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There is no planet B. Activists share how we must inform and organize ourselves to save the future.
"Act as though your house is on fire. Because it is." Following Greta Thunberg, millions of young climate activists have been taking to the streets around the globe as part of the Fridays For Future movement. They demand that we "unite behind the science", as, for too long, climate scientists have been ringing the alarm bells about rising temperatures, tipping points, and the devastating consequences of extreme weather-but politicians do nothing.
So how do you begin to end the climate crisis? Luisa Neubauer and Alexander Repenning begin by telling stories. Neubauer cofounded the youth climate activist group in Germany and has become its most prominent voice. In this book she and Repenning weave in personal accounts of their evolution as climate activists with a thorough analysis of how climate change impacts their generation, and what every one of us can and must do about it. The young and old in the United States and around the world can learn valuable lessons from their European counterparts.
Foreword
Note from the Translator
Preface to the English Edition
Introduction
- Alarmism? Hamburg 2050
- What Does the Science Say?
- Let’s Stop Making the Same Mistakes Over and Over Again
- We Are Possibilists
- An Invitation
1 Our Future is a Dystopia
- The Future Is No Longer a Promise
- Our Lives in a Multi-Optional World
- We Are Part of the Problem
- Nauru - The Canary in the Coalmine
2 Because You Are Stealing Our Future
- A Scientifically-Founded Fear of the Future
- This Crisis Could Have Been Prevented
- Not a Brave New World as We Like It
- A Global Question and a Globalized Generation
- Humanity Has a Deadline
- Who is Stealing Our Future?
- The First Steps of a Marathon
3 We Lack a Utopia
- The End of History?
- No Planet B
- Lack of Imagination
- An Apollo-Project to Combat the Climate Crisis
4 The Climate Crisis is Not an Individual Crisis
- The Luxury of Riding a Bicycle
- Green Guilt
- Shifting Baselines
5 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Responsibility
- Demanding Responsibility for the Future
- The Parable of Mourning the Future
- Institutionalizing Responsibility for the Future
6 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Communication
- This is Your Crisis, Too
- A Problem of Vividness?
- Frames Instead of Facts
- Calculated Uncertainty
- Beyond Our Imagination
- The Climate of the Media
- How Do We Get Out of It?
7 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Fossil Capitalism
- The Fateful Belief in the Market
- A Price Tag on Nature is Supposed to Save Us. Seriously?
- The First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce
8 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Prosperity
- But We Are Doing So Well, Aren’t We?
- We Are Living at the Expense of Others
- Voluntary Self-Deprivileging
- Donut for Future
- The ‘Good Life’ as a Constitutional Goal?
- For a Green New Deal
9 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Justice
- The Price of Fossil Prosperity
- Intergenerational Justice
- Carbon Justice
- A Sexist Crisis
- Who is Being Held Accountable?
- The New Social Question?
10 Educate Yourselves!
- The Gap Between Knowledge, Perception, and Action
1.Educate Yourselves about How to Educate Others
2.Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth
3.Educate (Yourselves) about the Beginning of the End
4.Become Multipliers
5.Educate Yourselves about Each Other
11 Start Dreaming!
1.Moral Stretching Exercises
2.Looking Back from the Dystopian Future
3.Imagine!
4.Think Utopian
12 Get Organized!
- Sorry, I Don’t Have Time to Protest
- Why Organize?
- 3.5 Percent
1.Discover the Why
2.Get Over Your Astonishment
3.Team Up and Look Out for Each Other
4.Copy from Each Other
5.Come to Stay
6.Make Demands of Those Around You
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Luisa Neubauer is one of the co-organizers of Fridays for Future and is the most prominent representative of the German movement. She is the host of the Spotify Original Podcast 1,5 Grad (1.5 degrees). Alexander Repenning is a comprehensivist, facilitator, and writer engaged in climate justice. He is currently working as an education manager at Right Livelihood, connecting activism and academia and creating learning formats for system change. Sabine von Mering is professor of German and women's, gender, and sexuality studies and director of the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University. She is a core member of the Environmental Studies Program and a longtime climate activist with 350Mass and NoCoalNoGas.
"Beginning to End the Climate Crisis acknowledges the challenge of affecting long-term change, but says that it's important to keep trying."
– Foreword Reviews
"In a time where climate disaster is taking hold all over the world, this book is needed now more than ever. This book strikes the balance between not sugar coating the climate crisis, but also providing hope in the form of action."
– Jamie Sarai Margolin, Zero Hour founder and author of Youth to Power
"Luisa and Alex remind us across generations, to unflinchingly take responsibility and face the future together. Read this book. Learn where we have been and where we can and we must go."
– Harriet Shugarman, award-winning author, university professor, climate educator, policy analyst, and climate activist
"The young have every right to say to us: how could you fail us like this? Luisa and Alex sing a new song and we all have to sing it with them."
– Cornelia Funke, author of the Dragon Rider series and others
