What Climate awareness?

As another heatwave is set to heat, it is hard to ignore whether we are doing enough about the weather. We have selected a series of fiction, art books and nature writing for you to understand how we can be more climate aware.

Also, watch for our rotating display in stores for a greater selection of the topic.

Remembering Great Apes: 3 by Margot Raggett

Within the Remembering Wildlife charity series, 'Remembering Great Apes' is a beautifully crafted photographic book on a species, utilising it to raise awareness of the plight facing that animal and also to fund its protection.

The 'great apes' - bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans- are said to be our closest cousins. Yet we humans turn a blind eye to the destruction we make for the sake of our own greed. Land, money, cheap ingredients and even components for our mobile phones are prioritised over our family.

See the great apes through the eyes of the many wildlife photographers in this photobook as a way to remember how we can do better for us and for our animal relatives.

How to Fall in Love with the Future: A Time Traveller’s Guide to Changing the World by Rob Hopkins

Musician and artist, Brian Eno sums up Rob Hopkins quite well, “Rob Hopkins is one of the world’s great optimists. He really believes that things can get better, and, when he’s around, they usually do. This book will lift your spirits and give you hope."

This time round, Rob wants us to fall in love with the year 2030 as he time-travels into the future, walking down imagined future streets, talking with imagined future neighbours, visiting imagined future local businesses.

Whilst Rob Hopkins rethinks his work as a climate activist through imagining a positive world to come, he puts these thoughts into a form of part philosophical, part travel journal for us to explore with him, a hopeful future.

No More Fairy Tales: stories to Save our Planet Edited by Steve Willis & D.A. Baden

Be inspired by 24 short stories written by authors bringing you positive visions of what a sustainable society might look like and how we might get there.

These stories might be funny, dark, mysterious, tragic, romantic, dramatic, upbeat or fantastical. As reviewed by Jonathon Porritt, author and campaigner, ‘Today’s Climate Crisis is down to a lack of imagination, blinding us to the horror story bearing down on us today. We now need to use our collective imagination to avert that nightmare – and ‘No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet’ shows us exactly how to do that.’ 

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

With the news that the Woodmill site, a beloved outdoor centre on the Itchen, is being sold to Southern Water in a deal lacking public consultation, many in Southampton are asking harder questions. Who owns our waterways? What happens when decisions are made behind closed doors?

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane is a powerful reflection on how we relate to rivers, what they mean to us, and what’s lost when they’re treated only as resources, not living forces.

If you’re thinking about these things too, join Southampton National Park City on the 12th of August for a screening of 'I Am the River, The River is Me’,  joining Maori leaders on a journey on the first river in the world to be granted legal personhood.