Description
Book SynopsisA useful and sprightly! effort to get at the choice between individual and systemic action on the greatest problem we''ve ever faced. Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature
Taking a tongue-in-cheek approach, self-confessed eco-hypocrite Sami Grover says we should do what we can in our own lives to minimize our climate impacts and we need to target those actions so they create systemic change.We''re All Climate Hypocrites Now helps you decide what are the most important climate actions to take for your own personal situation.
Our culture tells us that personal responsibility is central to tackling the climate emergency, yet the choices we make are often governed by the systems in which we live. Whether it''s activists facing criticism for eating meat or climate scientists catching flack for flying, accusations of hypocrisy are rampant. And they come from both inside and outside the movement.
Sami Grover skewers those pointing
Trade Review
"A useful — and sprightly! — effort to get at the choice between individual and systemic action on the greatest problem we've ever faced. I found it a helpful spur to creative thinking and action, and I bet you will as well. Read it, and then get out there and change the politics and economics that are driving us towards — well, if not hell, then a place with a similar temperature."
— Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature
"Sami Grover's wise book charts a middle way to win transformational change. He challenges us to embrace our climate hypocrisy as a goal to uproot the structures that are killing the planet without losing sight of the strategic individual actions we can take right now. We can't curate our way out of the climate crisis as consumers — we must replace the system that makes us climate hypocrites. We climate hypocrites have agency, in varying degrees, to take actions that multiplied by the millions will help to win the big changes we need to survive. With our eyes on the stars and our feet on the ground, we can meet ourselves where we are without guilt and act for a more equitable, just, and sustainable world. Let this book show you how."
— Bill Corcoran, Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign
"If you are a climate concerned person who struggles with the nuanced complexity of being "green," Sami's book will help you navigate this contemporary moral maze with intelligent bigger picture thinking plus a rich seam of strategies and initiatives large and small for a healthier planet."
— Maddy Harland, co-founder & editor, Permaculture Magazine, author, Fertile Edges
"We're All Climate Hypocrites Now is part eco-therapy, part climate strategy, and a fantastic antidote to the overwhelm that comes along with living in a global ecological crisis. Say goodbye to those little voices in your head (or those loud voices on Facebook) calling you a hypocrite because you don't bike to work, aren't vegan, fly to a protest, and still haven't taken out that loan for those rooftop solar panels. This book is a fresh and informative unpacking of why we must abandon the notion that individual eco-perfection is possible — or even impactful — in the absence of system-wide change. It's an inspiring call to let go of the "either or" mentality, to fully embrace the "both and," and to remember to go easy on ourselves and each other as we lean in even further into this painful, chaotic yet exciting time of (r)evolution."
— Danna Smith, executive director, Dogwood Alliance
"Nobody knows more about the business of sustainability than Sami Grover. He brings a welcome dose of wit, clarity, and levity to the green movement."
— Brian Merchant, best-selling author, The One Device
"On every page of this rip-roaring read I found myself, my partner, my neighbour, my colleagues, my family, and my friends and every holier-than-thou temptation, every emptying out of the compost bin, every person who berated me for traveling for work with refugees. Hypocrisy is in our DNA, and in this book it is both hilariously observed, with all the dry wit of a Brit, and pragmatically harnessed for good. I honestly could not put it down. It's a tour de force for hope. And kindness. And love for the world and the future."
— Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair for Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts, University of Glasgow
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments: An Incomplete Catalog of Gushing Praise and Profuse Thanks
Preface: The Night I Went Drinking and the World Fell Apart
A Gradual Social Reckoning
Action Is Contagious Too
Getting to the Point
1. We're All Climate Hypocrites Now
What Does 'Hypocrite' Even Mean?
Rational Choice Is No Choice At All
Undermining the Messenger
A Convenient Mistruth
Eco-Moralism Runs Deep
Nothing's Ever Easy
The Limits of Personal Responsibility
Why Individual Action Still Matters
2. Wants and Needs
Voting and Shopping Are Not the Same Thing
The Irrational Consumer
Behavior Is About Design
The Roles We Play
Abstinence Is Still Individualism
Finding a Bigger Political Canvas
3. How "Green" Lost Its Groove
Dilution of a Movement
A Missed Opportunity
The Rise of Eco-Individualism
The Real Value of Lifestyle Activism
Exposing the Challenges
4. Enough Already
The Emergence of a Movement
Identifying the Culprits
The Rebels Are Angry
Who Is Holding Us Back?
The Personal Is Political (As Long As You Make It So)
A Latent Force
5. Guilt Trip
Eating Our Own
Undermining a Hero
The Power of Shaming
Shaping Cultural Norms
Preserving a Formidable Tool
The New Pariahs
Peer Pressure for the Win
Guilt Is Good?
Values Are a Moving Target
6. Big Oil Wants to Talk About Your Carbon Footprint
Some Are More Responsible Than Others
The Tobacco Playbook
They've Never Been the Good Guys
Deflating the Carbon Bubble
Can Big Oil "Go Green"?
A Missed Opportunity
Balancing on the High Wire
Coal as the Canary
A Tenacious Grip on Power
7. Corporate "Citizenship" Reimagined
"Responsible" Versus "Sustainable"
Corporate Citizenship — For Real
A Different Kind of Insurance
Beyond Corporate Responsibility
A Different Type of Shareholder Primacy?
Benefit Corporations Step Up
The Power of Corporate Activism
Beware the Benign Benefactor
Capitalists Against Unbridled Capitalism?
8. Swimming Upstream
"You Are Definitely Going to Die"
Meeting People Where They Are
Changing the Direction of the Current
Modeling What's Possible
Subsidizing the Incumbents
The Destructive as the Default
Writing a Different Story
A More Interesting Conversation
9. Focus, Goddammit
An Effective Exercise in Distraction
Attention Is a Limited Resource
First Things First
The Beginning of the End of Coal
Being "Better"
Meat Eaters and Vegetarians Unite
The System Responds
The Cheapest Way to Fry
The Growth of Flygskam
An Inclusive Conversation?
10. What Difference Does It Make?
Organized Resistance
Historical Serendipity
The Real Power of the Individual
A Reckoning on Race
It's Not About Me (Or You)
The Lure of Agency
How Change Actually Happens
What's My Duty?
Shifting Our Collective Values
11. Climate Hypocrites Unite!
A False Dawn
The Power of Imperfection
Finding Our Place
Coda: The Journey Down, Together
What Next? Resources, Organizations, and Actions
Knowledge Is Power
Get Organized
Rethink Your Mobility
Eat Smarter
Good Energy
Money Matters
Notes
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers
