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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 heating 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 of today's leading climate thinkers--from activist Tim DeChristopher to collapse-psychologist Jamey Hecht, grassroots strategist Adrienne Maree Brown, eco-philosopher Joana 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. Boyd's journey takes him from storm-battered coastlines to pipeline blockades and hopelessness workshops. Along the way, 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? Why the fuck am I recycling?
He finds answers that will surprise, inspire, and maybe even make you laugh. Drawing on wisdom traditions Eastern, Western, and Indigenous, Boyd crafts an insightful and irreverent guide for achieving a better catastrophe. This is vital reading for everyone navigating climate anxiety and grief as our world hurtles towards an unthinkable crisis.
With global heating 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 of today's leading climate thinkers--from activist Tim DeChristopher to collapse-psychologist Jamey Hecht, grassroots strategist Adrienne Maree Brown, eco-philosopher Joana 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. Boyd's journey takes him from storm-battered coastlines to pipeline blockades and hopelessness workshops. Along the way, 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? Why the fuck am I recycling?
He finds answers that will surprise, inspire, and maybe even make you laugh. Drawing on wisdom traditions Eastern, Western, and Indigenous, Boyd crafts an insightful and irreverent guide for achieving a better catastrophe. This is vital reading for everyone navigating climate anxiety and grief as our world hurtles towards an unthinkable crisis.
416 pages, Paperback
Published February 14, 2023
99 people are currently reading
3330 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Boyd
5 books103 followersAndrew Boyd is an author, humorist, and activist. His new book, I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope and Gallows Humor is forthcoming from New Society Publishers in February 2023. He is currently CEO (Chief Existential Officer) of the Climate Clock, a global campaign he co-founded that melds 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.” His previous books include Beautiful Trouble, Daily Afflictions and Life’s Little Deconstruction Book. Unable to come up with his own lifelong ambition, he’s been cribbing from Milan Kundera: “to unite the utmost seriousness of question with the utmost lightness of form.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
November 5, 2023
To be honest, I am a pretty hardcore climate denier. Not the tinfoil hat-wearing rightwing type who actually argues in the face of all facts that it's happening, but the kind of denier who spends massive amounts of nonrenewable internal energy fighting not to feel its full reality.
Especially since I started working as a trauma therapist, I've pretty explicitly cut myself off from engaging with my sense of moral injury every time I turn the key in my car or do any of the thousands of world-destroying things I do every single day as a mindless American consumer just living my stupid life. And when I get home in the evening and check the news, I scroll past all the climate articles with the justification that after listening all day to people talk about being raped as children, the last thing I need is a reminder that now we've gone and trashed our beautiful planet, it's too late to stop this, and everything is rapidly, terrifyingly, getting infinitely worse in ways we can't even fully imagine.
Only it turns out we can imagine, or we can try, which is sort of what this book is about: allowing our imaginations to open up to the possibilities of the dystopian tomorrow we're irreparably hurtling towards, instead of squeezing our eyes shut behind our hands and trying real real hard not to look, which is definitely the strategy I had been using.
So I wouldn't have touched this thing in a million years, except I saw it in New Books at the library and recognized the author's name because I knew Andrew Boyd socially when I lived in New York, though I haven't seen him in over a decade. It also had a pretty awesome metal-looking cover, so I figured I'd check it out.
Also, as a therapist, I have learned a thing or two about anxiety over the years. Anxiety is the screams of something locked up in your basement: unprocessed trauma, unaddressed grief, unacknowledged emotions, unconscious fears. I picked up this book because it's been getting harder to ignore the creeping cost of my climate denial, which has been, predictibly, mounting and excruciating climate anxiety. Anxiety that is always there, but is especially there, lurking, when I least want it to be, daring me to look at it, threatening me with its presence, haunting my parenting and my general outlook on the world and my life. This anxiety takes a lot of forms, but one is fear of the monster of total nihilism, where there is really no future and there is really no hope. Now, hopelessness might've been a perspective I could've rolled with at an earlier time in my life, but now as a parent, and as a therapist, it's not practical for me: it's literally my job to preserve some sense of hope and belief that there is value in what's yet to come. But the anxiety of having to feel what our current moment means, of what's happening to the earth now and what will happen very soon, is a massive specter living in the center of my life that I refuse to look directly at too long because I'm sure I can't afford to think or feel what might come next.
So anyway, I checked the book out of the library and I read it, which was a big deal for me, since I really do spend a ton of time and energy trying not to think about this shit. Reading this book took me through all the stages of climate grief, as advertised, and helped me with my process of radical acceptance. Of course it's ironic that as a therapist, I'd refused for so long to engage with the trauma of the climate crisis, because my trajectory here was like someone finally giving up and going to therapy after years of trying to pretend that what happened hadn't happened, and wasn't seriously affecting them. It turns out -- spoiler alert! -- that finally looking at the thing, no matter how deeply painful and tragic the thing is, will help us move through it, while refusing to look at the thing is what keeps us paralyzed and scared.
The structure of this book is interviews with figures who professionally and personally have immersed themselves in the reality and meaning of this crisis, interspersed with the author's analysis, personal views, and desperate efforts to find humor in this profoundly unfunny situation. My favorite interviews were with Tim DeChristopher, Joanna Macy, adrienne maree brown, and Robin Kimmerer, and if you think this book might be too long for you -- it is long, and our time is short -- you could just selectively read some of the interviews and chapters and get a lot out of this book. I did read the whole thing and it took me forever. I cried a lot and I put down the book a lot and just looked at a tree across the street and thought about how fucked we are, and cried more. It was a good kind of crying though, I think, the kind people do in therapy when they're getting somewhere.
Did reading this book help me get somewhere with regard to the climate crisis? Behaviorally, no. I drove my internal combustion machine to Target today; I'm still a first-world piece-of-shit consumer, and I don't see myself swearing off new clothes, or bicycling off to lie down in front of a pipeline, or doing anything else of practical or symbolic usefulness about the wholesale destruction of our planet any time soon. I'm not proud of this, but I'm still just as clueless as I was before I read this book about what those useful actions might even be.
But this book did help me shift from debilitating climate anxiety to a new and better place. The concept of radical acceptance is tricky because it can seem like you're saying you won't try to change something that needs to be changed -- but the concept exists because sometimes that change isn't possible, or if possible, it isn't within your control in that moment. When I started doing the work I do, I had to learn to accept a lot tough realities about sexual violence and child abuse, which is not the same as condoning them. But I can't personally stop those things, any more than I can stop the arctic from melting or global temperatures from rising. What I can do is accept the reality of the current world that I live in, and attempt to act in this present moment in the best way I know how.
In one of the best quotations in the book, adrienne maree brown asks, "How do we fall as if we were holding a child on our chest?" To me that sums up a theme of the book, which actually a pretty clear answer to the question of how to live in this moment. In some ways, our period of history is unique because of the scale and rate of environmental destruction; in others, the question of how to live as a human amidst horrific cruelty, injustice, inequality, suffering, and damage has not changed that much. I'm not sure why that's comforting -- maybe because it's realizing what felt like something new I had to learn turns out in many ways to be old material? -- but anyway, this profoundly depressing book left me feeling weirdly better, or at least more capable of dealing effectively with reality, and I highly recommend it.
Especially since I started working as a trauma therapist, I've pretty explicitly cut myself off from engaging with my sense of moral injury every time I turn the key in my car or do any of the thousands of world-destroying things I do every single day as a mindless American consumer just living my stupid life. And when I get home in the evening and check the news, I scroll past all the climate articles with the justification that after listening all day to people talk about being raped as children, the last thing I need is a reminder that now we've gone and trashed our beautiful planet, it's too late to stop this, and everything is rapidly, terrifyingly, getting infinitely worse in ways we can't even fully imagine.
