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Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World
by Paul Gilding
It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. We need instead to brace for impact because global crisis is no longer avoidable. This Great Disruption started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and dramatic ecological changes, such as the melting ice caps. It is not simply about fossil fuels and carbon footprints. We have come to the end of Economic Growth, Version 1.0, a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we lived beyond the means of our planet's ecosystems and 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.
The crisis represents a rare chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability, and it's already happening. It's also an unmatched business opportunity: Old industries will collapse while new companies will literally reshape our economy. In the aftermath of the Great Disruption, we will measure "growth" in a new way. It will mean not quantity of stuff but quality and happiness of life. Yes, there is life after shopping.
"One of those who has been warning me [about a climate crisis] for a long time is Paul Gilding, the Australian environmental business expert. He has a name for this moment — when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once — The Great Disruption." - Thomas Friedman in the New York Times
"A refreshing, provocative alternative to the recent spate of gloom-and-doom climate-change studies." - Publishers Weekly
"A remarkably optimistic view of the brave new world in our future." - Kirkus
"[Gilding] backs up his arguments with plenty of facts and avenues for readers to pursue." - Library Journal
This information about The Great Disruption was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Paul Gilding is an international thought leader and advocate for sustainability. He has served as head of Greenpeace International, built and led two companies, and advised both Fortune 500 corporations and community-based NGOs. A member of the core faculty for the Cambridge University Program for Sustainability Leadership, he blogs at www.paulgilding.com, and his newsletter, the Cockatoo Chronicles, has subscribers around the world.
If you liked The Great Disruption, try these:
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by Greta Thunberg
Published 2024
We still have time to change the world. From Greta Thunberg, the world's leading climate activist, comes the essential handbook for making it happen.
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Published 2022
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it?
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