Bill McKibben

In 2006, Julianne Lutz Warren (nee Newton) asked readers to rediscover one of history's most renowned conservationists. Aldo Leopold's Odyssey was hailed by The New York Times as a "biography of ideas," making "us feel the loss of what might have followed A Sand County Almanac by showing us in authoritative detail what led up to it." Warren's astute narrative quickly became an essential part of the Leopold cannon, introducing new readers to the father of wildlife ecology and offering a fresh perspective to even the most seasoned scholars. A decade later, as our very concept of wilderness is changing, Warren frames Leopold's work in the context of the Anthropocene. With a new preface and foreword by Bill McKibben, the book underscores the ever- growing importance of Leopold's ideas in an increasingly human-dominated landscape. Drawing on unpublished archives, Warren traces Leopold's quest to define and preserve land health. Leopold's journey took him from lowa to Yale to the Southwest to Wisconsin, with fascinating stops along the way to probe the causes of early land settlement failures, contribute to the emerging science of ecology, and craft a new vision for land use. Leopold's life was dedicated to one fundamental dilemma: how can people live prosperously on the land and keep it healthy, too? For anyone compelled by this question, the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Aldo Leopold's Odyssey offers insight and inspiration.

A hiker's dream bucket list is embodied in this lavishly illustrated celebration of more than 50,000 miles of America's most iconic trails. Celebrating the forty most important trails in America, this volume takes the reader through forty-nine states and eight national parks. Literally tens of millions of tourists and hikers visit these trails each year, some of which wind through the country's most scenic natural wonders and virtually every major ecosystem in America. Each featured trail has its own section, complete with a map and photo gallery, and the reader explores what makes it one of the most magnificent hiking experiences anywhere in the world. Trail histories accompany detailed hiker-friendly descriptions that highlight the most scenic spots, with suggestions for shorter weekend and day hikes. The stunning photographs take the reader on a visual adventure conducted by Bart Smith, the first person to hike all eleven National Scenic Trails from end to end. America's Great Hiking Trails is perfect for anyone interested in outdoor recreation and conservation.

Powerful, impassioned essays on living and being in the world, from the bestselling author of "The End of Nature "and "Deep Economy"For a generation, Bill McKibben has been among America's most impassioned and beloved writers on our relationship to our world and our environment. His groundbreaking book on climate change, "The End of Nature," is considered "as important as Rachel Carson's classic "Silent Spring""* and "Deep Economy, "his "deeply thoughtful and mind-expanding"** exploration of globalization, helped awaken and fuel a movement to restore local economies. Now, for the first time, the best of McKibben's essays fiery, magical, and infused with his uniquely soulful investigations of modern life are collected in a single volume. Whether meditating on today's golden age in radio, the natural place of biting black flies in our lives, or the patriotism of a grandmother fighting to get corporate money out of politics, McKibben inspires us to become better caretakers of the Earth and of one another.*"The Plain Dealer "(Cleveland )**Michael Pollan"

Acclaimed environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben turns to the biblical Book of Job to confront the deepest assumptions driving the modern environmental crisis. The Book of Job dismantles assumptions of human mastery, offering a theology of humility that directly challenges extractive attitudes and motivates environmental activism grounded in restraint and responsibility. McKibben challenges the belief that economic growth and technological mastery can secure our future on a finite planet. This paperback edition of a classic, originally published in 1994, features a new preface that speaks directly to the escalating realities of climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and ecological collapse--and how we can respond. McKibben weaves contemporary environmental science together with Stephen Mitchell’s luminous translation of Job, showing how ancient Scripture offers a radical corrective to human hubris. Job’s God does not explain suffering or reward progress; instead, God reveals a world whose value exceeds human utility and whose balance cannot be endlessly manipulated. With characteristic clarity and moral urgency, McKibben argues that unchecked development is not merely misguided but lethal—an accelerating process of “decreation” that threatens the integrity of the planet and the future of humanity itself. Against this destructive orthodoxy, he calls for humility, restraint, and a renewed sense of responsibility grounded in awe for the more-than-human world. Written in McKibben’s signature lyrical prose, The Comforting Whirlwind is both a work of religious interpretation and a call to environmental action. It invites general readers, people of faith, environmental activists, and those interested in religion and science to rethink humanity’s place in creation—and to recognize that survival depends not on domination, but on reverence.

