers with Climate Sections
The Guardian – UK based, global focus https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-change
The Hill – Washington DC, US federal policy focus https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment
The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/section/climate
NPR – https://www.npr.org/sections/environment/
Politico – Washington, DC based focused on federal policy https://www.politico.com/energy-and-environment
BBC Science Focus – https://www.sciencefocus.com/tag/climate-change/
The Washington Post – https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/
Smithsonian Magazine – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/tag/climate-change/
Popular Books
Klein, Naomi. 2014. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Simon & Schuster, New York.
Kolbert, Elizabeth. 2006. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. Bloomsbury Publishers.
Miller, Todd. 2017. Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration and Homeland Security. City Lights Books, San Francisco.
Feature-length films
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
- Note from Allison Ford (Sonoma State University) – I pair this film with Spencer Weart’s chapter on “The Development of the Concept of Dangerous Anthropogenic Climate Change” in the Oxford Handbook of climate change and society. We view the film both as a source of scientific information about climate change, most of which is new to students, despite the film’s age, as well as a historical document that fits into Weart’s historical discussion of how climate change came to be understood at anthropogenic and dangerous. Pairs nicely with: Gleiser, Marcelo. 2016. “After 10 Years, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ Is Still Inconvenient”. NPR.
An Inconvenient Sequel (2017)
Blowout: Inside America’s Energy Gamble (2018)
Boiling Point: The Global Climate Crisis
Climate Refugees (2010)
- Note from Allison Ford (Sonoma State University) – This film is so/so. It is highly effective in that it provides imagery that brings alive the plight of people around the world as they confront migration related to climate change. The experts they interview lack diversity, and at times the narrative reinforces tropes of refugees as victims. But students respond strongly to the visual medium, and the problems in the discourse that the film at times falls into provides a good basis for discussion.
- Description (from Kari Norgaard): Details the political issues involved in global warming; excellent interviews with top officials (gov’t and scientific experts) on global warming and why the U.S. has not been involved in international treaties, etc. Available to watch online, one-hour long, but can view separate chapters.
Idiocracy (2006)
Merchants of Doubt (2014)
- Description – This is a film based on the book of the same title by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.
Mossville: When Great Trees Fall (2019)
- Description – Follows one of the last remaining residents of Mossville, Louisiana, a community founded by formerly enslaved and free African Americans that has been overtaken by South African fossil fuel multinational corporation Sasol. The film does an excellent job drawing connections between global racial politics of South African apartheid and racial inequality in the US, focusing on the story of Stacy Ryan, one of the last residents who refuses to leave, despite the toxic contamination of the expanding plant all around him.
Out of Balance: ExxonMobil’s Impact on Climate Change
- Description (from Kari Norgaard): This documentary includes a concise overview of the basic science of climate change (which I skipped over for my class full of Environmental Studies majors), outlines the economic history of the company from its origins as Standard Oil, and shows the strategies ExxonMobil has used to create public confusion about the issue. I recommend stopping the film at the point where one of the commentators notes that the problem is “systemic”. After that quote, the filmmaker advocates boycotting Exxon and switching to biofuels for personal vehicles, recommendations that go against that important structural point. (Plus I would not want to advocate biofuels for many reasons.)
Rising Waters: Global Warming and the Fate of the Pacific Islands
- Description (from Kari Norgaard): Consider showing the middle section on corporate actors and economic structure – important areas of focus conveniently missing from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
This Changes Everything (2105)
- Description – This is a film based on the book of the same title by Naomi Klein.
To the Ends of the Earth (2016)
- Description – The film “follows concerned citizens living at the frontiers of extreme oil and gas extraction, bearing witness to a global crossroads. They call for human ingenuity to rebuild society at the end of the fossil fuel era.” (film website)
The Condor & The Eagle (2019)
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2019)
- Description – Limited narrative, but powerful, unique imagery of the extent and reach of human impact on Earth.
Last Call for the Bayou: Five Stories from Louisiana’s Disappearing Coastline
Short films and videos
NASA Space Place. 2020. What is the Greenhouse Effect? (2:29)What Is the Greenhouse Effect?
Margaret Atwood, Hope and the “Everything Change” (3:48)
After the Fire (17:51)
Complex Movements (7:37)
The Planetary Boundaries framework: current status and future challenges from the Stockholm Resilience Center (7:52)
Welcome to the Anthropocene (3:19)
Climate Change: What’s Gender Got to Do With It? (2:16)
Gone Before the Wave. 2015. (12:20) Summer Gray, UCSB.
Idle No More Short Documentary (6:55)
Rise: From One Island to Another (6:31) two indigenous poets, one from the Marshall Islands, one from Greenland
How Global Warming Works – series of videos explaining the science of global warming. Includes video ranging from 1 – 5 minutes.
Climate Crisis: The Final Exam! (9:20)
Lowland Kids: Climate Change Threatens Two Teenagers’ Family Home (22:00)
Podcasts/Audio Resources
How to Survive the End of the World by Autumn Brown & adrienne marie brown
Heated (limited-run podcast by climate journalist Emily Atkins)
Hot and Bothered, by environmental sociologist Daniel Aldana Cohen and journalist Kate Aranoff
Did We Go Too Far? by Movement Generation, about transformational times that touches on climate, as well as race, queerness, and politics of oppression