The Smokey Wire Virtual Book Club: “Apocalypse Never”- Begins 8/17/2020

We tried a virtual book club with Dan Botkin’s book Discordant Harmonies in 2013. We had many thoughtful discussions that are still relevant today. You can take a look at the Chapter 4 post that comes up on the link to get an idea. We went chapter by chapter, and I have to confess I ran out of energy working through the chapters. Maybe because Botkin made one main point with a variety of examples.

But I think this one will be different. The book is Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger.

Why this book? Don’t be put off by the title.. overstatement sells books. There’s much thoughtful stuff inside. He touches on many topics we talk about, some related to forests, some to climate change, from a different angle than we usually discuss here. He comes from a very different socioeconomic milieu than most TSW readers (at least I think so), e.g. he lives in Berkeley and travels around the world- so it will be interesting to see where we agree with him and where not. Perhaps most important, he shares his stories and his reasoning, which gives us a chance to tell our own stories and give our own reasoning. Some ideas I agree with, some not, and some I’m simply agnostic. He’s got lots of references, too, so we can look them up if we want.

I’m going to take a chapter at a time and we can discuss. If you’d like to participate in VBC (Virtual Book Club), we’ll start in a few weeks – on 8/17.. that should be enough time to request the book from the library and read the first few chapters. Also, feel free to invite others to join- the book is mostly about climate change (and forests, and psychology, and models) and the usual stuff we talk about. Of course, people would have to follow TSW rules of engagement.

Here’s a bit from Shellenberger’s bio (the rest is at the link above)

Michael has been an environmental and social justice advocate for over 25 years. In the 1990s he helped save California’s last unprotected ancient redwood forest, and inspired Nike to improve factory conditions in Asia. In the 2000s, Michael advocated for a “new Apollo project” in clean energy, which resulted in a $150 billion public investment in clean tech between 2009 and 2015.

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