Climate Stewardship Book
CLIMATE STEWARDSHIP: TAKING COLLECTIVE ACTION TO PROTECT CALIFORNIA
After decades of warnings by scientists and activists, it's clear that society cannot wait for nation-states to prevent climate disruption when there are actions individuals and groups can take to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The book Climate Stewardship: Taking Collective Action to Protect California, just published by UC Press, shows how Californians are working together across a diversity of communities and landscapes to improve resilience and address climate justice.
California is uniquely positioned to develop and implement novel solutions to widespread climate challenges, making this book a compelling read for anyone who cares about the Earth. The shared experiences of climate stewards featured in the book, including volunteers, Indigenous leaders and community members of color addressing climate justice, reveal that connecting with others to prevent climate disruption transcends self and provides a path to joy and hope for a better future.
Climate science that justifies these actions is woven throughout the book, making it easy to learn about Earth’s complex systems. “It’s science in a narrative form to share what can be done on the ground,” explains author Adina Merenlender, an internationally recognized conservation biologist who has published more than 100 scientific research articles as a Cooperative Extension Specialist at UC Berkeley. Her co-author is Brendan Buhler, an award-winning science writer whose work has been collected in The Best American Science and Nature Writing. Original paintings by Obi Kaufmann, author of The California Field Atlas, provide an artistic interlude between examples of collective action spanning agricultural, wild, and urban areas. Together they explore climate stewardship, science, and art in a way that is enjoyable, inspiring, and even amusing.
"Over the course of seven compact chapters, each dedicated to a different landscape within the state, they outline how residents are laboring to adapt these environments to climate change and its emerging impacts."
Such granularity enables the authors to present climate change as a set of localized environmental challenges with equally localized context-specific solutions or interventions. A global-scale crisis may be a daunting hydra-headed problem, but there are, they show, small, actionable measures that individuals can take to address it. Climate change is not just a monolithic existential threat, in other words."
Sayd Randle
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“The climate leaders profiled in this book are inspirational. Their stories reflect the diversity of California’s people and landscapes and show the power of collective action to create change. They also reveal our profound connection with nature and with one another, and the power of nature-based solutions to address the climate crisis.
Perhaps most importantly, this wonderful book reminds us of what we are capable of as individuals to improve the future of our planet and people.” Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary for Natural Resources