Only it turns out we can imagine, or we can try, which is sort of what this book is about: allowing our imaginations to open up to the possibilities of the dystopian tomorrow we're irreparably hurtling towards, instead of squeezing our eyes shut behind our hands and trying real real hard not to look, which is definitely the strategy I had been using.
So I wouldn't have touched this thing in a million years, except I saw it in New Books at the library and recognized the author's name because I knew Andrew Boyd socially when I lived in New York, though I haven't seen him in over a decade. It also had a pretty awesome metal-looking cover, so I figured I'd check it out.
Also, as a therapist, I have learned a thing or two about anxiety over the years. Anxiety is the screams of something locked up in your basement: unprocessed trauma, unaddressed grief, unacknowledged emotions, unconscious fears. I picked up this book because it's been getting harder to ignore the creeping cost of my climate denial, which has been, predictibly, mounting and excruciating climate anxiety. Anxiety that is always there, but is especially there, lurking, when I least want it to be, daring me to look at it, threatening me with its presence, haunting my parenting and my general outlook on the world and my life. This anxiety takes a lot of forms, but one is fear of the monster of total nihilism, where there is really no future and there is really no hope. Now, hopelessness might've been a perspective I could've rolled with at an earlier time in my life, but now as a parent, and as a therapist, it's not practical for me: it's literally my job to preserve some sense of hope and belief that there is value in what's yet to come. But the anxiety of having to feel what our current moment means, of what's happening to the earth now and what will happen very soon, is a massive specter living in the center of my life that I refuse to look directly at too long because I'm sure I can't afford to think or feel what might come next.
So anyway, I checked the book out of the library and I read it, which was a big deal for me, since I really do spend a ton of time and energy trying not to think about this shit. Reading this book took me through all the stages of climate grief, as advertised, and helped me with my process of radical acceptance. Of course it's ironic that as a therapist, I'd refused for so long to engage with the trauma of the climate crisis, because my trajectory here was like someone finally giving up and going to therapy after years of trying to pretend that what happened hadn't happened, and wasn't seriously affecting them. It turns out -- spoiler alert! -- that finally looking at the thing, no matter how deeply painful and tragic the thing is, will help us move through it, while refusing to look at the thing is what keeps us paralyzed and scared.
The structure of this book is interviews with figures who professionally and personally have immersed themselves in the reality and meaning of this crisis, interspersed with the author's analysis, personal views, and desperate efforts to find humor in this profoundly unfunny situation. My favorite interviews were with Tim DeChristopher, Joanna Macy, adrienne maree brown, and Robin Kimmerer, and if you think this book might be too long for you -- it is long, and our time is short -- you could just selectively read some of the interviews and chapters and get a lot out of this book. I did read the whole thing and it took me forever. I cried a lot and I put down the book a lot and just looked at a tree across the street and thought about how fucked we are, and cried more. It was a good kind of crying though, I think, the kind people do in therapy when they're getting somewhere.
Did reading this book help me get somewhere with regard to the climate crisis? Behaviorally, no. I drove my internal combustion machine to Target today; I'm still a first-world piece-of-shit consumer, and I don't see myself swearing off new clothes, or bicycling off to lie down in front of a pipeline, or doing anything else of practical or symbolic usefulness about the wholesale destruction of our planet any time soon. I'm not proud of this, but I'm still just as clueless as I was before I read this book about what those useful actions might even be.
But this book did help me shift from debilitating climate anxiety to a new and better place. The concept of radical acceptance is tricky because it can seem like you're saying you won't try to change something that needs to be changed -- but the concept exists because sometimes that change isn't possible, or if possible, it isn't within your control in that moment. When I started doing the work I do, I had to learn to accept a lot tough realities about sexual violence and child abuse, which is not the same as condoning them. But I can't personally stop those things, any more than I can stop the arctic from melting or global temperatures from rising. What I can do is accept the reality of the current world that I live in, and attempt to act in this present moment in the best way I know how.
In one of the best quotations in the book, adrienne maree brown asks, "How do we fall as if we were holding a child on our chest?" To me that sums up a theme of the book, which actually a pretty clear answer to the question of how to live in this moment. In some ways, our period of history is unique because of the scale and rate of environmental destruction; in others, the question of how to live as a human amidst horrific cruelty, injustice, inequality, suffering, and damage has not changed that much. I'm not sure why that's comforting -- maybe because it's realizing what felt like something new I had to learn turns out in many ways to be old material? -- but anyway, this profoundly depressing book left me feeling weirdly better, or at least more capable of dealing effectively with reality, and I highly recommend it.
April 21, 2023
Andrew Boyd’s book “I Want A Better Catastrophe” is brilliant! This book isn’t about throwing facts or data at its readers and hoping they stick. It’s also not about convincing the minds of climate change deniers. This book doesn’t care about any of that and I find that a refreshing take. What this book actually focuses on is the process of coming to terms with the existential crisis of the climate emergency and how it inevitably will lead to societal collapse and extinction.
Boyd takes the opportunity to scrutinize his own role in this shit-show we call life by examining the essentials of facing a looming apocalypse. He does so with humor, intellect, and honesty. The author appreciates the role and work of both hopers and doomers in the face of uncertainty. Therefore, he’s interviewed eight individuals within the environmental cause to share their hopes and despair so that we may better navigate this crisis together with dignity.
From activists to Indigenous peoples, I was thrilled to recognize Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer & Joanna Macy among the interviewees as I was already familiar with some of their work. Everyone interviewed had a thoughtful and brutally honest take on our predicament and offered ways to come to terms with the inevitable unraveling. I love reading about different perspectives and this book doesn’t disappoint! The various voices scattered throughout this piece made me question my perspective and role in life. This book asks its readers to reflect upon the following questions:
a) What do I love too much to lose? &
b) What am I going to do about it?
While the first question may be easy for most to answer, the second poses a challenge as most of us are programmed to think in terms of a Capitalist society or simply lack the imagination to piece together meaningful actions. This book helps us to answer these questions and paint a picture of what a utopian (and dystopian) 🌍 looks like.
If you’re hesitant about picking this up because it might be too preachy then it’s your loss. There is a mix of hopeful and gloomy voices that provide amazing insights into the world we live in and the future we hope to build for all living things. Therefore, I’m sure there will be something for everyone. Don’t let the discomfort or fear of the unknown hold you back from reading this. Learn to embrace despair and pessimism and allow them to light a 🔥 under your ass to be a positive change in the lives of others and the world.
Boyd takes the opportunity to scrutinize his own role in this shit-show we call life by examining the essentials of facing a looming apocalypse. He does so with humor, intellect, and honesty. The author appreciates the role and work of both hopers and doomers in the face of uncertainty. Therefore, he’s interviewed eight individuals within the environmental cause to share their hopes and despair so that we may better navigate this crisis together with dignity.
From activists to Indigenous peoples, I was thrilled to recognize Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer & Joanna Macy among the interviewees as I was already familiar with some of their work. Everyone interviewed had a thoughtful and brutally honest take on our predicament and offered ways to come to terms with the inevitable unraveling. I love reading about different perspectives and this book doesn’t disappoint! The various voices scattered throughout this piece made me question my perspective and role in life. This book asks its readers to reflect upon the following questions:
a) What do I love too much to lose? &
b) What am I going to do about it?
While the first question may be easy for most to answer, the second poses a challenge as most of us are programmed to think in terms of a Capitalist society or simply lack the imagination to piece together meaningful actions. This book helps us to answer these questions and paint a picture of what a utopian (and dystopian) 🌍 looks like.
If you’re hesitant about picking this up because it might be too preachy then it’s your loss. There is a mix of hopeful and gloomy voices that provide amazing insights into the world we live in and the future we hope to build for all living things. Therefore, I’m sure there will be something for everyone. Don’t let the discomfort or fear of the unknown hold you back from reading this. Learn to embrace despair and pessimism and allow them to light a 🔥 under your ass to be a positive change in the lives of others and the world.
April 23, 2024
Well, if I was ever going to describe my thoughts on a book in terms of a love-hate relationship, this would be that book.
Sadly, unfortunately, but in no way surprisingly, this book spoke to me, resonated in my bones, and, yeah, was written with folks like me as a target audience. I hope you're not similarly situated, in which case, maybe the book isn't for you! (Hope springs eternal, eh? Well, it does until it doesn't, and, gee, that's what the book is all about.)
If you're steeped in the climate change (OK, increasingly climate catastrophe) literature, you're familiar with the widening chasm between the hopers and the doomers, which, of course, is a pathological side show with regard to the issues themselves, but critically important if you care about communication or advocacy (or, yeah, I guess, teaching) on anything related to climate (and the future).
And if you've seriously internalized the climate catastrophe facts (and, yeah, that includes stuff like the IPCC and National Climate Assessment reports), you know, among other things that, alas, the outlook is really bad, ... and, sorry, but, whatever the scientific consensus is, you have to assume that's (extremely) conservative, so it understates what's almost certainly coming, ... and despite all the information out there (and the increasing pace of warning signs), our governments aren't doing anywhere near enough fast enough ... and, gee, stuff like the Ukraine-Russia and Hamas (Palestine)-Israel-Iran (or other kinetic) confrontations aren't helping ... and while the scientists don't emphasize this as much, the escalating issues of drought, famine, and a broad range of environmental disasters will only increase the pace of population displacement, which leads to regional instability (by the way, can you name a country where you think the trend on immigration policy is consistent with what's coming?) ... and, yeah, competition for increasingly scarce resources is more likely than cooperation among neighbors, sharing, etc. (kind of funny how effectively shared sacrifice is a storyline from WWII, but you don't hear much about these days), and, meanwhile, the global population of humans is still expanding (while species become extinct at staggering rates), and, no, the planet can't sustain that ... and amidst all of that, the point of this book is not about whether it's actually possible for human life on this planet to end or whether, in the far superior alternative (it's wild to type that), the future will see billions (groan) perish, and the odds that that process will be a cooperative are relatively low, which is why serious adults talk about things like Mad Max movies or dystopian novels like the Road or The Parable of the Sower....
Hence the book... How does one think about all of this? How does one endeavor to make such a bleak future less bleak? Is the healthiest approach to be a (different kind of) denier?
Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, the author couldn't fully answer those questions for me. But he gave me plenty to think about. He helped me organize my thoughts, introduced me to other thinkers/authors, and suggested innumerable tools and resources that I may call on in the future.
Alas, despite his efforts at gallows humor, he rarely made me laugh.
Reviewer's warning: Obviously, this isn't a light read, nor is it a fast read. Somewhere between the formatting (featuring surprisingly dense font) and the content matter, this was a surprisingly time-consuming journey or undertaking (given the size of the package).
Sadly, unfortunately, but in no way surprisingly, this book spoke to me, resonated in my bones, and, yeah, was written with folks like me as a target audience. I hope you're not similarly situated, in which case, maybe the book isn't for you! (Hope springs eternal, eh? Well, it does until it doesn't, and, gee, that's what the book is all about.)
If you're steeped in the climate change (OK, increasingly climate catastrophe) literature, you're familiar with the widening chasm between the hopers and the doomers, which, of course, is a pathological side show with regard to the issues themselves, but critically important if you care about communication or advocacy (or, yeah, I guess, teaching) on anything related to climate (and the future).
And if you've seriously internalized the climate catastrophe facts (and, yeah, that includes stuff like the IPCC and National Climate Assessment reports), you know, among other things that, alas, the outlook is really bad, ... and, sorry, but, whatever the scientific consensus is, you have to assume that's (extremely) conservative, so it understates what's almost certainly coming, ... and despite all the information out there (and the increasing pace of warning signs), our governments aren't doing anywhere near enough fast enough ... and, gee, stuff like the Ukraine-Russia and Hamas (Palestine)-Israel-Iran (or other kinetic) confrontations aren't helping ... and while the scientists don't emphasize this as much, the escalating issues of drought, famine, and a broad range of environmental disasters will only increase the pace of population displacement, which leads to regional instability (by the way, can you name a country where you think the trend on immigration policy is consistent with what's coming?) ... and, yeah, competition for increasingly scarce resources is more likely than cooperation among neighbors, sharing, etc. (kind of funny how effectively shared sacrifice is a storyline from WWII, but you don't hear much about these days), and, meanwhile, the global population of humans is still expanding (while species become extinct at staggering rates), and, no, the planet can't sustain that ... and amidst all of that, the point of this book is not about whether it's actually possible for human life on this planet to end or whether, in the far superior alternative (it's wild to type that), the future will see billions (groan) perish, and the odds that that process will be a cooperative are relatively low, which is why serious adults talk about things like Mad Max movies or dystopian novels like the Road or The Parable of the Sower....
Hence the book... How does one think about all of this? How does one endeavor to make such a bleak future less bleak? Is the healthiest approach to be a (different kind of) denier?
Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, the author couldn't fully answer those questions for me. But he gave me plenty to think about. He helped me organize my thoughts, introduced me to other thinkers/authors, and suggested innumerable tools and resources that I may call on in the future.
Alas, despite his efforts at gallows humor, he rarely made me laugh.
Reviewer's warning: Obviously, this isn't a light read, nor is it a fast read. Somewhere between the formatting (featuring surprisingly dense font) and the content matter, this was a surprisingly time-consuming journey or undertaking (given the size of the package).
February 1, 2024
In 2009, when Copenhagen failed, I despaired. I would sob on hikes; everything looked fine, but the science said the forests I loved were doomed. Echo was just six years old. Already their future seemed foreclosed on.
I did not pick myself up by any bootstraps. I did not talk myself out of believing what I knew to be true. I did not put my faith in a technological miracle.
Instead, I threw over my safe federal government job with great benefits and a pension (sigh) for a pay cut and a massive workload in wind energy, with a hefty side of harassment, threats and libel. It was a rough couple of years and I wouldn't change it. (One benefit of an abusive family is a phenomenal tolerance for discomfort.) Goddammit, I was not going to give up on my kid.
In 2018, the world hit the same wall. Everyone woke up and I was like, yep, here we are, welcome, here's your apocalypse orientation kit, a bottle of vodka and a bullet-proof vest, there's a protest next week and you're going to come. Because you're not going to give up on your kids. (Right?) At least you got to join the party after the Paris Accord; when I watched Copenhagen implode (is it just my memory it's seared into?), we were looking at 6C this century, which is the death of everything. Now we're looking at a temp rise of maybe 3C, which is only the death of most things. From all to most! Hurray!
So yes, we're fucked, but there's more and less fucked and still a lot we can do to land on the less-fucked side. If you’re wondering what is still worth doing and why when failure seems certain (you are correct! Terrible things are absolutely going to happen!), this is a great book. It will walk you through the options with grit and humour. You can sample it and the bonkers (in a good way) flow chart on bettercatastrophe.com.
I did not pick myself up by any bootstraps. I did not talk myself out of believing what I knew to be true. I did not put my faith in a technological miracle.
Instead, I threw over my safe federal government job with great benefits and a pension (sigh) for a pay cut and a massive workload in wind energy, with a hefty side of harassment, threats and libel. It was a rough couple of years and I wouldn't change it. (One benefit of an abusive family is a phenomenal tolerance for discomfort.) Goddammit, I was not going to give up on my kid.
In 2018, the world hit the same wall. Everyone woke up and I was like, yep, here we are, welcome, here's your apocalypse orientation kit, a bottle of vodka and a bullet-proof vest, there's a protest next week and you're going to come. Because you're not going to give up on your kids. (Right?) At least you got to join the party after the Paris Accord; when I watched Copenhagen implode (is it just my memory it's seared into?), we were looking at 6C this century, which is the death of everything. Now we're looking at a temp rise of maybe 3C, which is only the death of most things. From all to most! Hurray!
So yes, we're fucked, but there's more and less fucked and still a lot we can do to land on the less-fucked side. If you’re wondering what is still worth doing and why when failure seems certain (you are correct! Terrible things are absolutely going to happen!), this is a great book. It will walk you through the options with grit and humour. You can sample it and the bonkers (in a good way) flow chart on bettercatastrophe.com.
April 11, 2023
Boyd had me at “Can the future just fuck off and die, already!” My feeling exactly.
This book met me right where I’m at: wrestling with the reality that the climate shit is 💯 going to hit the fan, no matter what we do at this point… and yet, we must do what we can anyway. As the title implies, there are horrible catastrophes and better catastrophes, and it’s incumbent upon us to make this mother of all catastrophes the best that it can possibly be. Or as the author says elsewhere, “It’s never too late to fail to save the world.” Amen.
This book met me right where I’m at: wrestling with the reality that the climate shit is 💯 going to hit the fan, no matter what we do at this point… and yet, we must do what we can anyway. As the title implies, there are horrible catastrophes and better catastrophes, and it’s incumbent upon us to make this mother of all catastrophes the best that it can possibly be. Or as the author says elsewhere, “It’s never too late to fail to save the world.” Amen.
August 15, 2025
This is the kind of book that makes me feel like I should retrospectively downgrade most of my reviews by a star or two.
Words currently fail me on this one, because I don't think there are enough superlatives available to use on it. It's one of the best books I've read, and it's probably the best book on contending with the everything-crisis to which we are consigned.
Words currently fail me on this one, because I don't think there are enough superlatives available to use on it. It's one of the best books I've read, and it's probably the best book on contending with the everything-crisis to which we are consigned.
May 9, 2023
Everyone should-no, MUST- read this book. No other book recognizes our situation with a clarity that is refreshing and conversations to hold onto when you feel like drowning. Deeply validating as you realize no, you aren’t the only one thinking these things, and here’s how we deal with it. This book helped me reframe how I feel about what I’m doing at the edge of the end of the world and feel empowered about caring and working to better it. READ THIS BOOK, ASAP!
March 8, 2025
I Want a Better Catastrophe is the kind of book that finds you in the dark, sits down beside you, and whispers, Yeah, it’s bad. But also… what if we actually lean into that? Then, just as you’re settling into the gallows humor, it grips your shoulders and says, Actually, let’s talk about how we live with this. Really live.
David Wallace-Wells once said, It is worse, much worse, than you think, and I think that’s a fair summary of my existential dread in the year of our Lord, Climate Change. But Andrew Boyd, bless him, doesn’t just leave us there, staring into the abyss like it’s a screensaver. He grabs us by the collar and says, Okay, but what are you gonna do about it? Cry? Yes. But also, maybe, something else?
This book is more than a roadmap through climate grief; it’s an existential survival guide for navigating the uncanny valley between denial and despair. It’s part therapy session, part philosophical sparring match, part late-night comedy special where the punchline is our entire civilization is at stake. Boyd doesn’t just outline the catastrophe—we already know about the floods, the fires, the unfathomable loss—he forces us to ask: How do we enter this next stage of human existence? How do we live meaningfully in a world unraveling?
And the paradoxes. Oh, the paradoxes. We have to grieve, but not wallow. Hope, but not delude. Fight, but not expect to win. Boyd interviews climate thinkers who land all over the spectrum—some who believe we can still turn the tide, others who are just trying to make the crash landing softer. It’s like watching someone build a sandcastle while the tide rushes in—not because they think they can stop the ocean, but because sandcastles are still worth building.
Then comes Robin Wall Kimmerer (towards the very end), and suddenly, the book shifts from How do we cope? to How do we belong? It’s one thing to mourn the world we’re losing, another to realize that the dominant culture never really belonged to it in the first place. Her words—rooted in Indigenous knowledge and reciprocity—remind us that survival isn’t just about tech and policy; it’s about reweaving ourselves into the living world, not as conquerors, but as kin. The question has officially stopped being How do we stop the end of the world? and becomes How do we show up for what remains?
And then there’s the epilogue—the moment where the book stops being a book and becomes something else entirely. Where we’re handed not just words, but rituals. The Climate Ribbon movement, the Climate Clocks—tangible ways to make the abstract crisis personal, to turn fear into connection. It’s easy to feel alone in this fight, easy to believe that hope is naive, but then you hear of hundreds of people tying ribbons to trees, sharing what they refuse to lose, showing up as guardians for each other, and suddenly, hope feels like less of a delusion and more of a responsibility.
I wanted a better catastrophe. I still do. And while this book didn’t make the apocalypse go away, it did something better: it made me want to keep fighting, not because we’ll win, but because the fight itself matters. Because I refuse to be a passive spectator in a tragedy I was born into. Because maybe, just maybe, the way we go down still matters. And maybe, if we do it right, we won’t just go down—we’ll transform into something so much more.
David Wallace-Wells once said, It is worse, much worse, than you think, and I think that’s a fair summary of my existential dread in the year of our Lord, Climate Change. But Andrew Boyd, bless him, doesn’t just leave us there, staring into the abyss like it’s a screensaver. He grabs us by the collar and says, Okay, but what are you gonna do about it? Cry? Yes. But also, maybe, something else?
This book is more than a roadmap through climate grief; it’s an existential survival guide for navigating the uncanny valley between denial and despair. It’s part therapy session, part philosophical sparring match, part late-night comedy special where the punchline is our entire civilization is at stake. Boyd doesn’t just outline the catastrophe—we already know about the floods, the fires, the unfathomable loss—he forces us to ask: How do we enter this next stage of human existence? How do we live meaningfully in a world unraveling?
And the paradoxes. Oh, the paradoxes. We have to grieve, but not wallow. Hope, but not delude. Fight, but not expect to win. Boyd interviews climate thinkers who land all over the spectrum—some who believe we can still turn the tide, others who are just trying to make the crash landing softer. It’s like watching someone build a sandcastle while the tide rushes in—not because they think they can stop the ocean, but because sandcastles are still worth building.
Then comes Robin Wall Kimmerer (towards the very end), and suddenly, the book shifts from How do we cope? to How do we belong? It’s one thing to mourn the world we’re losing, another to realize that the dominant culture never really belonged to it in the first place. Her words—rooted in Indigenous knowledge and reciprocity—remind us that survival isn’t just about tech and policy; it’s about reweaving ourselves into the living world, not as conquerors, but as kin. The question has officially stopped being How do we stop the end of the world? and becomes How do we show up for what remains?
And then there’s the epilogue—the moment where the book stops being a book and becomes something else entirely. Where we’re handed not just words, but rituals. The Climate Ribbon movement, the Climate Clocks—tangible ways to make the abstract crisis personal, to turn fear into connection. It’s easy to feel alone in this fight, easy to believe that hope is naive, but then you hear of hundreds of people tying ribbons to trees, sharing what they refuse to lose, showing up as guardians for each other, and suddenly, hope feels like less of a delusion and more of a responsibility.
