Interview with Matt Winning, author of Hot Mess: What on earth can we do about climate change?
Matt Winning, author of Hot Mess: What on earth can we do about climate change? recommends a brilliant set of books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Matt's book:
Review from Book Depository:
For fans of Randall Munro's WHAT IF? Matt Parker's HUMBLE PI and anyone looking for practical tips on how to stop the end of the world!
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Hot Mess: What on earth can we do about climate change?
Dr Matt Winning is a stand-up comedian and environmental economist with a PHD in climate change policy, which means he's the sort of doctor who will rush to your side if you fall ill on a plane, but only to berate you for flying.
We are currently facing a global climate emergency. You've probably noticed. But why does the end of the world need to be so depressing? HOT MESS aims to both lighten the mood and enlighten readers on climate change. This is a book for people who care about climate change but aren't doing much about it, helping readers understand what the main causes of climate change are, what changes are needed, and what they can (and cannot) do about it.
But, most importantly, it is book that'll help people find the comedy in climate change, because if we can do that, well, we can do bloody anything.
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Wordery $16.61
Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
That is a tough one. I have read an awful lot of climate change books recently, all of which I have enjoyed in different ways but I don't think I do have a favourite. The most recent one was Saving Us by Katharine Hayhoe which I would 100% recommend. It is about about how one of the most importnat things we can start doing to tackle climate change is to talk about it. She gives lots of first hand anecodates about times she has spoken with audiences and people who aren't necessarily inclined to accept the science. She is a climate scientist and a Christian so it is an interesting combination and she speaks with such positivity and clarity about the reasons why people choose to ignore or deny the world's greatest existential crisis. Great succinct book. And I've just started reading A Bigger Picture by Vanessa Nakate. Only a chapter in at the moment but I'm already finding it powerful hearing about her perspective on climate issues coming from Uganda.
Review From Book Depository
United Nations Champion of the Earth, climate scientist, and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe changes the debate on how we can save our future.
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No matter your age, location or skin colour, you can be an effective activist.
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Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World
Called "one of the nation's most effective communicators on climate change" by The New York Times, Katharine Hayhoe knows how to navigate all sides of the conversation on our changing planet. A Canadian climate scientist living in Texas, she negotiates distrust of data, indifference to imminent threats, and resistance to proposed solutions with ease. Over the past fifteen years Hayhoe has found that the most important thing we can do to address climate change is talk about it-and she wants to teach you how.
In Saving Us, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation. We need to find shared values in order to connect our unique identities to collective action. This is not another doomsday narrative about a planet on fire. It is a multilayered look at science, faith, and human psychology, from an icon in her field-recently named chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy.
Drawing on interdisciplinary research and personal stories, Hayhoe shows that small conversations can have astonishing results. Saving Us leaves us with the tools to open a dialogue with your loved ones about how we all can play a role in pushing forward for change.
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Easons €28.00
Book Depository €22.96
Waterstones £20.00
A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis
Devastating flooding, deforestation, extinction and starvation. These are the issues that not only threaten in the future, they are a reality. After witnessing some of these issues first-hand, Vanessa Nakate saw how the world's biggest polluters are asleep at the wheel, ignoring the Global South where the effects of climate injustice are most fiercely felt.
Inspired by a shared vision of hope, Vanessa's commanding political voice demands attention for the biggest issue of our time and, in this rousing manifesto for change, shows how you can join her to protect our planet now and for the future.
Vanessa realised the importance of her place in the climate movement after she, the only Black activist in an image with four white Europeans, was cropped out of a press photograph at Davos in 2020. This example illustrates how those who will see the biggest impacts of the climate crisis are repeatedly omitted from the conversation. As she explains, 'We are on the front line, but we are not on the front page.'
Without A Bigger Picture, you're missing the full story on climate change.
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Easons €28.00
Book Depository €17.04
Waterstones £20.00
Wordery $17.76
Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
Ah, I guess I've just answered this question. We just had a baby in 2020 and so the only other books I have had time for have been kids books. And I guess those are smart thinking if you are 17 months old. Most recetly is Wow, Said the Owl which is about teaching colours. I'm not so sure your readers will require this but always good to brush up I guess.
Review from Book Depository:
At night, when we are feeling tired and ready for bed, owls are just waking up. But one curious little owl decides to stay awake all day, instead of all night, and discovers a world bursting with colour! Yet when the night-time comes around again, the stars above her head are still the most beautiful of all.
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Wow! Said the Owl
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Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
My favoutite book as a teenager was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And similarly, a little later was Catch 22 which is still the funniest book I've ever read. These books are both untouchable, mostly due to when I read them. Weirdly, I hated Catcher in the Rye though.
Review From Book Depository
Pitching an extraordinary battle between cruel authority and a rebellious free spirit, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel that epitomises the spirit of the sixties. This Penguin Classics edition includes a preface, never-before published illustrations by the author, and an introduction by Robert Faggen.
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Review From Book Depository
Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electroshock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy - the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. The subject of an Oscar-winning film starring Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.
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Catch-22
Set in the closing months of World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. His real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. If Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions then he is caught in Catch-22: if he flies he is crazy, and doesn't have to; but if he doesn't want to he must be sane and has to. That's some catch...
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Easons €10.49
Book Depository €9.00
Waterstones £9.99
Wordery $12.08
Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
I do have some stats on which of these is best from an enviornmental perspective in my book. However, that aside, paper is what I enjoy the most. Preferably on a beach or next to a pool. There is something about the smell of a book that has been out in the sun many times. But I don't get much of a chance to do that so mostly I listen to audiobook at the moment.
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
Blackwells in Edinburgh is my favourite bookshop from my time at University there.
Many thanks to Matt for recommending a brilliant set of books! Please don't forget to check out Matt's book Hot Mess: What on earth can we do about climate change?.
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Headline Publishing Group (Hot Mess), Simon & Schuster (Saving Us), Pan Macmillan (A Bigger Picture, Wow Said The Owl), Penguin Books Ltd (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest), Vintage Publishing (Catch-22).
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