It’s a climate book for people who hate climate books. It starts with friends chasing a dust devil in the Utah desert. Chapter one is partly about chopping wood. Sounds fun: what’s the problem?

In short, environmentalism has gone awry. American businesses, communities, and individuals assiduously measure their carbon footprints, then implement voluntary solutions, all while trumpeting their do-gooderism.

The problem is, none of this—individual efforts or corporate sustainability tactics—will make even a dent in solving the civilizational threat of climate change. But we pretend it does, at our peril.

As sustainability veteran Auden Schendler argues in this provocative, powerful book, we're living a big green lie. The hard truth: the modern 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, duplicitous environmentalism is standard practice, we all have friends and family we love and care about, whose future depends on solving climate change. Conscience tells us we have an obligation to repair the world. How can our common dreams be so at odds with our aspirations? And how might we meld our spirit and passion to fashion a better future?

Schendler speaks to this profound contradiction and takes it head-on—with a bracing critique, moving personal stories of parenthood and service, and innovative, real-world methods to leverage huge change at the corporate, community, and individual levels.

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