Navigating the Climate Crisis: Andrew Boyd + Tim DeChristopher

200 Anderson Street,Portland ME 04101

23 February, 2023

Description

Global warming. Rising sea levels. Unthinkable, destructive storms. Elevated anxieties. How does one live with and through the impossible news of our impending climate doom? Join us as renowned climate activist and author Andrew Boyd discusses how to tackle our climate emergency and resulting grief while retaining a sense of hope and humor in conversation with Tim DeChristopher, leading environmental activist, Maine farmer, and founder of the Climate Disobedience Center and Peaceful Uprising. This engaging, sobering, and hilarious conversation is in support of Andrew Boyd's recent book release, I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor (New Society Publishers, February 2023). Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event; pre-orders will also be available for those unable to attend. Doors at 6:00pm | Conversation at 7:00pm; discussion and social gathering to follow. This event is free and open to the public; all ages are welcome. A valid photo ID and 21+ age verification is required to purchase/consume alcohol. Please note, UFF produces and makes multiple NA options available in addition to water. --- I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor (New Society Publishers, February 2023) An existential manual for tragic optimists, can-do pessimists, and compassionate doomers. With global warming 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?" and "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. --- Andrew Boyd is an author, humorist, and climate activist. His new book, I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope and Gallows Humor is forthcoming from New Society Press in February 2023. He is currently CEO (Chief Existential Officer) of the Climate Clock, a global campaign he co-founded that melds art, science, technology, and grassroots organizing to get the world to #ActInTime. Boyd 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 (OR Books, 2012); Daily Afflictions (WW Norton, 2002), and Life’s Little Deconstruction Book (WW Norton, 1998). 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.” Tim DeChristopher is environmental activist, Maine farmer, founder of the Climate Disobedience Center, and founder of Peaceful Uprising, an organization dedicated to creating livable futures and empowering nonviolent action. He is best known for an act of civil disobedience where he disrupted a government oil and gas lease auction in order to protect fragile land in southern Utah and served nearly two years in prison. Called at the time “America’s most creative climate criminal” by Rolling Stone.