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Falter
On sale
16th April 2019
Price: £20
‘This is Bill McKibben at his glorious best. Wise and warning, with everything on the line. Do not miss it’ Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine
Thirty years ago, Bill McKibben wrote The End of Nature, the first book that alerted us to the dangers of climate change. Falter is a new call to arms, to save not only our planet but our very souls as well.
Over tens of thousands of years, through the harnessing of nature, the development of civilization, and the application of new technologies, human beings have created the world we live in. But as McKibben points out in this provocative and sobering look at the world today, we are fast approaching a tipping point, putting into question the viability of humanity itself.
McKibben argues that we have failed to recognize how individual actions often operated against our collective interest, and as a result we now face three daunting challenges – to adjust to a new life on a broken planet, to fight the hyper-individualism that now animates government and business; and to reverse the ways that technology is bleaching out the variety of human existence. He asks if we still retain the tools and social capital to fight these larger forces – and if we are willing to make the effort.
Thirty years ago, Bill McKibben wrote The End of Nature, the first book that alerted us to the dangers of climate change. Falter is a new call to arms, to save not only our planet but our very souls as well.
Over tens of thousands of years, through the harnessing of nature, the development of civilization, and the application of new technologies, human beings have created the world we live in. But as McKibben points out in this provocative and sobering look at the world today, we are fast approaching a tipping point, putting into question the viability of humanity itself.
McKibben argues that we have failed to recognize how individual actions often operated against our collective interest, and as a result we now face three daunting challenges – to adjust to a new life on a broken planet, to fight the hyper-individualism that now animates government and business; and to reverse the ways that technology is bleaching out the variety of human existence. He asks if we still retain the tools and social capital to fight these larger forces – and if we are willing to make the effort.
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Reviews
[McKibben is] the Michael Jordan of climate change activism
'A love letter, a plea, a eulogy, and a prayer. This is Bill McKibben at his glorious best. Wise and warning, with everything on the line. Do not miss it'
'No one has done more than Bill McKibben to raise awareness about the great issue of our time. Falter is an essential book - honest, far-reaching and, against the odds, hopeful'
'The planet's best green journalist'
He has gathered the most vivid statistics, distilled history to its juiciest turns, and made the case as urgently and clearly as can be: The whole breadth of our existence - the 'human game' - is in jeopardy
'I braced myself to plunge into this book about the largest and grimmest of situations our species has faced, and then I found myself racing through it, excited by the grand synthesis of innumerable scientific reports on the details of the crisis. And then at the end I saw the book as a description of a big trap with a small exit we could take, if we take heed of what Bill McKibben tells us here, and act on it'
It's not an exaggeration to say that Bill McKibben has written a book so important, reading it might save your life, not to mention your home: Planet Earth. Falter is a brilliant, impassioned call to arms to save our climate from those profiting from its destruction before it's too late. Over and over, McKibben has proven one of the most farsighted and gifted voices of our times, and with Falter he has topped himself, producing a book that honestly, everyone should read
McKibben is a man of many virtues . . . Almost no one has been writing about climate change longer or working to fight it harder than he has
'Probably the country's most important environmentalist'
While these dangers have been widely discussed, McKibben provides a fresh perspective with surprising examples and an engaging writing style