The Great Disruption Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World - Paul Gilding (2011).epub

Release date: January 31, 2012
It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. Instead, we need to brace for impact, because global crisis is no longer avoidable; we have come to the end of a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we live beyond the means of our planet's resources. The Great Disruption offers a stark and unflinching look at the challenge humanity faces-yet also a deeply optimistic message. The coming decades will see loss, suffering, and conflict as our planetary overdraft is paid; however, they will also bring out the best humanity can offer: compassion, innovation, resilience, and adaptability. Gilding tells us how to fight-and win-what he calls the "one-degree war" to prevent catastrophic warming of the earth, and how to start today.

Praise for The Great Disruption:

"Gilding offers a clear-eyed and moving assessment of our predicament, but more important, he offers a plausible way forward and good reasons to think we will rise to the occasion." -David W. Orr, author of Hope Is an Imperative

"Paul Gilding offers some excellent insights into how we might weather that which we can no longer completely prevent-and how we can still prevent that which we won't be able to weather. If you're planning to stick around for the twenty-first century, this might be a useful book to consult." -Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth, and founder of 350.org


From Publishers Weekly
Gilding, former director of Greenpeace International and now on the faculty at Cambridge University™s Program for Sustainable Leadership, proposes that global warming is just one piece of an impending planetary collapse caused by our overuse of resources. According to the Global Footprint Network, we surpassed Earth™s capacity in 1988, and by 2009, we needed the resources of 1.4 planets to sustain our economy—and any increases in efficiencies that some claim will solve the problem are likely only to encourage us to use more. Gilding argues that, like addicts who need to hit bottom, we energy users will deny our problem until we œface head-on the risk of collapse, but when we do, we will address the emergency with the commitment of our response to WWII and begin a real transformation to a sustainable economy built on equality, quality of life, and harmony with the ecosystem. Gilding™s confidence in our ability to transform disaster into a œhappiness economy may astonish readers, but the book provides a refreshing, provocative alternative to the recent spate of gloom-and-doom climate-change studies. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Though Gilding's prose is plain and his sustainability message is unapologetically advocative, he backs up his arguments with plenty of facts and avenues for [listeners] to pursue." ---Library Journal
--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.


Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press; 1 edition (January 31, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1408822180
ISBN-13: 978-1408822180