Terrible Beauty - Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul

A firsthand, trench-view story of the failure of the modern environmental movement-and an inspiring prescription for change.

Something's gone badly awry with environmentalism. We faithfully separate our waste into different streams, but wonder whether it really makes a difference. Global companies announce their commitment to carbon negativity while simultaneously sponsoring oil conferences. American businesses, communities, and individuals assiduously measure their carbon footprints, then implement voluntary emissions-reduction programs, all while trumpeting their do-gooderism.

The problem is, none of this-whether individual efforts or corporate sustainability tactics-will make a dent in solving the civilizational threat of climate change. We only pretend it will, at our peril.

As sustainability veteran Auden Schendler argues in this provocative, powerful book, we're living a big green lie. The hard truth is that much of the modern environmental road map could have been written by the fossil fuel industry specifically to avoid disrupting the status quo. We have become somehow complicit.

But there is another truth: while ineffective or duplicitous environmentalism has become standard practice, we all have friends and family we love and care about, whose future depends on solving the problem of climate change. Conscience tells us we have an obligation to repair the world. How can our common dreams be so at odds with our daily practice? And how might we meld our spirit and our passion to create a better future?

Schendler meets this profound contradiction head-on-with a bracing critique, moving personal stories of parenthood and service, and innovative, real-world methods to tackle climate change at the corporate, community, and individual levels.

Terrible Beauty is a unique and inspiring call for a new environmentalism, showing us that the key to saving the planet is to tap into our own humanity.

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Advance Praise for Terrible Beauty:

"Terrible Beauty isn't just a rethink of the modern environmental movement, it's a love letter to the world, an homage to beauty, and a warning about what we stand to lose. Schendler argues that our passion for family, community, and nature can be the engine that drives our actions on climate change. As a business leader, I find this book to be serious encouragement to immediately change our ways." - Casey Sheahan, former President and CEO, Patagonia; former President, Kelty

"No one has more hard-earned credibility than Auden Schendler when it comes to taking on the charade that is often corporate sustainability and arguing instead for the real and concrete shifts in power that must happen if we're to have a chance at reining in the rising mercury. This is a very important book." - Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature

"This is the first book I've read about climate change that made me feel like I picked the lock on s omeone's personal diary. But this is exactly what Schendler intended-because climate change is personal. Terrible Beauty doesn't just give readers a clear understanding of the threat climate change poses and how to process it; it inspires us to protect the people we love with real-life stories of action." - Gina McCarthy, former US EPA Administrator; former White House National Climate Adviser

"In this uniquely compelling and weirdly fun book-half memoir, half productive polemic-Auden Schendler draws on decades of private-sector experience to argue that corporate sustainability can't just be about changing light bulbs. It must be about corporations fighting-alongside activists, NGOs, and citizens-for the kind of policies that will actually lead to a stable climate." - Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University; coauthor, The Big Myth

"We need more voices like Auden Schendler's. With a stark recognition of our complicity i n the global climate crisis, he offers both hope and a practical path forward. His insight is prescient as we bear down on a hotter and more chaotic planet." - Conrad Anker, climber and writer

"Auden Schendler holds multiple truths at once: Yes, the climate crisis is dire, and both corporate and government efforts to address it have failed. And yes, the earth and our families are beautiful and worth saving. Terrible Beauty holds both those truths in a way that inspires action and calls us all to join in. This is the exact message everyone needs right now." - Annie Leonard, former Executive Director, Greenpeace USA; author, The Story of Stuff