I wanted a better catastrophe. I still do. And while this book didn’t make the apocalypse go away, it did something better: it made me want to keep fighting, not because we’ll win, but because the fight itself matters. Because I refuse to be a passive spectator in a tragedy I was born into. Because maybe, just maybe, the way we go down still matters. And maybe, if we do it right, we won’t just go down—we’ll transform into something so much more.
December 25, 2023
I really feel sorry for the author. He's spent his whole life in one mental doom-loop after another. He actively seeks out people who feed into the doom-loop. Every piece of information he considers that doesn't fit in the doom-loop is self-interpreted as a blasphemous (his word) denial of History (his capital H).
I used to think exactly like this guy. I remember how deadening it was. Fortunately, I found a way out to a much more reasonable position, despite the popular stories and narratives all around me. I would like to sit down with him and try to talk him down a little. I doubt it would accomplish anything, but still. He may be 60 years old, but there's still time for him to have a great life free of this demon which torments him by whispering nightmares into his mind.
As far as the content of the book, I got 20 or so pages in and I already had 7 pages of objections in a notebook, so I stopped taking notes because at this rate I would have 60 or 70 pages of notes. It's very "current thing" for lack of a better description. The author which forms his vision of the present and future world is Cormac McCarthy, and he reaches for Marx, Schopenhauer, and Sartre for philosophical insight, so I'd say he's chosen very poor role models. There are multiple instances where it's clear that he's let wrath take over in awkward emotional outbursts. The whole book is poorly organized into a series of rants and interviews with people who have no business even speaking on the subject of climatology, never mind prognosticating any type of scenario. Just because someone is a doctor of botany doesn't make them an expert on anything else.
I can't honestly recommend this book for its content, but I recommend it as a case study of what (I think) Voeglin and others meant by "pneumopathology" which he tries to alleviate with "gnostic speculation". It's not really a disorder of the mind, so much as a disorder of the spirit. I'm not a very good theologian, so I'll stop here. Overall, there's a lot more level-headed books on the subject. Apocalypse Never was pretty good.
I used to think exactly like this guy. I remember how deadening it was. Fortunately, I found a way out to a much more reasonable position, despite the popular stories and narratives all around me. I would like to sit down with him and try to talk him down a little. I doubt it would accomplish anything, but still. He may be 60 years old, but there's still time for him to have a great life free of this demon which torments him by whispering nightmares into his mind.
As far as the content of the book, I got 20 or so pages in and I already had 7 pages of objections in a notebook, so I stopped taking notes because at this rate I would have 60 or 70 pages of notes. It's very "current thing" for lack of a better description. The author which forms his vision of the present and future world is Cormac McCarthy, and he reaches for Marx, Schopenhauer, and Sartre for philosophical insight, so I'd say he's chosen very poor role models. There are multiple instances where it's clear that he's let wrath take over in awkward emotional outbursts. The whole book is poorly organized into a series of rants and interviews with people who have no business even speaking on the subject of climatology, never mind prognosticating any type of scenario. Just because someone is a doctor of botany doesn't make them an expert on anything else.
I can't honestly recommend this book for its content, but I recommend it as a case study of what (I think) Voeglin and others meant by "pneumopathology" which he tries to alleviate with "gnostic speculation". It's not really a disorder of the mind, so much as a disorder of the spirit. I'm not a very good theologian, so I'll stop here. Overall, there's a lot more level-headed books on the subject. Apocalypse Never was pretty good.
August 4, 2024
Oh god, I want to be happy that I finished this book and don’t have to read about the different ways the world is ending in excruciating detail on a regular basis anymore, but I’m honestly so sad on completing a book which provides so much wisdom, guidance, and solidarity to something that is always in the back of my mind and that has settled deeply in my bones.
This book made me weep almost every time I picked it up. On the days it didn’t, it empowered me with hope and passion and camaraderie.
I haven’t read too many books on Climate Change and Grief before this but Boyd does a splendid job of distilling a litany of literature for us. In his tragically comic way, he walks us through what the future holds in an incredibly comprehensive way. All of the climate change-induced inner dilemmas I’ve ever thought, felt, or not had the courage to bring to my mind’s forefront, are addressed with poignancy and research.
A core aspect of the book is its collaborative nature. Boyd conducts interviews with remarkable people from vastly different spheres of life and discusses how they are navigating the end of human civilization as we know it. I knew I would love the book because my favourite author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, gives an interview, but I learnt SO much from all of the other people as well.
Splattered with resources galore, a lot of wry humor, philosophical and practical strategies, and loads of book recommendations, I Want a Better Catastrophe is a powerful work of grief - and Boyd proves that grief is nothing but love enduring.
This book made me weep almost every time I picked it up. On the days it didn’t, it empowered me with hope and passion and camaraderie.
I haven’t read too many books on Climate Change and Grief before this but Boyd does a splendid job of distilling a litany of literature for us. In his tragically comic way, he walks us through what the future holds in an incredibly comprehensive way. All of the climate change-induced inner dilemmas I’ve ever thought, felt, or not had the courage to bring to my mind’s forefront, are addressed with poignancy and research.
A core aspect of the book is its collaborative nature. Boyd conducts interviews with remarkable people from vastly different spheres of life and discusses how they are navigating the end of human civilization as we know it. I knew I would love the book because my favourite author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, gives an interview, but I learnt SO much from all of the other people as well.
Splattered with resources galore, a lot of wry humor, philosophical and practical strategies, and loads of book recommendations, I Want a Better Catastrophe is a powerful work of grief - and Boyd proves that grief is nothing but love enduring.
March 31, 2026
I'm a few years late to the party in finding this book, but have admittedly been struggling with the increasingly obvious signs of the climate crisis rearing it's ugly head, and needed something, *anything* to ease the weight on my mind and heart.
This was just the ticket, and I enjoyed it thoroughly (as much as one *can* enjoy reading about the impending apocalypse that was, at one time, avoidable). I plan on visiting more of Andrew Boyd's work, and highly recommend this book to anyone who, like me, is struggling to keep their heads above the rapidly rising waters of the climate crisis and humanity's fall from 'grace'.
It sucks, it's going to get worse, but we can at least soften the blow by falling apart *together*.
This was just the ticket, and I enjoyed it thoroughly (as much as one *can* enjoy reading about the impending apocalypse that was, at one time, avoidable). I plan on visiting more of Andrew Boyd's work, and highly recommend this book to anyone who, like me, is struggling to keep their heads above the rapidly rising waters of the climate crisis and humanity's fall from 'grace'.
It sucks, it's going to get worse, but we can at least soften the blow by falling apart *together*.
April 3, 2024
Sobering.
February 27, 2025
I liked the author’s message on optimism/pessimism, and I especially liked his connection to McCarthy’s The Road. Unfortunately, it’s painful to read books like this, written when the Trump admin seemed like a horror of the past.
October 18, 2025
Very good book and highly recommend
November 3, 2023
This is a fantastic and very necessary book! No doubt, for those who've struggled with 'what can I do?', 'how do I proceed in the face of despair?', and 'what's the point?', this book will be a gift. For those who've yet to face the truth, that a world is truly ending, it will be especially helpful, comforting and inspiring, though you may want to read in small doses. For those who've already been grieving and processing the end of one world, perhaps it will be less valuable as a straight read and more of a resource with select chapters being inspirational vs a complete read.
I read this book straight through and perhaps this book would have been more appropriate and more valuable as a reference for me given that I've read books by many of the interviewees, plus awhile back I acknowledged and am generally at peace (as much as one can be) with 'the end'. That's what's so great about this book - you can read it straight and/or can scan the index of or use the charts to guide you, select a particular section to read, and then set it aside for the next time. Or perhaps you want to find details on an organization or where to direct your energies at a particular time and when in a specific mindset.
Very minor criticism... I did get frustrated on occasion as it seemed, well, a bit repetitive to me. My gut is another pass from a ruthless editor would have trimmed & fine tuned, especially the restating of what interviewees said & a bit of the author's personal feelings/experiences - this would have made a stronger overall read for me.
That said, I'm so, so happy that Andrew wrote this book thereby adding another impactful and powerful contribution to the toolkit to take on necessary healing work.
I read this book straight through and perhaps this book would have been more appropriate and more valuable as a reference for me given that I've read books by many of the interviewees, plus awhile back I acknowledged and am generally at peace (as much as one can be) with 'the end'. That's what's so great about this book - you can read it straight and/or can scan the index of or use the charts to guide you, select a particular section to read, and then set it aside for the next time. Or perhaps you want to find details on an organization or where to direct your energies at a particular time and when in a specific mindset.
Very minor criticism... I did get frustrated on occasion as it seemed, well, a bit repetitive to me. My gut is another pass from a ruthless editor would have trimmed & fine tuned, especially the restating of what interviewees said & a bit of the author's personal feelings/experiences - this would have made a stronger overall read for me.
That said, I'm so, so happy that Andrew wrote this book thereby adding another impactful and powerful contribution to the toolkit to take on necessary healing work.
May 10, 2024
Suggestions on how to keep sane up until the fast-approaching/eventual doom of humanity.
Not a lot here. Interviews with scientists/activists about how they feel and how they stave off depression. No time wasted on convincing us that calamity is upon us other than informing us that climate scientists are holding back on the worst of what is to come and how soon it will really arrive. Some anecdotes on the authors interactions with celebrities, gurus and activists. Not sure what I was expecting, but flow charts on how to feel wasn't it. It was a bit of a slog but I made it the end.
Not a lot here. Interviews with scientists/activists about how they feel and how they stave off depression. No time wasted on convincing us that calamity is upon us other than informing us that climate scientists are holding back on the worst of what is to come and how soon it will really arrive. Some anecdotes on the authors interactions with celebrities, gurus and activists. Not sure what I was expecting, but flow charts on how to feel wasn't it. It was a bit of a slog but I made it the end.
March 4, 2023
Think of climate change as a long, turbulent rapid in which you know you are about to fall out of your raft. The water is cold, the whirlpools gigantic, and there is no shore in sight. If you can visualize that, then this is the book you want to read. It will prepare your mind, your heart, and your soul for the inevitable predicament and the not-so-inevitable ways in which humanity could respond positively with your meaningful contribution.
June 11, 2024
I found this book to be thoughtful, compassionate, and very human. Climate grief is something I personally deal with daily and this book made me feel less alone - while the content is hard to deal with for sure - I’d definitely recommend it if you are willing to face the gravity of the climate crisis, in all it’s uncertainty. Andrew Boyd does so in a way that feels manageable, kind, and again… just very human. Which I loved!
July 9, 2024
Powerful touchstone book that I will revisit time and time again. The narrative takes on a nearly impossible balancing act between knowing it's too late and knowing it's not too late to do something that matters. I recommend this read to anyone interested in the cultural and social aspects of the climate emergency, and anyone who likes a bit of sassy prose when reading hard truths.
July 10, 2024
It’s a tough one to read. It left me a bit sad, nostalgic even. The phrase “we can. We must. We won’t” really got to me. But we need to change the we won’t into we will. It’s a good reason to continue working in the space I’m in - regenerative agriculture and renewable energy.
March 24, 2025
I really appreciated the pessimistic premise and I recognise many of the thoughts and predicaments that Boyd is struggling with. Ultimately, I don't even mind the lack of answers. There's only a direction. It's not a bad book for people who are struggling with the climate crisis. But I, personally, missed some focus and maybe more forceful, combative attitudes.
February 3, 2025
I enjoyed the book, especially its messaging around the importance of humor and community during the climate crisis. However, I thought the book was entirely too repetitive and could have been a fraction of the length if the author didn’t reiterate the same points over and over.
Read
July 21, 2025shelving for later// taking a break from climate books before I lock myself in a padded room
July 24, 2023
It took me many sittings and a couple of months (given that I give my 'light reading' approximately 5-10 mins per night before I drop off to sleep), but I loved every minute of this book. I have told at least two dozen friends and family members about it, and it feels especially poignant to read this year in the US--with the erratic winter weather, early cyanobacteria blooms, wildfires, droughts, heat domes and devastating floods.
I hadn't been able to 'handle' reading a full book about climate change since The End of Nature in the early '90s, and thought I could only muscle through depressing newspaper and magazine articles. I'm very appreciative that a friend recommended this, as I found it surprisingly calming and inspirational. It was the reframe I needed for these next decades as well as my parenting journey.
I hadn't been able to 'handle' reading a full book about climate change since The End of Nature in the early '90s, and thought I could only muscle through depressing newspaper and magazine articles. I'm very appreciative that a friend recommended this, as I found it surprisingly calming and inspirational. It was the reframe I needed for these next decades as well as my parenting journey.
October 6, 2023
I did a video review of the book on my YouTube channel, here: https://youtu.be/nYjHY22xuzc
Overall, I give this 5 stars as a required reading for anyone with climate anxiety and/or an interest in climate action and environmental issues.
Overall, I give this 5 stars as a required reading for anyone with climate anxiety and/or an interest in climate action and environmental issues.
October 2, 2024
I've been thinking a lot about the climate crisis. Lately, it's been an existential spiral, the sort of thing that I spin my wheels on to the point of mental exhaustion, shame, and fear. This book was never going to fix that. It's a sobering reality check, with the gravity of a good friend sitting you down for an intervention — but like a conversation with a good friend, it's a balance of real talk, humor, and practical advice. Rather than reassurances, blind optimism, or any other half measures, Boyd instead takes a different approach. The message: we're fucked. It's too late. Sit with that. But when you actually sit with that reality, you can learn to find all the complexity fascinating, you can find motivation without promise of reward, and in those lucid moments between screaming into the void and bargaining with yourself to keep going, you might actually be able to do something helpful.
Boyd shares a variety of frameworks with a series of genuinely touching interviews, providing an ample toolkit of future forward thinking, conceptual reframing, and other such mindset shifting magic to get you on board with actually doing something about climate change. The scope oscillates between vast and personal, apt for the conversation. It left me feeling not-quite-hopeful, but also not-quite-losing-my-mind, which I'll take as a win.
I genuinely think we'd be better off if everyone gave this book a shot. If you're skittish, maybe take it in chunks, and trust the process. You're going to have to deal with this catastrophe at one point or another, and you might as well have a flowchart or three to help you.
Boyd shares a variety of frameworks with a series of genuinely touching interviews, providing an ample toolkit of future forward thinking, conceptual reframing, and other such mindset shifting magic to get you on board with actually doing something about climate change. The scope oscillates between vast and personal, apt for the conversation. It left me feeling not-quite-hopeful, but also not-quite-losing-my-mind, which I'll take as a win.
I genuinely think we'd be better off if everyone gave this book a shot. If you're skittish, maybe take it in chunks, and trust the process. You're going to have to deal with this catastrophe at one point or another, and you might as well have a flowchart or three to help you.
March 26, 2026
I Want a Better Catastrophe is a book that started out really resonating with me. It hasn't been since Greta Thurnberg's The Climate Book, that I've read a book about the current (and future) state of things that didn't shy away from just how screwed we all are. However, and this is a testament to just how quickly things change these days, I ultimately put it down, not from any unbearable sense of despair, but because I realized it (and perhaps Thurnberg's book as well--it's been awhile since I read it), is flat-out not pessimistic enough.
Catastrophe was published in 2023, objectively not very long ago. Yet the world is a very different place now. To put it in perspective, I stopped reading at page 158, where Boyd starts talking about the Green New Deal as if it were still an ostensibly viable piece of proposed legislation, and not something the current administration would use for toilet paper. To put it further in perspective, the most dire predictions here (and the hints of hope that follow them) were written before:
- AI data centers were guzzling fresh water like a drunk under a tap.
- Global fossil fuel consumption, rather than slowing down, broke back-to-back records in 2024 and 2025.
- It was revealed that we've significantly underestimated the amount of sea level rise we've already experienced.
- The US reelected a man who thinks windmills cause cancer, started a war in the Middle East that has oil and gas fields ablaze to no good purpose, and whose cabinet is two steps away from recommending coal as an essential part of a balanced breakfast.
Simply put, Boyd wrote this book in a world where he assumed business would continue as normal, and the people running things would be, if not free from corruption, at least nominally sane. Instead, the world is largely in chaos, and most people's priorities are going to be more on keeping the lights on and avoiding getting drafted into World War III, rather than forming community groups and pushing for Green-anything.
I'm sure there are interesting, thought-provoking interviews and rhetoric beyond where I stopped reading, but I'm nearly as sure most of them will ring hollow in a world that's gotten even worse in the few years it's been since Catastrophe came out. That said, I think I've gotten what I needed out of this book.
I'm...tired. I've been taking this whole situation seriously since the initial "reduce, reuse, recycle" push of the late '80s. I remember when I was like, 8 or 9, and the city supplied us all with recycling bins, and it felt like if we all just pitched in, we could make a difference. I mean, sure, the only plastics you could recycle were the ones with a 1 in the middle of the symbol, but 8-year-old me thought, "That sucks, but this is all still new; I'm sure they'll get to the other numbers (of which there are more than you might think) soon. This is important!" Spoiler alert: It's been over three decades, and you can still only really recycle plastic with a 1 on it. Hell, my workplace doesn't even recycle at all--I take empty coffee containers and bits of paper with nothing important on them home to toss in my bin there, rather than have them end up in a landfill. Because at least that's something. Meanwhile, I live closer to the North Pole than the equator, and we've had Christmases without snow, and the old people who'll all be dead before the shit really hits the fan complain when the temps drop below 45F. Hell, on the broader scale, look at any story about CO2 emissions, or heat waves, or runaway fossil fuel consumption on social media, and chances are you'll see more laugh reacts than anything. So, not only do you have the short list of how things have gotten worse since 2023, but you've also got a large chunk of the populace who doesn't believe there's even a problem at best, and is actively hostile toward the idea of doing anything at worst.
So, I'm done. That's what I've gotten out of this book. I've been fighting this since I was a kid, and every "Go team! We can do it!" rallying cry has turned into, "Sorry, team. The people with the power to actually do anything don't give a shit." There's no stopping this train, no changing people's minds--not those in power, or seemingly even the average person on the street. And I'm done trying. I'll still carry home stuff from work to recycle, and donate to wildlife charities, and things like that, because those things are like putting a shopping cart back in the corral in a parking lot--it might not make any real difference in the end, but it also doesn't cost me anything to do it. But I'm done trying to convince people that maybe not having snow until January in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and having ticks active into December might not be a good thing. Life's too short to keep butting my head against that wall.
On the flipside, I'm not going to shy away from, or feel bad about enjoying some things in life while the opportunity to do so is still available to me, regardless of how frivolous they might seem in the face of *gestures broadly.* I'll keep meeting up with friends on a regular basis and pretending to be a warlock or a four-armed robot doctor. I'll back that Kickstarter project for a game I might not ever get around to playing. I'll dig into my backlog of things to watch/read/etc. I'll tag along for that paranormal investigation, even though it'll probably be just hours of asking questions to empty rooms and watching dust motes float past cameras.
I'll live a little, staring our bleak future in the face, knowing full well that there's nothing I can do to appreciably change any of it, and I won't let it break me (to crib a line from Dungeon Crawler Carl). I'm sure there'll be a reckoning somewhere down the line, but I've spent enough of my life fretting over that existential dread. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.
That's what I've gotten out of this book.
Catastrophe was published in 2023, objectively not very long ago. Yet the world is a very different place now. To put it in perspective, I stopped reading at page 158, where Boyd starts talking about the Green New Deal as if it were still an ostensibly viable piece of proposed legislation, and not something the current administration would use for toilet paper. To put it further in perspective, the most dire predictions here (and the hints of hope that follow them) were written before:
- AI data centers were guzzling fresh water like a drunk under a tap.
- Global fossil fuel consumption, rather than slowing down, broke back-to-back records in 2024 and 2025.
- It was revealed that we've significantly underestimated the amount of sea level rise we've already experienced.
- The US reelected a man who thinks windmills cause cancer, started a war in the Middle East that has oil and gas fields ablaze to no good purpose, and whose cabinet is two steps away from recommending coal as an essential part of a balanced breakfast.
Simply put, Boyd wrote this book in a world where he assumed business would continue as normal, and the people running things would be, if not free from corruption, at least nominally sane. Instead, the world is largely in chaos, and most people's priorities are going to be more on keeping the lights on and avoiding getting drafted into World War III, rather than forming community groups and pushing for Green-anything.
I'm sure there are interesting, thought-provoking interviews and rhetoric beyond where I stopped reading, but I'm nearly as sure most of them will ring hollow in a world that's gotten even worse in the few years it's been since Catastrophe came out. That said, I think I've gotten what I needed out of this book.
I'm...tired. I've been taking this whole situation seriously since the initial "reduce, reuse, recycle" push of the late '80s. I remember when I was like, 8 or 9, and the city supplied us all with recycling bins, and it felt like if we all just pitched in, we could make a difference. I mean, sure, the only plastics you could recycle were the ones with a 1 in the middle of the symbol, but 8-year-old me thought, "That sucks, but this is all still new; I'm sure they'll get to the other numbers (of which there are more than you might think) soon. This is important!" Spoiler alert: It's been over three decades, and you can still only really recycle plastic with a 1 on it. Hell, my workplace doesn't even recycle at all--I take empty coffee containers and bits of paper with nothing important on them home to toss in my bin there, rather than have them end up in a landfill. Because at least that's something. Meanwhile, I live closer to the North Pole than the equator, and we've had Christmases without snow, and the old people who'll all be dead before the shit really hits the fan complain when the temps drop below 45F. Hell, on the broader scale, look at any story about CO2 emissions, or heat waves, or runaway fossil fuel consumption on social media, and chances are you'll see more laugh reacts than anything. So, not only do you have the short list of how things have gotten worse since 2023, but you've also got a large chunk of the populace who doesn't believe there's even a problem at best, and is actively hostile toward the idea of doing anything at worst.
So, I'm done. That's what I've gotten out of this book. I've been fighting this since I was a kid, and every "Go team! We can do it!" rallying cry has turned into, "Sorry, team. The people with the power to actually do anything don't give a shit." There's no stopping this train, no changing people's minds--not those in power, or seemingly even the average person on the street. And I'm done trying. I'll still carry home stuff from work to recycle, and donate to wildlife charities, and things like that, because those things are like putting a shopping cart back in the corral in a parking lot--it might not make any real difference in the end, but it also doesn't cost me anything to do it. But I'm done trying to convince people that maybe not having snow until January in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and having ticks active into December might not be a good thing. Life's too short to keep butting my head against that wall.
On the flipside, I'm not going to shy away from, or feel bad about enjoying some things in life while the opportunity to do so is still available to me, regardless of how frivolous they might seem in the face of *gestures broadly.* I'll keep meeting up with friends on a regular basis and pretending to be a warlock or a four-armed robot doctor. I'll back that Kickstarter project for a game I might not ever get around to playing. I'll dig into my backlog of things to watch/read/etc. I'll tag along for that paranormal investigation, even though it'll probably be just hours of asking questions to empty rooms and watching dust motes float past cameras.
