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Learning to Die in the Anthropocene
- Reflections on the End of a Civilization
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's summary
Coming home from the war in Iraq, US Army private Roy Scranton thought he'd left the world of strife behind. Then he watched as new calamities struck America, heralding a threat far more dangerous than ISIS or al-Qaeda: Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, megadrought - the shock and awe of global warming.
Our world is changing. Rising seas, spiking temperatures, and extreme weather imperil global infrastructure, crops, and water supplies. Conflict, famine, plagues, and riots menace from every quarter. From war-stricken Baghdad to the melting Arctic, human-caused climate change poses a danger not only to political and economic stability but to civilization itself...and to what it means to be human. Our greatest enemy, it turns out, is ourselves. The warmer, wetter, more chaotic world we now live in - the Anthropocene - demands a radical new vision of human life.
In this bracing response to climate change, Roy Scranton combines memoir, reportage, philosophy, and Zen wisdom to explore what it means to be human in a rapidly evolving world, taking listeners on a journey through street protests, the latest findings of earth scientists, a historic UN summit, millennia of geological history, and the persistent vitality of ancient literature. Expanding on his influential New York Times essay (the number-one most-emailed article the day it appeared, and selected for Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014), Scranton responds to the existential problem of global warming by arguing that in order to survive, we must come to terms with our mortality.
Plato argued that to philosophize is to learn to die. If that's true, says Scranton, then we have entered humanity's most philosophical age - for this is precisely the problem of the Anthropocene. The trouble now is that we must learn to die not as individuals but as a civilization.
Roy Scranton has published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Boston Review, and Theory and Event and has been interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air, among other media.
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The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
- By: Alex Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Epstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades environmentalists have told us that using fossil fuels is a self-destructive addiction that will destroy our planet. Yet by every measure of human well-being, from life expectancy to clean water to climate safety, life has been getting better and better. How can this be? The explanation is that we usually hear only one side of the story. We're taught to think only of the negatives of fossil fuels, their risks and side effects, but not their positives.
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A different point of view
- By Ballofyarn on 01-12-17
By: Alex Epstein
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End Times
- A Brief Guide to the End of the World
- By: Bryan Walsh
- Narrated by: Bryan Walsh, Corey Carthew
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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End Times is a compelling work of skilled reportage that peels back the layers of complexity around the unthinkable - and inevitable - end of humankind. From asteroids and artificial intelligence to volcanic supereruption to nuclear war, veteran science reporter and TIME editor Bryan Walsh provides a stunning panoramic view of the most catastrophic threats to the human race.
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Important topic ruined by needless political blather
- By J. Gordon on 08-29-19
By: Bryan Walsh
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Why the West Rules - for Now
- The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future
- By: Ian Morris
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Sometime around 1750, English entrepreneurs unleashed the astounding energies of steam and coal, and the world was forever changed. The emergence of factories, railroads, and gunboats propelled the West’s rise to power in the nineteenth century, and the development of computers and nuclear weapons in the 20th century secured its global supremacy.
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Compelling and infuriating take at World History
- By Skeptical on 09-11-11
By: Ian Morris
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The Nutmeg's Curse
- Parables for a Planet in Crisis
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis.
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performance....
- By Bonnie on 11-15-22
By: Amitav Ghosh
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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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A Brief History of the Future
- A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-first Century
- By: Jacques Attali
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What will planet Earth be like in 20 years? At mid-century? In the year 2100? Prescient and convincing, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future. Never has the world offered more promise for the future and been more fraught with dangers. In this powerful and sometimes terrifying work, Attali analyzes the past and pinpoints nine distinct periods of human history, each with its world center of power and prestige, and predicts what the tenth will bring by the end of this century.
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feels like a popular mechanics article
- By Robin on 07-11-17
By: Jacques Attali
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The Vanishing Face of Gaia
- A Final Warning
- By: James Lovelock
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, British scientist James Lovelock predicts global warming will lead to a Hot Epoch. Lovelock is best known for formulating the controversial Gaia theory in the 1970s, with Ruth Margulis of the University of Massachusetts, which states that organisms interact with and regulate Earth's surface and atmosphere. We ignore this interaction at our peril.
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A New Perspective - A Must Listen - Very Moving
- By Thomas on 01-29-12
By: James Lovelock
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It's Better Than It Looks
- By: Gregg Easterbrook
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people who pay attention to the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has been. In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising.
