Climate change is a complicated issue, so staying informed takes work and lots of it! We’re sharing our favorite resources for making that work easier.
Understanding environmental issues and making sure your advocacy makes a difference would be impossible without the work of researchers. The resources below have played a huge part in our choice to do what we do and have helped us learn how to do it! They’ve also helped us keep tabs on other branches of the movement to save our planet.
We’ve organized these resources into some that we find most useful for understanding how climate change works and what we find most useful for applying solutions, though there’s plenty of overlap! Check a few out and see if any are a good fit for you and your interests.
Understanding Climate Change
Earth Island supports many grassroots environmentalist projects, leaving no stone unturned when it comes to protecting our planet and its inhabitants. Their publication, as well as their podcast, covers a wide range of issues with varying scopes.
Best for: Journalism covering policy and policy execution on the planet, from detailed vignettes of very specific topics, to birds-eye views of systemic issues.
This organization brings people together to apply pressure on a few areas of concern: preservation of forests, phasing out of fossil fuels, and improvement of urban spaces. They set a great example of attacking the issue of climate change from multiple angles, building grassroot movements, investigating and influencing the key actors and corporations impacting the environment, promoting positive policy change, and contributing their own research to the field.
Best for: Supporting corporate influence campaigns with the facts.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics is a nonprofit that seeks to provide expert research to inform and prepare the public to address issues facing society. Their climate work consists of various resources, including a newsletter summarizing the latest research, webinars on key topics, and tons of reports and articles.
Best for: Understanding the science behind climate change and the ways we can limit it.
Climate Reality connects the dots between many moving parts of our climate situation, and works to drive home the urgency of climate solutions. To support this work, they publish articles on different climate concerns as well as the different ways legislation will interact with them.
Best for: Both US and global policy implications on our environment, with plentiful references to other sources so you can go down your own rabbit hole of climate education.
This podcast covers the clean energy transition, an absolutely critical component of reducing our climate impact. Featuring activists, politicians, and industry experts, Volts helps us stay up to date with how the shift to renewables is going and what needs to happen for us to make the switch.
Best for: All things clean energy in podcast form!
Strategies and Solutions
Sierra Club has a long history of connecting those who love the outdoors with ways of protecting it. They’ve evolved to increase their focus on other key issues of the day, including combatting climate change and ensuring all people have access to a clean and healthy environment. Their online magazine covers a wide variety of topics, and their main site also has opportunities to take quick actions in favor of conservation and environmental justice.
Best for: Content you can easily apply to your life in the moment. Bonus points if you love being outside.
Plant based diets can reduce our impact on the environment, but they also reduce our impact on the creatures we share it with. It’s helpful (and exciting!) for us to understand the full benefits of our work and how different choices we make with our diets can impact different species. Faunalytics produces and reviews research on animal protection topics, and it provides great insights on methods of informing people about the benefits of plant based diets that can be useful whatever your reasons are for choosing animal-free options.
Best for: Answering your questions about impactful advocacy and communications tactics, as well as the impacts of agriculture on the other animals on our planet.
This industry-focused organization works to move institutions to reduce their climate impact. It offers good news on which companies are making progress, as well as data-backed evaluations of the most climate-friendly food providers.
Best for: Tools for improving menu sustainability in ways that work for food professionals and their customers.
P.S. – We know that staying informed when there’s so much going on is daunting. It’s not possible to be an expert on everything, so we recommend picking something you’re interested that we know will make a difference. If you’re ever feeling burnt out or overwhelmed about helping our environment, we’d love for you to check out our blog about how we’re staying motivated and choosing where to focus.