I Want a Better Catastrophe

Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor

By: Andrew Boyd

Narrated by: Chris Bates

Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

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, 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 listeners 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 f--k am I recycling?"

He finds answers that will surprise, inspire, and maybe even make you laugh. Drawing on eastern, western, and indigenous traditions, Boyd crafts an insightful and irreverent guide for achieving a "better catastrophe."

This is vital listening for everyone navigating climate anxiety and grief as our world hurtles towards an unthinkable crisis.

©2023 Andrew Boyd (P)2023 New Society Publishers

Helped me quite a bit

This book covers eight different perspectives on how a caring citizen of Earth might choose to proceed through the climate catastrophe. Listening to this was at times painful, and other times uplifting. I never found it humorous (but that might just be me). The interviews helped me quite a bit with organizing my thoughts and emotions on what our next generation or two might experience. Because the author summarized and repeated bits of the interviews for emphasis, they have easily stuck in my head. In the end, I believe some of these bits will be helpful to keep me afloat ...emotionally at least, and able to find some good to do.

An existential guide to our climate emergency

This book’s purpose isn’t to convince the reader of the dire nature of our climate predicament. And it IS a predicament - not a problem (more on that in the book). Boyd doesn’t hose you with climate data or try to turn you on to some magic bullet solution (indeed, he acknowledges that such a solution does not exist). Instead, with gentleness, grace, and a sprinkling of gallows humor throughout, this book guides us through a series of mental models that can help us process our existential grief at the ruination of our one planet into a way of being that neither pushes aside the truth nor wallows in inaction. I highly recommend this book to anyone who, like me, is struggling to find a way to bear the burden of our collective futures upon their shoulders without crumbling under the weight.