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Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul
A firsthand, trench-view story of the failure of the modern environmental movement—and an inspiring prescription for change.
Something's gone badly awry with environmentalism. We faithfully separate our waste into different streams, but wonder whether it really makes a difference. Global companies announce their commitment to carbon negativity while simultaneously sponsoring oil conferences. 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—whether individual efforts or corporate sustainability tactics—will make a dent in solving the civilizational threat of climate change. We only pretend it will, at our peril.
As sustainability veteran Auden Schendler argues in this provocative, powerful book, we're living a big green lie. The hard truth is that much of the modern environmental 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 the problem of climate change. Conscience tells us we have an obligation to repair the world. How can our common dreams be so at odds with our daily practice? And how might we meld our spirit and our passion to create a better future?
Schendler meets this profound contradiction head-on—with a bracing critique, 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 inspiring call for a new environmentalism, showing us that the key to saving the planet is to tap into our own humanity.
Something's gone badly awry with environmentalism. We faithfully separate our waste into different streams, but wonder whether it really makes a difference. Global companies announce their commitment to carbon negativity while simultaneously sponsoring oil conferences. 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—whether individual efforts or corporate sustainability tactics—will make a dent in solving the civilizational threat of climate change. We only pretend it will, at our peril.
As sustainability veteran Auden Schendler argues in this provocative, powerful book, we're living a big green lie. The hard truth is that much of the modern environmental 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 the problem of climate change. Conscience tells us we have an obligation to repair the world. How can our common dreams be so at odds with our daily practice? And how might we meld our spirit and our passion to create a better future?
Schendler meets this profound contradiction head-on—with a bracing critique, 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 inspiring call for a new environmentalism, showing us that the key to saving the planet is to tap into our own humanity.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published November 26, 2024
22 people are currently reading
2096 people want to read
About the author
Auden Schendler
2 books11 followersAuden Schendler is a climate activist and author who works 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.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 6, 2024
Read this book for my favorite class this semester and also got the chance to meet/have dinner with the author, so I will say that this review is a bit biased. However, I absolutely loved it. Schendler does an incredible job of combining his life experience and anecdotes with philosophy around climate change. I also really enjoyed him attacking the issue of climate change through a business perspective, especially as a business major myself. I would say that my favorite sections were the urban planning section, the Exxon lawsuit section, and the Holy Cross Energy section. The book ended on a very hopeful note and I really loved the stanza he quoted as the last few lines of the book. Overall, very cool book and talking to Schendler helped me understand the book and his thought process in even more depth. Incredible stuff!
July 1, 2024
My high school basketball coach: "The right thing is rarely the easy thing but it is right"
While waiting for my preordered copy to arrive I read a digital version of Auden Schendler's new book Terrible Beauty. https://lnkd.in/gGjJnNPW
An act of benevolence by Auden so I had something to fill my mornings during a period of unemployment...
My takeaway: you should go buy a copy. Grab one for your niece/nephew. For members of your team. Why? Because, while Auden is known for his leading climate work at Aspen One, this book is not only for those in corporate sustainability or climate--though, if you're in those fields, you'll appreciate the honest reflection on gaffes and slow meaningful progress--but, rather, it's a book about something we all can appreciate: actively engaging in your community.
From title to finish, this book builds on the tension of dichotomies. It's blunt and poetic. Scientific and highly readable. Its vignettes range across sport, rural electric co-op elections, philosophy, gnome gardens, and town council tedium.
Our pressing challenges are grave and Auden encourages buckling up for the stressing and awkward. He shows that we can take the issue seriously without taking ourselves too seriously, and that we can, and should, find joy and companionship in the toil.
While waiting for my preordered copy to arrive I read a digital version of Auden Schendler's new book Terrible Beauty. https://lnkd.in/gGjJnNPW
An act of benevolence by Auden so I had something to fill my mornings during a period of unemployment...
My takeaway: you should go buy a copy. Grab one for your niece/nephew. For members of your team. Why? Because, while Auden is known for his leading climate work at Aspen One, this book is not only for those in corporate sustainability or climate--though, if you're in those fields, you'll appreciate the honest reflection on gaffes and slow meaningful progress--but, rather, it's a book about something we all can appreciate: actively engaging in your community.
From title to finish, this book builds on the tension of dichotomies. It's blunt and poetic. Scientific and highly readable. Its vignettes range across sport, rural electric co-op elections, philosophy, gnome gardens, and town council tedium.
Our pressing challenges are grave and Auden encourages buckling up for the stressing and awkward. He shows that we can take the issue seriously without taking ourselves too seriously, and that we can, and should, find joy and companionship in the toil.
December 28, 2024
Rough start. Felt too cynical - hard to follow Schendler’s mix of hopeful/visioning and cynicism. I guess hope does not equal optimism… Very accurate critiques of corporate sustainability work, advocating for more transformative, cultural sustainability shifts. I enjoyed the ending chapters much more than the start! Cool ideas about what it means to be an engaged citizen. Inconsistent writing style. Felt self serving at times.
February 16, 2025
I'm surprised this was rated as highly as it was. I just could not get into the memoir x climate science recommendations. I appreciated the information about how the Aspen company allied with Kimberly-Clark and the reality that more needs to be done, but the claims that Schendler would actually provide a blueprint for a citizen-activist was, I felt, not met and what was provided felt disappointing and contradictory. At one point the idea of trying to change things through who we elect or calling our legislators seemed to be dismissed, and at another it seemed this is what we should do. Also, run for office. Nothing else seems to matter.
