Recs if you like The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions...

Nonfiction about prehistoric life guaranteed to reawaken the child within who couldn't get enough of it all, when the end of the Cretaceous felt as far away as when their designated adults were grade schoolers.

“Leave no trace” wasn’t meant to be a suggestion. Nature is calling, and we need to pick up.

Nonfiction that makes me think of The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir.

As a climate scientist and paleoclimatologist with a passion for our world and science communication, I wanted to share my recommendations for Earth science books that are informative, engaging, and accessible. I intend to continue updating this list.

Paleontology knows of 5 mass extinctions that happened over the course of the Earth’s last 500 million years of history - and right now we might be at the brink of a 6th extiction event. This list contains books that cover historical and current extinction events and connect them to how humans treat the environment we live in and show how catastrophic the consequences of our actions might be. Open to recommendations!

Or: reasons I'm not hopeful about our increasingly apocalyptic circumstances, and a defense of despair

I believe hopelessness is unfairly pathologized and scapegoated for our collective failure to take meaningful action against ecocide. Climate catastrophe is accelerating. Collapse is underway, and you're not crazy for noticing. You don't need to feel bad about feeling bad.

SISTER LIST: forthcoming

natural history nonfiction about Earth's younger epochs