I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor
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 leading climate thinkers -- from collapse-psychologist Jamey Hecht to grassroots strategist adrienne maree brown, eco-philosopher Joanna 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. From storm-battered coastlines to pipeline blockades and "hopelessness workshops," 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 in this insightful and irreverent guide for achieving a "better catastrophe."
AWARDS
- BRONZE 2023 Living Now Book Awards: Social Activism / Charity
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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.
"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
"A profound meditation on how to live in a world on the brink of collapse. Boyd moves gracefully beyond the usual talk of hope and despair to provide a startling vision of a future shaped not only by chaos, but also by compassionate care."
--Jenny Offill, author, Weather and Dept. of Speculation
"A heartfelt and humorous take on how to show up at 'the end of the world as we know it'."
--Britt Wray, PhD, Human and Planetary Health Fellow, Stanford University and author, Generation Dread
"I Want a Better Catastrophe is unlike anything else I've ever read about climate change, and how to keep living through it. For a start it's extremely funny. It is also angry, passionate, curious, honest, surprising, and very well-researched. Beyond its signature gallows humor, it brings a kind of deeply felt "gallows love" for the beauty and wonder of the world, and how we must fight to defend it."
--Nick Hunt, co-director, Dark Mountain Project, and author, Outlandish
"Time is clearly short--but I Want a Better Catastrophe proves it's never too late for a good laugh, a good cry, and a good call to action!"
--Bill McKibben, author, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon
"Through expert interviews, compassionate analysis, and deliciously dark wit, Boyd beats a path through the messy emotional and psychological terrain we must travel in order to face the future."
--Onnesha Roychoudhuri, author, The Marginalized Majority
"A rowdy, taboo-busting get-together of climate emergency thinkers."
--Josephine Ferorelli, co-founder, Conceivable Future
"A must read for its wit, and for the insights it offers."
--Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky
