Bill McKibben

Addressing the moral and practical aspects of dealing with environmental issues, this study spells out the tragic consequences of the greenhouse effect and discusses options for avoiding ecological calamity. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

The End of Nature

Schumann Distinguished Scholar Bill McKibben

An impassioned call for an economy that creates community and ennobles our lives. In this manifesto, journalist McKibben offers the biggest challenge in a generation to the prevailing view of our economy. For the first time in human history, he observes,"

The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Deep Economy

Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways out of the trap. We’re at a bleak moment in human history -- and we’ll either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away. Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms, to save not only our planet but also our humanity itself.

Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

Falter

"As the host of Radio Free Vermont--'underground, underpowered, and underfoot'--seventy-two-year-old Vern Barclay is currently broadcasting from an 'undisclosed and double-secret location.' With the help of a young computer prodigy named Perry Alterson, Vern uses his radio show to advocate for a simple yet radical idea: an independent Vermont, one where the state secedes from the United States and operates under a free local economy. But for now, he and his radio show must remain untraceable, because in addition to being a lifelong Vermonter and concerned citizen, Vern Barclay is also a fugitive from the law"--

A Fable of Resistance

Radio Free Vermont

"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." --Barbara Kingsolver Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth. That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend--think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer. Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back--on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change--fundamental change--is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.

Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

Eaarth

Bestselling author and environmental activist Bill McKibben recounts the personal and global story of the fight to build and preserve a sustainable planet Bill McKibben is not a person you'd expect to find handcuffed and behind bars, but that's where he found himself in the summer of 2011 after leading the largest civil disobedience in thirty years, protesting the Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House. With the Arctic melting, the Midwest in drought, and Irene scouring the Atlantic, McKibben recognized that action was needed if solutions were to be found. Some of those would come at the local level, where McKibben joins forces with a Vermont beekeeper raising his hives as part of the growing trend toward local food. Other solutions would come from a much larger fight against the fossil-fuel industry as a whole. Oil and Honey is McKibben's account of these two necessary and mutually reinforcing sides of the global climate fight—from the center of the maelstrom and from the growing hive of small-scale local answers to climate change. With empathy and passion he makes the case for a renewed commitment on both levels of the fight to stop global warming, telling the story of raising one year's honey crop and building a social movement that's still cresting.

The Education of an Unlikely Activist

Oil and Honey

Anna Lappe

Discusses the effects of transporting food on the climate, how the food industry is becoming aware of its part in global warming, the emerging solutions from farmers, and the seven principles for a climate-friendly diet.

The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It

Diet for a Hot Planet

A provocative anthology of top-selected American environmental writings from the past two centuries considers their influence on the ways in which people view the natural world and includes pieces by such figures as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John James Audubon. 30,000 first printing.

Environmental Writing Since Thoreau

American Earth

In light of climate change warnings, more families are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint and help prevent disasters like rising sea levels, wildfires, and increasing global temperatures. In this compelling book, the author of The End of Nature and Falter argues for a solution with sociological, population, and environmental benefits: having fewer children. The earth is becoming dangerously overcrowded, and if more families chose to have only one child, it would make a crucial difference toward ensuring a healthy future for ourselves and our planet for generations to come. But the environment alone may not persuade most people to consider having just one child, as 80% of Americans have siblings. Powerful stereotypes about only children—that they’re spoiled, selfish, or maladjusted in some way—still persist. McKibben, the proud father of an only child himself, debunks these myths, citing research about the many emotional and intellectual strengths only children possess, including higher test scores, higher levels of achievement in school, and greater development of positive personality traits like maturity and self-control. At once a powerful personal argument and an accessible exploration of what overpopulation could mean to human life and environmental sustainability, Maybe One is a provocative yet well-reasoned opening to what has become important and lasting debate.

A Case for Smaller Families

Maybe One

Offers an account of the author's walk from his home in Vermont to his former home in the Adirondacks, reflecting on the wonders of the natural world, what it means to be truly wild, and the impact of human intervention as he describes the Champlain Valle

A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape, Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks

Wandering Home

Naomi Klein

Tim Flannery

Timothy Morton

Jared Diamond

Amitav Ghosh

Michael Pollan

James Lovelock

Arne Næss

Aldo Leopold

George Monbiot

Wendell Berry

Greta Thunberg

Masanobu Fukuoka

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Terry Tempest Williams

Rachel Carson

Wangari Maathai

Edward O Wilson

Dai Qing

Green Ideas Slipcase

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement. An Idea Can Go Extinct is Bill McKibben's impassioned, groundbreaking account of how, by changing the earth's entire atmosphere, the weather and the most basic forces around us, 'we are ending nature.' Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

An Idea Can Go Extinct

Offers an account of the author's walk from his home in Vermont to his former home in the Adirondacks, reflecting on the wonders of the natural world, what it means to be truly wild, and the impact of human intervention.

Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape

Margaret Atwood

Arno Mayer

A collection of ten stories about global warming and its effects includes contributions by T.C. Boyle, Paolo Bacigulapi, and Margaret Atwood.

Short Stories from a Damaged Planet

I'm With the Bears

Rebecca Solnit

Paul Kingsnorth

Winona LaDuke

Glenis Redmond

The best political essays from Orion Magazine

The Most Radical Thing You Can Do

Divided into three sections, Hope, Human and Wild profiles the efforts of three caring communities to preserve wilderness and reverse environmental devastation. They include the reforestation of McKibben's home territory, New York's Adirondack Mountains; solving traffic and pollution problems in the densely populated Curitiba, Brazil; and how the citizens of Kerala, India have demonstrated that quality of life doesn't depend on overconsumption of resources. This edition features a new introduction that revisits these places and explores how they've changed over the years.

True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth

Hope, Human and Wild

Van Jones, Al Gore, Elizabeth Kolbert, Naomi Klein, and other essential voices on global warming, from its 19th-century discovery to the present, in a volume edited by Bill McKibben, our most widely respected environmental writer With the rise of extreme weather events worldwide--witness the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, and Katrina, and the sustained drought across the American West--global warming has become increasingly difficult to deny. What is happening to our planet? And what can we do about it? The Global Warming Reader provides more than thirty-five answers to these burning questions, from more than one hundred years of engagement with the topic. Here is Elizabeth Kolbert's groundbreaking essay "The Darkening Sea," Michael Crichton's skeptical view of climate change, George Monbiot's biting indictment of those who are really using up the planet's resources, NASA scientist James Hansen's testimony before the U.S. Congress, and clarion calls for action by Al Gore, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, Van Jones, and many others. The Global Warming Reader is a comprehensive resource, expertly edited by someone who lives and breathes this defining issue of our time.

A Century of Writing About Climate Change

The Global Warming Reader

The best-selling author of The End of Nature shares his observations on training to become a world-class skier as a man approaching middle age. Reprint.

Testing the Limits of Body and Spirit in a Year of Living Strenuously

Long Distance

A collection of essays by the author of "The End of Nature" explores the human relationship with the environment, discussing such topics as the changing planet, consumer culture, and environmental activism.

Pieces from an Active Life

The Bill McKibben Reader

Examines the growing commericalism of the Christmas holiday and argues that, by reducing the amount of money spent on gifts, families could enjoy a celebration that emphasizes fellowship, togetherness, and community

Bill McKibben

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