I'll live a little, staring our bleak future in the face, knowing full well that there's nothing I can do to appreciably change any of it, and I won't let it break me (to crib a line from Dungeon Crawler Carl). I'm sure there'll be a reckoning somewhere down the line, but I've spent enough of my life fretting over that existential dread. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.
That's what I've gotten out of this book.
August 3, 2024
It was sad, beautiful, poignant and encouraging. This book was the final straw.. I’m embracing my new prepper self. From now on can find me stockpiling toilet paper, coffee and water filters.
Also just a reminder..
‘We humans are the younger brothers of creation, it is plants that know how to make food and medicine from light, then they share it. ‘
Also just a reminder..
‘We humans are the younger brothers of creation, it is plants that know how to make food and medicine from light, then they share it. ‘
October 23, 2024
this was terrifying and informative. but then it was the same terrifying, and the same informative. over, and over again. if i could, i would sit down and count how many times each fact, hypothesis, or grave prophecy was repeated. but i don't have the time. because the world is ending.
July 24, 2023
Essential reading.
A few of the headlines today, the day I finished reading this book:
“Blistering Southwest heat wave to expand across the U.S. this week”
“Greece Wildfires: 'climate crisis will manifest itself everywhere with greater disasters’ says Greece PM”
“New North Sea oil and gas licenses could produce emissions equivalent to 14 m cars.”
June 2023 was the hottest month ever on earth until July became the hottest month ever. It’s clear we are in a climate crisis and yet our behaviour has not changed. We have barely begun to do what we needed to do 30 years ago to avert this catastrophe. In this book, Andrew Boyd, who has been an activist for decades, faces down this reality and asks the question, now what? Knowing that we have lost the battle to avert the true catastrophe of 1.5+C warming, what should we do, how do we keep fighting and for what, exactly, do we keep fighting?
This book doesn’t necessarily give you the answers to that. You have to figure that out on your own. But it presents you with many different available approaches and philosophies ranging from the most pessimistic view (we are doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it) to the most realistically hopeful (there are many exit ramps and we still have time to get off at the next one). It is is arranged around eight interviews with “doomers” like Guy McPherson and “hopers,” like Joanna Macy and is peppered with funny, poignant and quirky essays by Boyd about his own struggles with our current predicament that go so far as to get to the heart of what, exactly is a “predicament.” Along the way, he examines the current crisis through the lens of a range of Western philosophers and thinkers like Albert Camus, Arthur Schopenhauer, Antonio Gramsci, Marcus Aurelius. He also quotes some non-western and indigenous thinkers as well, like Arundhati Roy and Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro. (If I had to quibble, I wish there were more non-western views in this book but it is still well worth reading and that lack is made up for in the interviews.)
Ultimately, we face the most challenging test humanity has ever faced and it has many possible outcomes. He comes to the conclusion that the climate crisis is like a Rorschach test that tells you who you are when you look at it. If you are predisposed toward pessimism, there is plenty there to reinforce that belief. If you are an irrepressible optimist, there is plenty of uncertainty upon which to paint a fantasy of rescue. He finds himself somewhere in between and bouncing back and forth between pessimism and hope. He concludes, as long as there are things we can still save, like a more livable future, or a few more species that would disappear otherwise, we must keep fighting. We must keep going even if we no longer believe it will work. This is what he calls grounded hope, a hope that fights because it is the right thing to do, irrespective of the outcome.
The thinkers whose interviews I appreciated most in this book were Gopal Dayeneni, Joanna Macy, adrienne mae brown, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. These interviews offered the best guidance for finding not just hope but beauty in this world we’re trying to save, though all are totally clear-eyed about how bad things are and are likely to get. Joanna Macy urges us to “Be of service not knowing if you are a hospice worker or aa midwife.” Kimmerer asks, “What do you love too much to lose, and what are you going to do about it?” The interview with adrienne mae brown asks “how do we partner with the apocalypse? … How do we survive the end of capitalism? How do we fall as if we were holding a child on our chest?”
This book, like the title states, is about how to make this catastrophe the best possible catastrophe it can be. What is the best possible outcome all of this? For the reader, where do you belong in the fight - as healer, engineer, policymaker, rebel, artist? Most importantly, Boyd urges us, “let’s bring to this fight all the courage, kindness, and wise planning we can muster, so we can get the least terrible and most compassionate catastrophe still available.”
A few of the headlines today, the day I finished reading this book:
“Blistering Southwest heat wave to expand across the U.S. this week”
“Greece Wildfires: 'climate crisis will manifest itself everywhere with greater disasters’ says Greece PM”
“New North Sea oil and gas licenses could produce emissions equivalent to 14 m cars.”
June 2023 was the hottest month ever on earth until July became the hottest month ever. It’s clear we are in a climate crisis and yet our behaviour has not changed. We have barely begun to do what we needed to do 30 years ago to avert this catastrophe. In this book, Andrew Boyd, who has been an activist for decades, faces down this reality and asks the question, now what? Knowing that we have lost the battle to avert the true catastrophe of 1.5+C warming, what should we do, how do we keep fighting and for what, exactly, do we keep fighting?
This book doesn’t necessarily give you the answers to that. You have to figure that out on your own. But it presents you with many different available approaches and philosophies ranging from the most pessimistic view (we are doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it) to the most realistically hopeful (there are many exit ramps and we still have time to get off at the next one). It is is arranged around eight interviews with “doomers” like Guy McPherson and “hopers,” like Joanna Macy and is peppered with funny, poignant and quirky essays by Boyd about his own struggles with our current predicament that go so far as to get to the heart of what, exactly is a “predicament.” Along the way, he examines the current crisis through the lens of a range of Western philosophers and thinkers like Albert Camus, Arthur Schopenhauer, Antonio Gramsci, Marcus Aurelius. He also quotes some non-western and indigenous thinkers as well, like Arundhati Roy and Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro. (If I had to quibble, I wish there were more non-western views in this book but it is still well worth reading and that lack is made up for in the interviews.)
Ultimately, we face the most challenging test humanity has ever faced and it has many possible outcomes. He comes to the conclusion that the climate crisis is like a Rorschach test that tells you who you are when you look at it. If you are predisposed toward pessimism, there is plenty there to reinforce that belief. If you are an irrepressible optimist, there is plenty of uncertainty upon which to paint a fantasy of rescue. He finds himself somewhere in between and bouncing back and forth between pessimism and hope. He concludes, as long as there are things we can still save, like a more livable future, or a few more species that would disappear otherwise, we must keep fighting. We must keep going even if we no longer believe it will work. This is what he calls grounded hope, a hope that fights because it is the right thing to do, irrespective of the outcome.
The thinkers whose interviews I appreciated most in this book were Gopal Dayeneni, Joanna Macy, adrienne mae brown, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. These interviews offered the best guidance for finding not just hope but beauty in this world we’re trying to save, though all are totally clear-eyed about how bad things are and are likely to get. Joanna Macy urges us to “Be of service not knowing if you are a hospice worker or aa midwife.” Kimmerer asks, “What do you love too much to lose, and what are you going to do about it?” The interview with adrienne mae brown asks “how do we partner with the apocalypse? … How do we survive the end of capitalism? How do we fall as if we were holding a child on our chest?”
This book, like the title states, is about how to make this catastrophe the best possible catastrophe it can be. What is the best possible outcome all of this? For the reader, where do you belong in the fight - as healer, engineer, policymaker, rebel, artist? Most importantly, Boyd urges us, “let’s bring to this fight all the courage, kindness, and wise planning we can muster, so we can get the least terrible and most compassionate catastrophe still available.”
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