BRATTLEBORO — 118 Elliot, Everyone's Books, and other local groups are collaborating on a new Climate Book Series, in which authors discuss three brand new and very different books using humor, economics, and literature to grapple with the reality of climate emergency.
The March to May series will be held Thursday evenings at 118 Elliot, at 118 Elliot Street. Doors open at 6 p.m. and authors will begin at 6:30 p.m. Books will be available for purchase/signing. Events are free but donations are appreciated and pre-registration at Eventbrite is advised.
Thursday, March 9, I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor (New Society Publishers, 2023) will be featured with climate activist and prankster Andrew Boyd.
The founder of creative protest measures including the Climate Clock and Climate Ribbon, Boyd says humanity is on a “path of profound grief” and to cope with this “impossible new reality” people will need the wisdom, rituals, and stories that literature and spiritual teachers offer.
His book does just that, featuring 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?”
The Eventbrite registration link for the in-person book talk is bit.ly/704-boyd.
The series continues on Thursday, April 20, with economist and author Jon D. Erickson, who will speak about his newest book The Progress Illusion: Reclaiming Our Future From the Fairytale of Economics (Island Press, 2022)
“Given that the Arctic has mostly melted, it seems axiomatic that our planet's economic system is not working very well,” writes Bill McKibben. “But Jon Erickson explains - in simple and powerful terms - just why that is, and just what would need to change if we were to actually build a world that worked much better.“
Erickson is the Blittersdorf Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy at the University of Vermont and on the faculty at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, a Fellow of the Gund Institute for the Environment, author/editor of five other books, and an Emmy-award winning director and producer of documentary films. He lives in Ferrisburgh.
Epsilon Spires joins 118 Elliot and Everyone's Books in sponsoring this event.
“I wrote the Progress Illusion because I'm convinced that economics as currently taught and practiced will ensure a planetary path to ruin,” Erickson said. “The mainstream of my field tells a story centered on a very narrow caricature of humanity as greedy and independent. It's a story that assumes the Earth is limitless and at our disposal. It's a fairy tale detached from biophysical reality and lacking a moral compass.”
On Thursday, May 11, Chuck Collins will speak about his debut novel Altar to an Erupting Sun (Green Writers Press, expected publication May 2023), a near-future story of people in the Brattleboro area facing climate disruption in the critical decade ahead.
Collins is the director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org. His most recent book, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions, is about the wealth-hiding industry (Polity, 2021). His bestseller Born on Third Base (Chelsea Green, 2016), relating to wealth and inequality, introduced him as a leader who “walks the walk.” He lives in Guilford.