You are here
Climate: A New Story
$25.95 CAD |
Flipping the script on climate change, Charles Eisenstein makes a case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction. His research and insight details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our “fight” mentality. With an entire chapter unpacking the climate change denier’s point of view, he advocates for expanding our exclusive focus on carbon emissions to see the broader picture beyond our short-sighted and incomplete approach.
The rivers, forests, and creatures of the natural and material world are sacred and valuable in their own right, not simply for carbon credits or preventing the extinction of one species versus another. After all, when you ask someone why they first became an environmentalist, they’re likely to point to the river they played in, the ocean they visited, the wild animals they observed, or the trees they climbed when they were a kid. This refocusing away from impending catastrophe and our inevitable doom cultivates meaningful emotional and psychological connections and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the earth. Freeing ourselves from a war mentality and seeing the bigger picture of how everything from prison reform to saving the whales can contribute to our planetary ecological health, we resist reflexive postures of solution and blame and reach toward the deep place where commitment lives.
Eisenstein takes up powerful themes of inner and outer transformation, the convergence of activism and spirituality, and the multiple crises we face as a society and as individuals. By recognizing the many aspects that play into the overall environmental crises, rather than looking for one cause or culprit, we are adopting a healthier and more workable strategy.
We must recognize that everything is interdependent, feel the hurts of the planet, and let the resulting grief open us to transformation and empathy.
“What a blast of sanity! Eisenstein's corrective is a bracing piece of work, dazzlingly thought through and eloquent in its articulation. He writes from within an uncannily woke worldview, enacting a full-bodied way of thinking that discerns and feels into the complex entanglement of our lives with every facet of this breathing biosphere. This book is visionary and prophetic, achingly grounded and useful to the max.” —David Abram, author of Becoming Animal