Auden Schendler's TERRIBLE BEAUTY In-Store Event and Book Signing

Join us on Wednesday, January 29th at 7:00 PM when sustainability expert Auden Schendler comes to the store to present his new book Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul. Auden will sign copies of his book after the presentation.

Apple calls its headquarters the greenest building on Earth. Microsoft announces an ambitious commitment to carbon negativity while simultaneously sponsoring an oil conference in Saudi Arabia. American businesses, communities, and individuals assiduously measure their carbon footprints, then implement voluntary emissions reduction programs, all while trumpeting their do-gooderism.

The problem is, none of this—individual efforts at recycling or carbon-focused corporate sustainability tactics—will make even a dent in solving the civilizational threat of climate change.

As corporate sustainability adviser and environmental activist Auden Schendler argues in this provocative, powerful book, we're living a big green lie. The hard truth: Much of the modern corporate green road map could have been written by the fossil fuel industry specifically to avoid disrupting the status quo. We have become somehow complicit.

But there is another truth: While ineffective or duplicitous environmentalism has become standard practice, we all have friends and family we love and care about, whose future depends on solving climate change. Conscience or faith tells us we have an obligation to repair the world. How can our common dreams be so at odds with our common practice? And how might we meld our spirit and passion to fashion a better future with meaningful action on climate change?

Schendler speaks to this profound contradiction and takes it head-on—with a bracing reality check on current practice, moving personal stories of parenthood and service, and innovative, real-world methods to tackle climate change at the corporate, community, and individual levels.

Terrible Beauty is a unique and essential road map for a new environmentalism, showing us that the key to saving the planet is to tap into our own humanity.

AUDEN SCHENDLER is Senior Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen One, where he has worked for 26 years on meaningful solutions to the climate crisis, including activism, movement building, and project demonstration. A former town councilman, air quality commissioner, Outward Bound Instructor and ambulance medic, he was named a “Climate Saver” by the EPA and a “Climate Innovator,” by Time magazine. His first book, Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution, was called “an antidote to greenwash" by climatologist James Hansen. Like Walden, A Sand County Almanac, Silent Spring and The Ecology of Commerce, his new book Terrible Beauty tries to reset American thinking on the environmental movement, while also telling stories of family, love, beauty and the trench work of climate action.

THIS EVENT is free but registration is requested. Registration ends at 5:30 pm on January 29th, 2025.

BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.

DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.

WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.

WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.

PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.

OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Mrs Dalloway's, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, United States