Dec 19

Dec 19 All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis

Editors: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson
Publisher: One World
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it's clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial table. More than a problem of bias, it's a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone.

All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States--scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race--and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society.

Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future. We must summon truth, courage, and solutions to turn away from the brink and toward life-giving possibility. Curated by two climate leaders, the book is a collection and celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save.

TL;DR Review

All We Can Save is a moving, hopeful, and digestible collection of essays on climate activism. It made for an excellent book club discussion and inspired me to join/stay in the fight.

For you if: You want to read more about climate activism with a tone of hope.

Full Review

“To see beyond what despair sees—to move from the feeling toward the possibility—calls for things we have in abundance: love, imagination, and a willingness to simply tend the world as best we can, without guarantee of success.”

I was drawn to All We Can Save for its promise of education lined with hope. I picked it up because Kate of @treatyoshelvess (aka bookstagram’s climate queen) hosted a giant buddy read. Our particular group chose to read it slowly, over the course of two months (one of the eight sections per week), with discussion along the way. It was PERFECT for a book club setting.

I have, admittedly, always been a very passive person when it comes to climate change and environmentalism. I’ve always felt like I didn’t have the time or energy to understand or dedicate myself to it fully, so I just skimmed along. This collection, in combination with a few other books I read the last few months, have helped really drive the point home that something > nothing, and small steps > no steps.

These essays are pretty much all excellent. Each one taught me something new, asked me to see something in a new light, and challenged me just the right amount. (Also, the audiobook is great, with a cast of narrators who lent strong voices to the words — including Jane Fonda and America Ferrara!) I’ll be thinking about them for a long time.

If you want to learn more, keep climate change top of mind, and/or feel inspired, pick this one up.