"What This Year’s Climate Books Say About Power, Inequality, And The Work Ahead In 2026" Article Reflection No. 167 (1/10/2026)

Article:  “What This Year’s Climate Books Say About Power, Inequality, And The Work Ahead In 2026” 

Reflection:  

In the Forbes article “What This Year’s Climate Books Say About Power, Inequality, And The Work Ahead In 2026” journalist Monica Sanders discusses 2025’s climate-related books that cover themes of inequality and power. For example, books such as Abundance by Derek Thompson and Erza Klein discuss the (e.g.) political factors that contribute to a “bottleneck” as part of this attempt to address climate issues. Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequality to Combat Climate Change, a book by Friederike Otto, discusses systemic and structural disparities where those who experience environmental injustices tend to be those who contribute to these injustices’ causes the least. Other books discuss human emotion such as the sense of responsibility, hope, and grief, such as in Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change — in 50 Questions and Answers by Hannah Ritchie which discusses topics such as food then connects it to climate change along with writing that is driven by data. 

One of the parts from this article that stood out to me is how books on climate change had “clearest thinking,” especially relative to the climate-related news from 2025. Reading this, I feel the stronger need to read more books on climate change and systemic changes. One of the main takeaways from this article is the discussion about systemic institutional factors that contribute to whether or not society is able to make progress in combating climate change. I wonder how this can be further introduced in mainstream news so that people are more aware of this. I wish environment-related news more regularly featured events and developments from this social justice lens too.