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How to Be a Climate Optimist
- Blueprints for a Better World
- Narrated by: Chris Turner
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
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Publisher's summary
2023 National Business Book Award, Long-listed
WINNER OF THE SHAUGHNESSY COHEN PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING
From the National Business Book Award winner and GG finalist, a very different book about facing the climate crisis, and what awaits us on the other side.
Chris Turner has reported from the places where the sustainable future first emerged—from green islands in Denmark and green office parks in southern India, to solar panel factories in California and idealistic intentional communities from Scotland to New Mexico. Here, he condenses the first quarter century of the global energy transition into bite-sized chunks of optimistic reflection and reportage, telling a story of a planet in peril and a global effort already beginning to save it. This is a book that moves past the despair and futile anger over ecological collapse and harnesses that passion toward the project of building a twenty-first century quality of life that surpasses the twentieth-century version in every way. How to Be a Climate Optimist overflows with possibility in a moment of great panic, upheaval and uncertainty over a world on fire.
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Critic reviews
2022, Lane Anderson Award: Short-listed
2023, National Business Book Award: Long-listed
2023, Shaughnessy Cohen Award for Political Writing
“The climate debate is inherently pessimistic, and while Chris Turner doesn’t pretend that crafting policy to slow global warming is easy, he presents a compelling argument: gloom and doom is not an effective strategy. How to Be a Climate Optimist is a self-help guide for the planet and a masterclass in brisk, vivid storytelling. Turner gives us a crisp, upbeat tour d’horizon of gee-whiz innovation coupled with a strongly argued case that we—politicians, voters and citizens—just need the will to reach for the solutions taking shape before our eyes.” (2023 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize Jury)
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- How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
- By: Edward Glaeser
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of us live on the three percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly. Or are they? As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live.
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Urbanophile Brain Candy
- By Clay Downing on 12-18-15
By: Edward Glaeser
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Walkable City
- How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
- By: Jeff Speck
- Narrated by: Jeff Speck
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that’s easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at. Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick.
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Interesting topic and thoughtful insight, subpar recording.
- By Andrew Nicks on 05-12-18
By: Jeff Speck
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Sun, Sin, Suburbia
- The History of Modern Las Vegas Revised and Expanded
- By: Geoff Schumacher
- Narrated by: Douglas R. Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Las Vegas is gambling's mecca - Sin City the Entertainment Capital of the World with 40 million visitors a year. But that's just part of the story. This carefully documented history tracks the rise of Las Vegas from its vital role in World War II, of the Rat Pack era of the 50s, the explosive growth of the 90s, and it's colossal collapse in the post 2008 real-estate crash. It offers a history of the iconic Strip, but also profiles the neighborhoods where over 2 million people live.
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Good History of Vegas - old, modern and mundane
- By Amazon Customer on 06-13-14
By: Geoff Schumacher
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The Great Reset
- How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity
- By: Richard Florida
- Narrated by: Eric Conger
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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We tend to view prolonged economic downturns, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Long Depression of the late 19th century, in terms of the crisis and pain they cause. But history teaches us that these great crises also represent opportunities to remake our economy and society and to generate whole new eras of economic growth and prosperity.
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glorification of City Life
- By Ryan Riggs on 11-25-20
By: Richard Florida
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Happy City
- Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
- By: Charles Montgomery
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and tower dwelling improvements on the car dependence of sprawl?
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Great book-terrible narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-04-19
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The 99% Invisible City
- A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design
- By: Kurt Kohlstedt, Roman Mars
- Narrated by: Roman Mars
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs.
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The 99% Invisible City
- By Louise Schraa on 01-09-21
By: Kurt Kohlstedt, 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
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How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
- The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
- By: Bill Gates
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."
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Be curious, not furious
- By Axel Merk on 02-20-21
By: Bill Gates
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Street Smart
- The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars
- By: Samuel I. Schwartz, William Rosen - contributor
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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With wit and sharp insight, former Traffic Commissioner of New York City, Sam Schwartz a.k.a. "Gridlock Sam", one of the most respected transportation engineers in the world and consummate insider in NYC political circles, uncovers how American cities became so beholden to cars and why the current shift away from that trend will forever alter America's urban landscapes, marking nothing short of a revolution in how we get from place to place.
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Interesting, thought provoking, and hopeful
- By JKuster on 03-07-20
By: Samuel I. Schwartz, and others
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The End of the Suburbs
- Where the American Dream is Moving
- By: Leigh Gallagher
- Narrated by: Jessica Geffen
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as American as apple pie. But in recent years things have started to change. An epic housing crisis revealed existing problems with this unique pattern of development, while the steady pull of long-simmering economic, societal and demographic forces has culminated in a Perfect Storm that has led to a profound shift in the way we desire to live. In The End of the Suburbs journalist Leigh Gallagher traces the rise and fall of American suburbia from the stately railroad suburbs that sprung up outside American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to current-day sprawling exurbs.
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Informative, but the title is a lie
- By Marie on 08-27-13
By: Leigh Gallagher
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Americans Against the City
- Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century
- By: Steven Conn
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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An aversion to urban density and all that it contributes to urban life, and a perception that the city was the place where "big government" first took root in America fostered what historian Steven Conn terms the "anti-urban impulse." In this provocative and sweeping audiobook, Conn explores the anti-urban impulse across the 20th century, examining how the ideas born of it have shaped both the places in which Americans live and work, and the anti-government politics so strong today.
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Excellent book
- By M. M. Conroy on 09-19-20
By: Steven Conn
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Connectography
- Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
- By: Parag Khanna
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle to explain the unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets.
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Fluffy and Pretentious
- By Kurt Emery Matson on 12-01-16
By: Parag Khanna
What listeners say about How to Be a Climate Optimist
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-28-23
Unfortunate misleading solutions
I sincerely am looking for optimism in these uncertain times. I was recommended this book by a friend. However, I think anyone who is well-informed on the subject of climate change easily recognizes that the solutions in this book are selling false hope. I understand why the author is well received by the corporate business world. He’s telling them that the very structures which treated the environment so poorly can simply be tweaked to treat it better, and that we can dial down human produced CO2 and like a thermostat, the temperature should go down. The author does not recognize any of the feedback loops, which I’ve already been engaged. This book simply tells the uninformed that business and continued economic growth can solve global warming, a message to many people are willing to pay for?
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