by Tina Kelly – 

A changing climate affects everyone, directly or indirectly, now or later. Understanding it all can be challenging and overwhelming, but your local library is here to help. Climate Action Week, highlighted by the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums), took place in early November. During this annual event, libraries across the country raise awareness and highlight climate change resources. Two library systems span Victoria and the Peninsula – Vancouver Island Regional Library and the Greater Victoria Public Library – and each has created an up-to-date climate change book list.

While technically there is no subtheme to Climate Action Week, while glancing at the recommended titles a commonality begins to emerge: the theme of hope, optimism and combatting climate anxiety. Eco-anxiety, or climate anxiety, is on the rise and so too is the number of authors writing about it.

An anxious feeling of environmental doom can arise after you’ve been directly affected by an extreme climate event (i.e. storms, floods, fires) or it may result from the constant, unrelenting news and information focused on environmental disasters. It can also stem from a feeling of guilt over one’s own footprint and/or anger and resentment towards others for not doing enough. Like other anxiety disorders, symptoms include panic, depression, disruptions in sleep or focus, or changes in appetite. (www.anxietycanada.com and www.mentalhealthcommission.ca both provide information on understanding and coping with eco-anxiety.)

Climate Optimism is the title for VIRL’s book list. Among the recommendations are Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua; How to be a Climate Optimist: Blueprints for a Better World, Chris Turner; I Want a Better Catastrope: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor, Andrew Boyd; and Climate Optimism, Zahra Biabani.

The Climate Action Week reading list on offer from GVPL showcases some of the same titles plus these hopeful and optimistic reads: Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, Katharine Hayhoe; Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, Rebecca Solnit; and The Archipelago of Hope: Wisdom and Resilience from the Edge of Climate Change, Gleb Raygorodetsky.

Also on the list is Britt Wray’s 2022 book, Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Eco-Anxiety. CBC voted it one of Canada’s best nonfiction books and it was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. This book is described as “an impassioned, informed perspective on eco-anxiety and staying sane amid climate disruption.”

A book not listed but one with high praise from a former coworker is Elin Kelsey’s book: Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis. It was required reading for one of her university classes and the content resonated with her long after the course was over.

Borrow one of these books from your local library or support your local bookstore.

Climate Action Week might be over but our continued learning and taking action should not, and cannot, be limited to those seven days. Let’s take action and do it with a sense of hope and optimism.