Our climate, and our democracy, are melting down. But Bill McKibben, one of the first to sound the alarm about the climate crisis, insists the moment is also full of possibility. Energy from the sun and wind is suddenly the cheapest power on the planet and growing faster than any energy source in history—if we can keep accelerating the pace, we have a chance. Here Comes the Sun tells the story of the sudden spike in power from the sun and wind—and the desperate fight of the fossil fuel industry and their politicians to hold this new power at bay. From the everyday citizens who installed solar panels equal to a third of Pakistan’s electric grid in a year to the world’s sixth-largest economy—California—nearly halving its use of natural gas in the last two years, Bill McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy. And he shows how solar power is more than just a path out of the climate crisis: it is a chance to reorder the world on saner and more humane grounds. You can’t hoard solar energy or hold it in reserves—it’s available to all. There’s no guarantee we can make this change in time, but there is a hope—in McKibben’s eyes, our best hope for a new civilization: one that looks up to the sun, every day, as the star that fuels our world.

Every eighteen hours, the world puts up a nuclear power plant’s–worth of solar panels. At the same time, combustion continues to melt the poles, poison our bodies and drive global inequality. It is no longer necessary: For the first time in 700,000 years, we know how to catch the sun’s rays and convert them into energy. In Here Comes the Sun, Bill McKibben tells the story of the spike in power from the sun and wind. McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy, which, if it accelerates, gives us a chance not just to limit climate change’s damage but to reorder the world. Getting there means overcoming obstacles like Big Oil, but McKibben sees a chance for a new civilisation that looks to the sun as the star that fuels our world.

Award-winning environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in the previous year.“This was the most anomalous year (so far) in human history,” guest editor Bill McKibben writes, “the year in which the relationship between people and planet showed its most dramatic signs yet of unraveling.” The selections in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024 reveal a trying year for our planet—from the Lahaina wildfire tragedy to the lush Amazon jungle slowly turning to savanna—while also celebrating the earth’s beautiful and mysterious ways—from the largest beaver dam on earth to the heroic innovation to prevent birds from crashing into Chicago’s expanse of glass buildings. These essays offer solace in trying times, showing a way for a better future. They are, as McKibben says, “a reminder that this world is still a lovely and deep place, well worth the fighting for.” The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024 includes IAN FRAZIER • AMANDA GEFTER • DOUGLAS FOX • SARAH KAPLAN • BEN GOLDFARB • RAYMOND ZHONG • ALEX CUADROS • AND OTHERS

“Charming, delightful, and a great companion for gardeners and naturalists alike.”—Booklist Lavender, basil, hyssop, balm, sage, rue — the thinking gardener’s guide to herbs. Writer/naturalist Henry Beston, a founding father of the environmental movement, believed that a strong connection to nature is essential. “It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live,” Beston says in his now-classic Herbs and the Earth. In this book, Beston shares one of those connections as seen through the oldest group of plants known to gardeners. “A garden of herbs,” he writes, “is a garden of things loved for themselves in their wholeness and integrity. It is not a garden of flowers, but a garden of plants which are sometimes very lovely flowers and are always more than flowers.” Whether you are already a committed herbalist or just dreaming of planting your first small garden, this book is a powerfully rich source of inspiration and information. As Roger B. Swain observes in his moving introduction, Herbs and the Earth has an intensity that evokes the herbs themselves, as if, pressed between the pages, their aroma has seeped into the pages. This Nonpareil edition includes both an introduction by Roger B. Swain and an afterword by Bill McKibben.