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Too political
- By Anonymous User on 07-12-18
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Dark Winter
- How the Sun Is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell
- By: John L. Casey
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next 30 years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.
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Global Warming Is A Hoax
- By Catamount on 11-20-17
By: John L. Casey
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Nonzero
- The Logic of Human Destiny
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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At the beginning of Nonzero, Robert Wright sets out to "define the arrow of the history of life, from the primordial soup to the World Wide Web." Twenty-two chapters later, after a sweeping and vivid narrative of the human past, he has succeeded and has mounted a powerful challenge to the conventional view that evolution and human history are aimless.
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Non-Zero (but pretty close to zero)
- By Douglas on 02-06-14
By: Robert Wright
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A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
- A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
- By: Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
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Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism.
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A remarkable exposé & synthesis of the Ponzi scheme that capitalism is and always has been.
- By Scott on 02-10-18
By: Raj Patel, and others
What listeners say about Learning to Die in the Anthropocene
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-04-20
Worth it
We're all gonna die, and we might as well get good at it. This is definitely worth the read
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- Madison
- 02-13-19
Just Environmental Threats 101
This is a good book, but if you are already informed (or took just 1 or 2 college courses) about the changing climate and other environmental threats, you won't find anything new.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-18-16
Eye opening!
When you realize its not about you and you alone. Open your gobal eyes people.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Gerald Ledbetter
- 12-18-19
“Learning to die in the Anthropocene “( Roy Scranton).
It was a convenient to hear the audible version of the informative book about a very real phenomenon that we should all be concerned about anticipating global warming proactively.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Love
- 09-18-19
A priest for the atheist.
Many call him a doomsday prophet.
I disagree. I call him a priest without a god that truest to give us new light in the darkness. Letting culture take the place of scripture when he preaches of the big questions of life and death. It is beautiful, and much needed.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Whoosh
- 06-24-20
Profound
One of the most profound books I’ve had the privilege of reading (well, listening to)
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- Susie
- 06-28-16
Grief Counseling for Civilization
In this existential meditation, Roy Scranton is not setting out to get you to go solar, or ride your bike to work. He's trying to convince you to accept that global warming is changing the world and that life as we know it is unsustainable. That humanity's greatest threat is "not terrorism, not WMDs but the machine of civilization breaking down," and the sooner we collectively accept this and the better we can cope and adapt.
With the prognosis as it is, a book like this is long overdue. A grief counselor for humanity. Scranton writes of serving in the military, "to survive as a soldier I had to learn to accept the inevitability of my own death, for humanity to to survive in the Anthropocene, we need to learn to live with and through the end of our civilization." The only way forward is acceptance.
This is a rich and deep philosophy and necessary for thinking and sensitive people.
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11 people found this helpful
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- abun!
- 11-23-22
Compelling
This was a completely beautiful work and also wonderfully read. I found it very moving and am about to purchase a print copy for my physical library.
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- Lulu
- 12-05-16
A Lot to Reflect On
Very thought provoking book. It did not take quite the path I had hoped. But I recommend it heartily just the same.
This book deals with the topic of humanity coming to grasp with what might be the end of our civilization. An end that we have essentially brought on ourselves. There is nothing optimistic or hopeful in this book. The author sees no way out of the mess we have made of our planet and clearly believes that it is far too late to affect meaningful change and all of the "solutions" we have come up with to address the poisoning of our planet are too little, too late. He quickly dismisses most of the solutions that even now the eternal optimists among us promote - solar, wind and hyrdo power.
He shines light on many of the hypocritical events activists use to garner attention to their cause, and quickly explains why demonstrations, sit-ins, marches, etc. have absolutely no effect on the society they want to touch.
The author seems to have gone through the stages of grief and is now at the point of acceptance and asks the reader to join him there. Once we have accepted the inevitable, he believes, we can start discussing how humanity could and should work through the next steps, how we prepare, what and who we look to for guidance (not necessarily scientist, he thinks it is too late for them, but philosophers.) It is as if he wants civilization to think about how we can grow old gracefully and accept our fate without losing our humanity. Only once we get to this point, can we figure out if there is a path forward for at least some of us, so we can have some influence on the next civilization this planet creates.
It has been several days since read this and I find myself thinking about the book frequently. Very powerful.
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10 people found this helpful
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- John Englander
- 06-06-21
A small but amazing nook on climate change
I work at a Climate Change and Everett dozens of books on the subject. This little gem it’s one of the best.
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