Are you an SEJ member who's authored, co-authored or edited a non-fiction or fiction environmental book (published in 2020) you'd like included on this page? Documentaries are also welcome. Please send the following to web content manager Cindy MacDonald:

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Find links to members' books published in other years here.

Non-Fiction

"At the Precipice: New Mexico's Changing Climate"

By Laura Paskus

New Mexico is warming at roughly twice the global average and the impacts of climate change are already clear across the state — from high-elevation conifer forests that can no longer survive warmer, drier conditions to the channel of the Rio Grande, which dries for long stretches each year. As warming continues, New Mexico will keep facing longer fire seasons, more severe fires, water insecurity and public health impacts related to everything from extreme heat to more frequent dust storms. But the state’s diverse population, and the love New Mexicans have for their landscapes, offer hope for the future. In this book, journalist Laura Paskus transforms nearly two decades of coverage of climate change, water, fire, energy and politics in New Mexico into a journey through the state’s challenges and opportunities. And the book isn’t just meant for New Mexicans: “As Laura Paskus makes clear, the stakes of climate change in the American Southwest couldn’t be higher,” wrote Elizabeth Kolbert, author of “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.” “Deeply reported and vividly written, At the Precipice is an important contribution to the literature of our reckless age.” University of New Mexico Press, 2020. ISBN: 978-0-8263-5911-7. More information.

"Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther"

By Craig Pittman

With novelistic detail and an eye for the absurd, Craig Pittman recounts the extraordinary story of the people who brought the endangered Florida panther back from the brink of extinction, the ones who nearly pushed the species over the edge and the cats that were caught in the middle. This being Florida, there's more than a little weirdness, too. Hanover Square Press, 2020. ISBN-10: 133593880X. ISBN-13: 978-1335938800. More information.

"Critical Perspectives on Journalistic Beliefs and Actions: Global Experiences"

Edited By Eric Freedman, Robyn S. Goodman and Elanie Steyn

This book provides case studies, many incorporating in-depth interviews and surveys of journalists. It examines issues such as journalists’ attitudes toward their contributions to society; the impact of industry and technological changes; culture and minority issues in the newsroom and profession; the impact of censorship and self-censorship; and coping with psychological pressures and physical safety dilemmas. Its chapters also highlight journalists’ challenges in national and multinational contexts. International scholars, conducting research within a wide range of authoritarian, semi-democratic and democratic systems, contributed to this examination of journalistic practices in the Arab World, Australia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Samoa, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey and the United States. Routledge, 2020. ISBN: 9780367590857. More information.

"Outpedaling 'the Big C': My Healing Cycle Across America"

By Elizabeth McGowan

"Proceed as the way opens" is how William Least Heat-Moon put it in his book, "River Horse." The line becomes a sort of mantra for Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth McGowan, a melanoma survivor. Having been given a five-year clean bill of health, McGowan decides to bicycle all 4,000 or so miles from America’s west to east coast. For her, there are multiple reasons for the exhausting trip. She wants to help other melanoma victims, and sets out to use her many miles to raise funds for cancer research in southeastern Wisconsin, where she was treated. She also wants to better understand her late father, who died of melanoma at the age of 44, when Elizabeth was just 15. Her long, nearly 90-day cycling trip across the U.S. continent not only showcases people affected by cancer and more than willing to help promote cancer research, but it personally brings McGowan closer to her father. At the end of her bicycle ride, McGowan’s mother shows her, for the first time, letters about her father received after his untimely death. They open her eyes to the fact that she, too, can move through life with gusto whenever she makes sure that "the way opens." "Outpedaling the Big C" is an anything-but-typical, exhilarating journey story revealing how immersion in the natural world is a balm for the wounded. Bancroft Press, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-61088-514-0 (hardcover); 978-1-61088-516-4 (e-book). More information.

"Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange"

By Jon Mitchell

Based upon 12,000+ pages of CIA and Department of Defense reports obtained via the US Freedom of Information Act, "Poisoning the Pacific" reveals how military operations have contaminated the region with toxic substances including radioactive fallout, chemical weapons and dioxin. Hundreds of thousands of indigenous Chamorro, Marshallese and Okinawans, as well as US service members and their families, have been exposed – but the authorities have hidden the damage and refused to aid victims. Primary documents have been donated to the libraries of George Washington University, University of Hawai’i and Okinawa International University to help survivors. Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-5381-3033-9 (Hardcover); 978-1-5381-3034-6 (E-book). More information.

"The Reindeer Chronicles and Other Inspiring Stories of Working With Nature to Heal the Earth"

By Judith D. Schwartz

Award-winning science journalist Judith D. Schwartz takes us first to China's Loess Plateau, where a landmark project has successfully restored a blighted region the size of Belgium, lifting millions of people out of poverty. She journeys on to Norway, where a young Indigenous reindeer herder challenges the most powerful orthodoxies of conservation — and his own government. And in the Middle East, she follows the visionary work of an ambitious young American as he attempts to re-engineer the desert ecosystem, using plants as his most sophisticated technology. Schwartz explores regenerative solutions across a range of landscapes: deserts, grasslands, tropics, tundra, Mediterranean. She also highlights various human landscapes, the legacy of colonialism and industrial agriculture, and the endurance of Indigenous knowledge. "The Reindeer Chronicles" demonstrates how solutions to seemingly intractable problems can come from the unlikeliest of places, and how the restoration of local water, carbon, nutrient and energy cycles can play a dramatic role in stabilizing the global climate. Ultimately, it reveals how much is in our hands if we can find a way to work together and follow nature's lead. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2020. ISBN: 9781603588652. More information.

"Routledge Handbook of Environmental Journalism"

By David B. Sachsman and JoAnn Myer Valenti

The "Routledge Handbook of Environmental Journalism" provides a thorough understanding of environmental journalism around the world. An increasing number of media platforms — from newspapers and television to Internet social media networks — are the major providers of indispensable information about the natural world and environmental risk. Despite the dramatic changes in the news industry that have tended to reduce the number of full-time newspaper reporters, environmental journalists remain key to bringing stories to light across the globe. With contributions from around the world broken down into five key regions — the United States of America, Europe and Russia, Asia and Australia, Africa and the Middle East, and South America — this book provides support for today’s environment reporters, the providers of essential news in the 21st century. Routledge, 2020. ISBN: 9781138478503 (hardback); 9781351068406 (ebook). More information (20% discount available — enter the code FLY21 at checkout). Book review by Katherine E. Rowan in Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, July 23, 2021 (full review; PDF).

"Snow: A History of the World's Most Fascinating Flake"

By Anthony R. Wood

Snow has affected the outcome of wars. It has been vital to the world economy. It has helped spur development in the United States. It might be a last line of defense against global warming. But what is most compelling about snow is the complex and enchanting phenomenon itself. For verification of snow’s pervasive hold, watch how the weather chat boards explode with traffic when there’s a winter-storm rumor. "Snow: A History of the World’s Most Fascinating Flake" examines the nation’s bifurcated relationship with snow and its mystical hold on the imagination. It is a relationship with roots in the 17th Century, when colonial settlers were astonished by the literally fantastic snows of the New World in what was to them a colder climate. That interest flourished with the industrial revolution and the mega-snows of the last three decades in a warmer world. Through profiles and anecdotes, Anthony R. Wood takes readers on a 250-page tour of the remarkable and varied universe of snow, tracing the history of snow science and profiling the fascinating characters and researchers who have pursued the crystal enigmas. They will also learn about the making and removing of snow, the psychology of winter and the history of snow in literature, art and popular culture. Roman and Littlefield/Prometheus, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-63388-594-3. More information. Article by the author.