Bill Gates Recommends These Books To Better Understand The Earth And Climate Change

Bill Gates has always been a book lover—so much so that when he was a kid, his parents forbade the avid reader from bringing books to the dinner table.

So it was natural that when Gates was transitioning from working full time at Microsoft to full time at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2008, he turned to books as guidance.

“After decades of focusing maniacally on software, I finally had the time to get a better grounding in physics, chemistry, biology, and other sciences, which would help me in my work on health, education, and climate change,” Gates, who is 67 and the world’s fifth-richest person (worth $109 billion, per Forbes), wrote on his Gates Notes blog on Tuesday. “So I looked around for the best books and read as many of them as I could find.”

On Tuesday, Gates published a list of his four favorite climate-related titles from the pile he read when first preparing for his focus on philanthropy—including work to fight climate change through the foundation he co-chairs with his former wife, Melinda French Gates. The Gates Foundation has awarded $65.6 billion in grants and will step up annual grantmaking to $9 billion a year by 2026, Gates shared with Forbes last summer. Gates also founded Breakthrough Energy, a firm that backs advanced-energy startups and other companies with the goal of net-zero emissions.

Gates shared his favorite books about science, all nonfiction titles. Although his recommendations include one explainer-style read and three nontechnical textbooks, Gates stressed their accessibility and how those “deep dives” helped him gain a “basic grasp” of science he draws on frequently. Gates also recommended newer books on science and climate including Eula Biss’ On Immunity, which takes a critical look at the medical establishment, and Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky, which examines humans’ impact on climate change.

Previous Gates books recommendations have included multiple summer reading lists and titles revealing deeper truths about humanity.

Here are four time-tested science and climate books Gates recommends reading:

1. Weather for Dummies, by John D. Cox

This book, complete with illustrations and do-it-at-home experiments, shaped Gates’ understanding of how climate change affects weather, he writes. A quote from Gates himself is part of the book’s promotional material: “Weather For Dummies is probably the best book written for a general audience about the subject,” websites including Google Books and Goodreads proclaim. In the book, Cox considers weather as a series of phenomena encased by fundamental human wonderment—but in the easily digestible format for which the for Dummies series is well known.

2. The Atmosphere, by Frederick K. Lutgens, Edward Tarbuck and Redina Herman

First published in 1979 and now in its 14th edition, this book is a meteorological classic covering everything from fire to rain, according to Gates. The Atmosphere is a nontechnical take on all things meteorology. It covers what makes the Earth’s surface heat and cool, explains how the atmosphere circulates and thus draws a connection between the atmosphere and climate change. Gates emphasizes that even though the book is intended as a college textbook, “it’s quite accessible to anyone who’s motivated to learn about how the Earth’s climate works.”

3. Physical Geology, by James S. Monroe, Reed Wicander, and Richard Hazlett

If The Atmosphere focuses on what’s above Earth’s surface, Physical Geology examines what’s on and below it. Most of the book—a college-level read adorned with funny asides—is devoted to concepts including various types of rocks, plate tectonics, glaciers and erosion. “Part of the joy of reading it is that you get into subjects you probably learned about in elementary school—like plate tectonics and volcanoes—but in way more depth,” Gates writes, adding that the book’s sections tied to climate change can help a reader understand the impacts of “dramatically receding” glaciers.

4. Planet Earth, by John Renton

As both a writer and a teacher (formerly at the University of West Virginia for 50 years, before he died in 2020), Renton helps a reader see the world in a different way, Gates wrote. Planet Earth accompanies a series of video lectures titled “Nature of Earth: An Introduction to Geology” and, like every other title mentioned in this article, is available for rent or purchase.