by Andrew Boyd
New Society Publishers
2/14/2023, paperback
SKU: 9780865719835
An existential manual for tragic optimists, can-do pessimists, and compassionate doomers
With global warming projected to rocket past the 1.5°C limit, lifelong activist Andrew Boyd is thrown into a crisis of hope, and off on a quest to learn how to live with the "impossible news" of our climate doom.
He searches out eight of today's leading climate thinkers -- from activist Tim DeChristopher to collapse-psychologist Jamey Hecht, grassroots strategist adrienne maree brown, eco-philosopher Joana Macy, and Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer -- asking them: "Is it really the end of the world? and if so, now what?"
With gallows humor and a broken heart, Boyd steers readers through their climate angst as he walks his own. Boyd's journey takes him from storm-battered coastlines to pipeline blockades and "hopelessness workshops." Along the way, he maps out our existential options, and tackles some familiar dilemmas: "Should I bring kids into such a world?" "Can I lose hope when others can't afford to?" and "Why the fuck am I recycling?"
He finds answers that will surprise, inspire, and maybe even make you laugh. Drawing on wisdom traditions Eastern, Western, and Indigenous, Boyd crafts an insightful and irreverent guide for achieving a "better catastrophe."
This is vital reading for everyone navigating climate anxiety and grief as our world hurtles towards an unthinkable crisis.
Reviews:
"Urgent, sobering reading." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"The most realistic yet least depressing end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it guide out there." -- Foreword Reviews, starred review
"The book is stunning. By delivering its devastating news in imaginative, engaging, and sometimes even hilarious ways, it marks the emergence of a new and genuinely exciting kind of realism." -- Brian Eno, musician and environmentalist
About the Author:
Andrew Boyd is a writer, humorist, activist, and CEO (Chief Existential Officer) of the Climate Clock, a global campaign that blends art, science, and grassroots organizing to get the world to #ActInTime. He also co-created the grief-storytelling ritual the Climate Ribbon and led the 2000s-era satirical campaign Billionaires for Bush. Andrew's previous books include Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe, and Life's Little Deconstruction Book: Self-Help for the Post-Hip. His lifelong ambition, cribbed from Milan Kundera, is "to unite the utmost seriousness of question with the utmost lightness of form." Andrew lives in New York City.