"Reading Ellen Bernstein's Toward a Holy Ecology is to partake in a garden of delights. She refreshes our reading of the Song by enlivening all of our senses." --Rabbi Nancy Flam, Co-founder National Center for Jewish Healing, and The Institute for Jewish SpiritualitySong of Songs is known as the erotic part of the Bible, but Ellen Bernstein shows how it is also an ancient source of deep ecological wisdom. Toward a Holy Ecology is a new translation of this Hebrew text, illuminating the place of humans in the natural world and inviting you to develop a holy, ecological language for life. This book sets the natural world before you with intensity and beauty, inviting you to savor it with all your senses. Then you are able to return to the world with a renewed clarity, love, and energy necessary for creating a healthier future for the earth and all her inhabitants. Toward a Holy Ecology is for all who love the earth and its inhabitants--including outdoor enthusiasts, spiritual seekers, fellow poets, feminists, and students of the humanities, religion, and ecology. It will change how you see, how you speak, and how you live.

The first major book to deal with the dual crises of democracy and climate change as one interrelated threat to the human future and to identify a path forward. Democracy in a Hotter Time calls for reforming democratic institutions as a prerequisite for avoiding climate chaos and adapting governance to how Earth works as a physical system. To survive in the “long emergency” ahead, we must reform and strengthen democratic institutions, making them assets rather than liabilities. Edited by David W. Orr, this vital collection of essays proposes a new political order that will not only help humanity survive but also enable us to thrive in the transition to a post–fossil fuel world. Orr gathers leading scholars, public intellectuals, and political leaders to address the many problems confronting our current political systems. Few other books have taken a systems view of the effects of a rapidly destabilizing climate on our laws and governance or offered such a diversity of solutions. These thoughtful and incisive essays cover subjects from Constitutional reform to participatory urban design to education; together, they aim to invigorate the conversation about the human future in practical ways that will improve the effectiveness of democratic institutions and lay the foundation for a more durable and just democracy. ContributorsWilliam J. Barber III, JD, William S. Becker, Holly Jean Buck, Stan Cox, Michael M. Crow, William B. Dabars, Ann Florini, David H. Guston, Katrina Kuh, Gordon LaForge, Hélène Landemore, Frances Moore Lappé, Daniel Lindvall, Richard Louv, James R. May, Frederick W. Mayer, Bill McKibben, Michael Oppenheimer, David W. Orr, Wellington Reiter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Anne-Marie Slaughter

Bill McKibben grew up believing—knowing––that America was the greatest country on earth; that for all its obvious flaws, it was history’s most dynamic machine, pushing steadily towards a better future. Postwar suburban prosperity; the emerging movements for human equality—the escalator seemed to be heading steadily up. But new understandings of history have cast shadows on that picture—and over the past half century, over consumption and hyper-individualism have wrought havoc on three of America’s most distinctive features: our intertwined sense of history and patriotism, our kindness and generosity, and the promise of prosperity for all. While there’s an emerging understanding that our heritage was less stained by racism than shaped by it, a sense that Christianity shifted with chilling speed from a source of relatively benign civic unity into a wellspring of snarling division, and a growing scientific understanding that our post war prosperity set the stage for the planets’ climatic upheaval, we badly need to pinpoint where we went astray in the first place if we wish to fix this country. The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon weaves together McKibben’s reflections on growing up in Lexington, Massachusetts—at the time a middle-class suburb where his high school job was wearing a tricorne hat to give tours of the Green where the American revolution commenced—with the latest scholarship on race and inequality in America, on the rise of the religious right, and on our environmental crisis. Our chances of navigating an increasingly perilous future depend on a unity that we currently lack. If we begin to act, then we can not only start to repay very real debts; we can also begin to reclaim the very real good parts of our shared legacy. And perhaps something of that old world—of the flag, the cross, the station wagon—can be summoned up again to help us face a difficult future. But if so we’ll need to deal honestly with some serious questions. We can, and we will, be able to tell an American story—a truer one this time.

There is no planet B. Activists share how we must inform and organize ourselves to save the future. “Act as though your house is on fire. Because it is.” Following Greta Thunberg, millions of young climate activists have been taking to the streets around the globe as part of the Fridays For Future movement. They demand that we “unite behind the science,” as, for too long, climate scientists have been ringing the alarm bells about rising temperatures, tipping points, and the devastating consequences of extreme weather—but politicians do nothing. So how do you begin to end the climate crisis? Luisa Neubauer and Alexander Repenning begin by telling stories. Neubauer cofounded the youth climate activist group in Germany and has become its most prominent voice. In this book she and Repenning weave in personal accounts of their evolution as climate activists with a thorough analysis of how climate change impacts their generation, and what every one of us can and must do about it. The young and old in the United States and around the world can learn valuable lessons from their European counterparts.

