In your reflective era? These climate reads get it

There are three plastic bags in my neighbor’s tree. One is dirty-white, stuck on low branches, battered like a ship’s sail. Two are tangled in high branches, and they’re bright blue – the way nothing is in nature. I can see all three bags through my window, never leaving my peripheral, flapping and trembling and haunting like ghosts.

No one came creeping in the night to weave litter into the trees and rivers and plains. Plastic bags were not invented with suffering in mind. But there is darkness without malice. Shame in unintended consequences, knowing the conveniences of today are the blue plastic land on which tomorrow’s crops must grow.

I find the only way to damper my anxieties about Earth & humanity is by going deeper into the belly of the beast. Full immersion in apocalyptic science fiction or literary cli-fi horror, getting swept up in imagined catastrophe – someone else’s what-ifs. Great writers around the world are printing their fears not to spread panic, but to grow hope. Just looking up from the page, seeing no comets, no ash occluding the skies – it’s a beautiful day, it really is, and the trees go on thriving, bags and all.

Center yourself with these great eco/cli-fi titles, available on Libby.

Looking for more reading recommendations? Check out this list:

• Lying, Stealing, and Other Ways to Save the Planet by Curtis Campbell
• The Bear by Andrew Krivak
• A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
• Ship in the Sky by Elle Evans
• Arroyo Circle by JoeAnn Hart
• Eve: Children of the Moon by Victor LaValle

*Title availability may vary.