Down to the Wire Confronting Climate Collapse

Singled out as "one of the country's leading environmental thinkers" by Bill McKibben in the New York Review of Books, David W. Orr offers an exacting analysis of where we are in terms of climate change, how we got here, and what we must now do. Orr shows how political negligence, an economybased on the insatiable consumption of trivial goods, and a disdain for the well-being of future generations have brought us to the tipping point. We now face a long emergency of rising temperatures, rising sea-levels, and a host of other related problems that will increasingly undermine human civilization. Down to the Wire is a major wake-up call. But this is not a doomsday book. Orr offers a wide range of pragmatic, far-reaching proposals -some of which have already been adopted by the Obama administration - for how we might reconnect public policy with rigorous science, bring our economy into alignment with ecological realities, and begin to regard ourselves as planetary trustees for future generations.

David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Special Advisor to the President of Oberlin College. He is the author of numerous books, including The Nature of Design and Ecological Literacy.