Why Climate Breakdown Matters

Why Climate Breakdown Matters is a book written by Rupert Read and published by Bloomsbury.

Climate change and the destruction of the earth is the most urgent issue of our time. We are hurtling towards the end of civilisation as we know it. With an unflinching honest approach, Rupert Read asks us to face up to the fate of the planet. This is a book for anyone who wants their philosophy to deal with reality and their climate concern to be more than a displacement activity.

As people come together to mourn the loss of the planet, we have the opportunity to create a grounded, hopeful response. This meaningful hopefulness looks to the new communities created around climate activism. Together, our collective mourning enables us to become human in ways previously unknown.
Why Climate Breakdown Matters is a practical guide on how to be a radical, responsible climate activist.

You can purchase your copy of Why Climate Breakdown Matters at Bloomsbury’s website.

Praise for Why Climate Breakdown Matters

Climate and ecological breakdown is happening now. In this uncompromising, powerful and provocative book, Read challenges us to face up to that reality and to recognise that our collective survival depends on our responding not just with logic but, crucially, with love. Stark and searingly honest, it’s vital reading for our time” – Caroline Lucas MP.

I might paraphrase this book this way: climate change represents a kind of final exam for humanity. If we pass, we move on to a new and interesting life as a species. If not, well…” – Bill McKibben, 2014 winner of the Right Livelihoods Award, and founder of www.350.org.

A deeply moving account of where humanity stands in the age of climate breakdown. Read stares unflinchingly into the abyss of civilizational collapse, not to terrify us or to give us false hope but to help us reimagine what it means to be human in a time of transformational change” – Bryon Williston, Professor of Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier University Canada.