Falter

Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

By: Bill McKibben

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Bill McKibben - foreword

Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

"[Oliver Wyman's] skillful, nuanced performance is enough to keep listeners from tossing their earbuds aside in despair.... This isn't easy listening, but it's essential for anyone concerned about humanity's future." (AudioFile Magazine)

2019 Washington Post Best Books of the Year

This program includes a foreword read by the author.

Thirty years ago, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now, he broadens the warning: The entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out.

Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature - issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic - was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: Even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience.

Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways out of the trap. We’re at a bleak moment in human history - and we’ll either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away.

Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms to save not only our planet, but also our humanity.

©2019 Bill McKibben (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Narrator Oliver Wyman has the difficult task of engaging listeners with this audiobook's grim tidings on climate change and pending social collapse.... Yet his skillful, nuanced performance is enough to keep listeners from tossing their earbuds aside in despair. Wyman spotlights sporadic moments of humor and hope and channels McKibben's withering rage toward the powerful few who suppress climate action in favor of personal wealth. This isn't easy listening, but it's essential for anyone concerned about humanity's future." (AudioFile Magazine)

Great book!

I wish the information in this book was presented with a more political unbiased view, but it was still a great listen.

Another great book by Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben richly deserves his reputation as a leader in the environmental movement. Bill doesn’t sugarcoat it, but nor does he throw in the towel. He tells us like it is, but leaves us with the fortitude to move forward. In my own career working for clean energy, Bill has been a light post, and his essays and books have help me through some dark times. Thank you for your life’s work, Bill, and for a book that both opened my eyes and soothed my soul.

listen to this book

listen to this book. it will make you think deeply about the world were in

Doom and Gloom, but fun to listen to, and a call to action

Reader was good, Bill M knows his stuff, and just wants us all to appreciate what we have, and work to save it’s future. I have hope - I don’t think my generation or those after will stand for the continued system of greed and resource draining of people like the Kochs. Watch out, 1%. We’re coming with change.

Civilization Is a Game We Wii Probably Lose

Bill McKibben is a great climate activist. He shows in this book that he also is a great writer. His premise is a bit odd. He states that humanity is a game The goal is to keep playing forever. To do that, to win, takes people joining together as a community. But Ayn Rand preached individualism and hatred of Government. Raegan, the Koch brothers, high-tech entrepreneurs, and now even Trump are believers in individualism, and that is causing mankind to lose the game. That mean humanity will die or be replaced.

The individualists have some control over sentient AIs, human gene manipulation, and climate change, and can cause these to have us lose the game.

McKibben starts with climate change. He presents the terrors it is doing and will increasingly do. This is very similar to what David Wallace-Wells did in his first 12 chapters of Uninhabitable Earth. McKibben does it better. He is scarier, but more readable. mostly because he puts his own personality into everything he writes. His descriptions of the AI and human gene modification fears are very thorough and very persuasive.

McKibben ends on an upbeat note. He says we can and will join together as a community, but we may be too late.

Overall, the book is very entertaining and informative, and Oliver Wyman reads it beautifully. This is e book everyone should read or listen to.

Where we are

Sad (though, not a presidential sad), frightening, infuriating, but not without hope. The backstory to a lot of the 1% mindset is interesting as hell and may give some insight into why everyone isn't interested in saving humanity? Who knows. Pairs well with the podcast, The End of the World with Josh Clark, and covers similar territory including, genetic engineering and AI. Good luck to us all, especially the keiki, and may we all have the strength and courage to do something.

Surprising!

Central to this book is a discussion of Ayn Rand, her acolytes and how Atlas Shrugged is a secret handshake in a world largely responsible for environmental and climate ruin. Leavened with anger and insight, McKibben makes a depressing topic bearable to read. He and I are the exact age, and in some ways, reading him is like hearing my own thoughts on how much the world has changed. That he manages to write at all given his awareness as to how the world has changed is admirable. I'm grateful because it helps me cope.

Some have faulted his information and knowledge on topics like wildfires, which he does spend considerable time on, along with ice. I can't address those concerns because I don't know enough. He certainly has done his homework on Rand. However despicable she is, he does not deny her humanity. Today's leaders on politics and business he is not too kind to, but they act with open eyes. Whatever faults this books may have, his perspective continues to be sterling,

Like A Great Sermon

Excellent work, amazing really. I wish everyone throughout the word could hear and learn from this very wise author.

Great book, irritating narration

For some reason this very important book that I must listen too because my eyes have weakened with age has a narrator that just grates on my brain. I beg you to have it redone and I will buy it a second time.

Solid if a tad disappointing

the author provides a strong look at the climate challenge we face and offers several potential Solutions. unfortunately, things are so dire that the latter don't really overcome the former