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Falter
- Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Bill McKibben - foreword
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
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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.
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Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
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Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper
- How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.
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I thought I was getting a book on the future.
- By Grant on 08-02-14
By: Robert Bryce
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Coal
- A Human History
- By: Barbara Freese
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The fascinating, often surprising story of how a simple black rock altered the course of history. Yet the mundane mineral that built our global economy, and even today powers our electrical plants, has also caused death, disease, and environmental destruction. In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins three hundred million years ago and spans the globe.
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Uses Coal to push her Political Agenda
- By Kismet on 08-22-06
By: Barbara Freese
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Getting Green Done
- Hard Truths From the Frontlines of Sustainability Revolution
- By: Auden Schendler
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Soccer moms drive Priuses. Sport utility vehicles are going hybrid. Families are using hemp shopping bags. More and more companies are developing "green" buildings. What's more, the business consultants say going green is easy and profitable. In reality, though, many green-leaning businesses, families, and governments are still fiddling with the small stuff while the planet burns. Why?
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Green's Dirty Little Secrets
- By Martin on 07-10-09
By: Auden Schendler
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Adapt
- Why Success Always Starts with Failure
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking work, Tim Harford shows us a new and inspiring approach to solving the most pressing problems in our lives. Harford argues that today’s challenges simply cannot be tackled with ready-made solutions and expert opinions; the world has become far too unpredictable and profoundly complex. Instead, we must adapt. Deftly weaving together psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics, and economics, along with compelling stories of hard-won lessons learned in the field, Harford makes a passionate case for the importance of adaptive trial-and-error....
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Hidden Agenda
- By Lawrence on 05-20-13
By: Tim Harford
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Climate Shock
- The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet
- By: Gernot Wagner, Martin L. Weitzman
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences. They show that the longer we wait to act, the more likely an extreme event will happen. A city might go underwater.
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Nuance, balance, risk management.
- By John Christens on 11-23-23
By: Gernot Wagner, and others
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Countdown
- Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
- By: Alan Weisman
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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Weisman visits an extraordinary range of the world's cultures, religions, nationalities, tribes, and political systems to learn what in their beliefs, histories, liturgies, or current circumstances might suggest that sometimes it's in their own best interest to limit their growth.
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Boring
- By NorthFLADiver on 01-14-14
By: Alan Weisman
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Everything All at Once
- How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem
- By: Bill Nye
- Narrated by: Bill Nye
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Everything All at Once is an exciting, inspiring call to unleash the power of the nerd mindset that exists within us all. Nye believes we'll never be able to tackle our society's biggest, most complex problems if we don't even know how to solve the small ones. Step by step, he shows his listeners the key tools behind his everything-all-at-once approach: radical curiosity, a deep desire for a better future, and a willingness to take the actions needed to make it a reality.
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Bill Nye is awesome, but skip this one
- By Evan on 08-15-17
By: Bill Nye
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We Rise
- The Earth Guardians Guide to Building a Movement That Restores the Planet
- By: Xiuhtezcatl Martinez
- Narrated by: Drew Caiden
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixteen-year-old climate activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and his group the Earth Guardians believe that choices made now will have a lasting impact on the world of tomorrow, and they want to ensure a positive, just, and sustainable future. Beginning with their empowering story, We Rise explores many aspects of effective activism and provides step-by-step information on how to start and join solution-oriented movements.
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great topic good info
- By Great and powerful IDE on 10-01-17
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy paints an epic picture of change in an intimate way by telling the stories of the tools, people, and ideas that had far-reaching consequences for all of us. From the plough to artificial intelligence, from Gillette's disposable razor to IKEA's Billy bookcase, best-selling author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford recounts each invention's own curious, surprising, and memorable story.
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Thought provoking
- By Paul Norris on 09-10-17
By: Tim Harford
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Warnings
- Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
- By: Richard A. Clarke, R.P. Eddy
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the US economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters, but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right?
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On prediction, catastrophe and mitigation
- By S. Yates on 02-28-18
By: Richard A. Clarke, and others
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Age of Discovery
- Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
- By: Ian Goldin, Chris Kutarna
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Age of Discovery explores a world on the brink of a new Renaissance and asks: how do we share more widely the benefits of unprecedented progress? How do we endure the inevitable tumult generated by accelerating change? How do we each thrive through this tangled, uncertain time? From gains in health, education, wealth and technology to crises of conflict, disease and mass migration, the similarities between today's world and that of the 15th century are both striking and prophetic: we have been here before.
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A monotonous text disguised as casual reading.
- By Rob on 07-29-16
By: Ian Goldin, and others
What listeners say about Falter
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Steve B
- 07-12-20
Great book!
I wish the information in this book was presented with a more political unbiased view, but it was still a great listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Nancy LaPlaca
- 09-07-20
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.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Brian S.
- 10-17-19
listen to this book
listen to this book. it will make you think deeply about the world were in
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- Shawn Oueinsteen
- 05-24-19
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.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Marc
- 05-12-19
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.
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- cake_face
- 05-05-19
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.
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- chitty chitty bang bang
- 03-25-20
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,
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-27-19
Like A Great Sermon
Excellent work, amazing really. I wish everyone throughout the word could hear and learn from this very wise author.
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- Lori Bob
- 05-12-19
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.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Niny Pagan
- 06-16-19
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
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