March 2023

Michael M. Gunter, Jr. takes readers around the United States to bear witness to the many faces of the climate crisis. He argues that conscientious travel broadens understanding of climate change and makes its dangers concrete and immediate.

Vivid vignettes explore the consequences for people and communities: sea level rise in Virginia, floods sweeping inland in Tennessee, Maine lobsters migrating away from American territorial waters, and imperiled ecosystems in national parks, from Alaskan permafrost to the Florida Keys. But Gunter finds inspiring initiatives to mitigate and adapt to these threats, including wind turbines in a tiny Texas town, green building construction in Kansas, and walkable urbanism in Portland, Oregon.

These projects are already making a difference—and they underscore the importance of local action. Drawing on interviews with government officials, industry leaders, and alternative energy activists, Climate Travels emphasizes direct personal experience and the centrality of environmental justice. Showing how travel can help bring the reality of climate change home, it offers readers a hopeful message about how to take action on the local level themselves.

Professor Mike Gunter shows us in striking detail the impacts of climate change on neighborhoods, cities and towns across the United States, and then contrasts those images with stories of what communities and individuals are doing to ameliorate those impacts.  This book should be read by the skeptical, the ambivalent, and those looking to enhance their efforts to deal with climate change.

-       Eileen Claussen, founder of Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), former Special Assistant to the President, and former Senior Director for Global Environmental Affairs at the National Security Council

There is both urgency and agency in addressing our climate crisis. Read “Climate Travels” by Mike Gunter to understand why. Gunter takes us on a journey around the US where we see both the dire threats Americans face and the rays of light that illuminate a path forward. Read this book and feel empowered to make a difference.

-       Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor, University of Pennsylvania & author of The New Climate War


Gunter's work is thoroughly grounded in science and policy combined with the appealing sense of a conversation. I really enjoyed reading Climate Travels, traveling to these different locales in such engaging and well-informed company.

  • James Barilla, author of My Backyard Jungle

This solid offering from Gunter… makes for an urgent overview of the ways climate change is reshaping the U.S. 

  • Publishers Weekly

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