Climate Church, Climate World, originally published in 2018, contends that climate change is the greatest moral challenge humanity has ever faced. Hunger, refugees, poverty, inequality, deadly viruses, war—climate change multiplies all forms of global social injustice. Environmental advocate Rev. Jim Antal calls on the church to meet this moral challenge, to embrace a new vocation so that future generations might live in harmony with God’s creation. After illuminating how human beings are responsible for the dangers our planet now faces, Antal proposes how people of faith can embrace new approaches to worship, preaching, witnessing, and other spiritual practices that honor creation and cultivate hope. This revised and updated edition includes a new chapter on political and policy shifts under the Trump and Biden administrations; influence of Greta Thunberg and climate change activists; and updated information on the current science of climate change. Includes a foreword by environmental advocate Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature.

Climate Church, Climate World, originally published in 2018, contends that climate change is the greatest moral challenge humanity has ever faced. Hunger, refugees, poverty, inequality, deadly viruses, war—climate change multiplies all forms of global social injustice. Environmental advocate Rev. Jim Antal calls on the church to meet this moral challenge, to embrace a new vocation so that future generations might live in harmony with God’s creation. After illuminating how human beings are responsible for the dangers our planet now faces, Antal proposes how people of faith can embrace new approaches to worship, preaching, witnessing, and other spiritual practices that honor creation and cultivate hope. This revised and updated edition includes a new chapter on political and policy shifts under the Trump and Biden administrations; influence of Greta Thunberg and climate change activists; and updated information on the current science of climate change. Includes a foreword by environmental advocate Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature.

If our planet is going to survive the climate crisis, we need to act rapidly. Taking cues from progressive cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Oslo, Shenzhen, and Sydney, this book is a summons to every city to make small but significant changes that can drastically reduce our carbon footprint. We cannot wait for national governments to agree on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and manage the average temperature rise to within 1.5 degrees. In Solved, David Miller argues that cities are taking action on climate change because they can – and because they must. The updated paperback edition of Solved: How the World’s Great Cities Are Fixing the Climate Crisis demonstrates that the initiatives cities have taken to control the climate crisis can make a real difference in reducing global emissions if implemented worldwide. By chronicling the stories of how cities have taken action to meet and exceed emissions targets laid out in the Paris Agreement, Miller empowers readers to fix the climate crisis. As much a "how to" guide for policymakers as a work for concerned citizens, Solved aims to inspire hope through its clear and factual analysis of what can be done – now, today – to mitigate our harmful emissions and pave the way to a 1.5-degree world.

The 10th anniversary editionA Guardian Best Book about DeforestationA New Scientist Best Book of the YearA Taipei Times Best Book of the Year“A perfectly grounded account of what it is like to live an indigenous life in communion with one’s personal spirits. We are losing worlds upon worlds.”—Louise Erdrich, New York Times Book Review“The Yanomami of the Amazon, like all the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, have experienced the end of what was once their world. Yet they have survived and somehow succeeded in making sense of a wounded existence. They have a lot to teach us.”—Amitav Ghosh, The Guardian“A literary treasure…a must for anyone who wants to understand more of the diverse beauty and wonder of existence.”—New ScientistA now classic account of the life and thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami, The Falling Sky paints an unforgettable picture of an indigenous culture living in harmony with the Amazon forest and its creatures, and its devastating encounter with the global mining industry. In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation as a shaman and first experience of outsiders: missionaries, cattle ranchers, government officials, and gold prospectors seeking to extract the riches of the Amazon. A coming-of-age story entwined with a rare first-person articulation of shamanic philosophy, this impassioned plea to respect indigenous peoples’ rights is a powerful rebuke to the accelerating depredation of the Amazon and other natural treasures threatened by climate change and development.