Description

While society turns to technology solutions to solve global warming, Charles Derber in this unique and uplifting book shows that the real and achievable solution is to be found...in society itself. "Why," Derber asks, "is society not taking the urgent actions needed to save itself when much of the technology already exists?"

The answer lies in overcoming deep yet profound denial and hopelessness. In the first book to intensively explore the "denial regime" surrounding global warming Derber moves beyond the "science deniers" to explore the personal denial most of us feel, consciously and subconsciously.

Global Warming-capitalism's time bomb-can and must be solved through both individual and institutional change. People have more power than they think. The solution requires individuals to release themselves from the bonds of hopelessness and denial; to transform themselves toward green lifestyles; and to pursue the pathways currently available to work with: national and local governments, schools, churches, corporations, and other institutions. Derber passionately describes and models these personally transforming changes from his own life and from the lives of neighbors, friends, and colleagues who have discovered the joys of becoming part of the solution and have learned to live powerful, democratic, change-minded lives.

Listen to an interview with Charles Derber on Santa Fe public radio: Santa Fe public radio interview

• Provides the most comprehensive analysis of climate changes as a social, economic, and political crisis with social and political solutions, rather than a technological problem.
• Synthesizes a macro and micro analysis to consider both causes and solutions, relying on what Derber describes as a "green sociological imagination."
• Connects the dots between and among global warming, social injustice, and militarism, with an emphasis on analyzing the relationship between capitalism and climate change.
• Probes the barriers presented by global warming denial-whether by governments, corporations, or pundits-and, uniquely, at the personal psychological level.
• Reveals the secret to the vexing paradox of climate change as a long-term existential threat in a short-term immediate gratification culture.
• Pays special attention to the role of youth-especially students-in bringing about essential social and practical changes at all levels of society.
• Focuses on the tension between individualism and community in analyzing problems and solutions.
• Offers a view of a new, green American Dream available to all.

Author Info

Charles Derber is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. His op-eds, essays, and interviews have appeared in Newsday, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, Business Week, Time, and other magazines. He speaks frequently on National Public Radio, on talk radio, and on television. His internationally acclaimed books have been reviewed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and many other media sources.

Reviews

“Charles Derber’s urgent call to action on climate change connects to realistically upbeat ways to help resolve our energy, peace, and employment challenges. To read this book is to react with personal and social action."
—Ralph Nader

"There's no way to solve climate change without also shifting, in profound ways, our idea of what constitutes success and growth and progress. This is the right book at the right—and crucial—moment.”
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and creator of the student-based "Step It Up" campaign to cut carbon emissions and of 350.org, today's leading climate change movement

"As this wonderfully inspiring book makes clear, the failure of the United States to achieve energy independence, eliminate potential oil wars, and truly address issues of social justice is a consequence of our corporate-dominated economy. Greed to Green brings home the fact that a people's movement to green the economy depends on creating a political system which subordinates the interests of big business to those of its citizens—and to the natural environment which sustains us all."
—Ross Gelbspan, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Heat Is On and Boiling Point

"Derber, professor of sociology at Boston College, makes a radical but persuasive argument that our current form of capitalism, with its short-term thinking, is the cause of climate change, and that we can't solve the latter without confronting the former. He contends that in order to be moved to action sufficient to avert calamitous global warming, we need to feel the crisis viscerally, not just understand it intellectually, and forge solutions that 'not only ward off the long-term catastrophe but also help solve today's most burning crises: economic deep recession, vanishing jobs, unstable oil prices, Middle East wars, rotten education, deteriorating public infrastructure, poverty, and financial insecurity.' Derber is optimistic about Obama's strategies but foresees 'enormous structural obstacles' to their implementation, and concludes that social justice and environmental movements—however riddled with weaknesses—are our 'best last hope for solving global warming on the urgent time scale required.' Despite the urgency and seriousness of his message, Derber conveys an appealing enthusiasm that may inspire concerned citizens to action rather than apathy or despair."
—Publisher’s Weekly

“Bringing a sociological imagination to the climate change debate, activist and academic Derber argues that as a symptom of underlying capitalist disease, global warming cannot be solved by green technology alone: social and political innovation is also necessary. His critique is trenchant . . . Derber writes in a lively, “hurry-up” style reflecting, no doubt, the urgency of the global warming problem.”
—Library Journal