It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
An Idea Can Go Extinct

An Idea Can Go Extinct

Summary

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.

An Idea Can Go Extinct is Bill McKibben's impassioned, groundbreaking account of how, by changing the earth's entire atmosphere, the weather and the most basic forces around us, 'we are ending nature.'

Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

About the author

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is a writer and environmental activist. His The End of Nature (1989) is considered the first book for a general audience about climate change. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize. He has campaigned on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. In recognition of his activism, a new species of woodland gnat - Megophthalmidia mckibbeni - was in 2014 named in his honour.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more