Yes, we need to see the intersection between civil rights and climate change. He makes a good (though unnecessarily convoluted) argument for that, but he doesn't get into what that looks like in practice. Do we vote for more housing and convince others to see the issue of density = mitigation of climate effects? Yes, that is important but he also keeps saying that even he sees environmentalists eschewing density in favor of sprawl when NIMBY is the cry. So, how do solve this? Not clear. Run for office and make change. But then he talks about how hard office holding and how little gets done. It feels a lot like one step forward, two steps or more backwards.
If the point of the book is climate change x social justice is the only way to achieve our goals for climate change mitigation, I understand the draw for that, but I don't understand the path, and I don't understand what has to come first and if they can come in parallel and how that happens in practice.
I also couldn't find much of his memoir sections particularly revelatory or relatable. He seems like he's trying to fashion himself into someone who is a environmental sage and I just am not feeling it. If the payoff were more concrete suggestions or examples more of us could get behind (no, we can't all run for office), I'd be willing to pay the price of admission to that. I'm glad, therefore, that my book was a library book.
Yes, we need to see the intersection between civil rights and climate change. He makes a good (though unnecessarily convoluted) argument for that, but he doesn't get into what that looks like in practice. Do we vote for more housing and convince others to see the issue of density = mitigation of climate effects? Yes, that is important but he also keeps saying that even he sees environmentalists eschewing density in favor of sprawl when NIMBY is the cry. So, how do solve this? Not clear. Run for office and make change. But then he talks about how hard office holding and how little gets done. It feels a lot like one step forward, two steps or more backwards.
If the point of the book is climate change x social justice is the only way to achieve our goals for climate change mitigation, I understand the draw for that, but I don't understand the path, and I don't understand what has to come first and if they can come in parallel and how that happens in practice.
I also couldn't find much of his memoir sections particularly revelatory or relatable. He seems like he's trying to fashion himself into someone who is a environmental sage and I just am not feeling it. If the payoff were more concrete suggestions or examples more of us could get behind (no, we can't all run for office), I'd be willing to pay the price of admission to that. I'm glad, therefore, that my book was a library book.
February 6, 2025
4.5
Muy muy bueno, especialmente los capítulos centrales. El inicio y el final contienen mucho de la opinión personal del autor para encontrar inspiración y pues... lo que inspira a un padre de familia cincuentañero no es lo mismo que me inspira a mí o a mucha gente de mi generación.
El libro me deja con muchas respuestas sólidas a cómo desarrollar e implementar una transición hacia clean power grids desde el individuo, community member, corporación, gobierno, etc. Tener respuestas en mi mente ya me motiva y me da más confianza en mis acciones. También respondió a muchas dudas mías sobre la escala de greenwashing que existe en el mundo corporativo y por qué carbon footprinting, ESG, CSR, GHG reporting no ayudan a combatir el cambio climático y hasta lo fomentan por omisión lol *Recalibrando mi carrera en sustainability consulting*
Es posible to hold the mess and sabotaging systems that we are part of mentalmente. Por lo menos para mi disassociate mad self it is. Se puede ver en varios niveles, con precisión, y es *delicioso*. Este libro me acompañará por un tiempo y ya está comenzando a afectar cómo pienso en issues. Amo. Pero los últimos 2-3 capítulos me los salto.
Muy muy bueno, especialmente los capítulos centrales. El inicio y el final contienen mucho de la opinión personal del autor para encontrar inspiración y pues... lo que inspira a un padre de familia cincuentañero no es lo mismo que me inspira a mí o a mucha gente de mi generación.
El libro me deja con muchas respuestas sólidas a cómo desarrollar e implementar una transición hacia clean power grids desde el individuo, community member, corporación, gobierno, etc. Tener respuestas en mi mente ya me motiva y me da más confianza en mis acciones. También respondió a muchas dudas mías sobre la escala de greenwashing que existe en el mundo corporativo y por qué carbon footprinting, ESG, CSR, GHG reporting no ayudan a combatir el cambio climático y hasta lo fomentan por omisión lol *Recalibrando mi carrera en sustainability consulting*
Es posible to hold the mess and sabotaging systems that we are part of mentalmente. Por lo menos para mi disassociate mad self it is. Se puede ver en varios niveles, con precisión, y es *delicioso*. Este libro me acompañará por un tiempo y ya está comenzando a afectar cómo pienso en issues. Amo. Pero los últimos 2-3 capítulos me los salto.
June 18, 2025
This is a Jekyll & Hyde type of book. Most chapters have some very interesting insight into corporate attempts at dealing with climate change - coupled to some absolutely nonsensical riffing on literature and/or family anecdotes.
Maybe those anecdotes and flights of imagination work for some people, my guess is that they are meant to somehow bring to mind the almost oxymoronic title of the book, but they don't work for me. They detract from the valuable pieces, where the author talks about his experiences trying to drive sustainable change within a business, gives us tiny glimpses into the lives of some of the heros of the movement (e.g. Chouinard, Amory, etc.), and shows how CSR, SGE, and general corporate environmental management have utterly failed.
Ultimately, I think the riffing and family sketches, weaken the entire book as they allow the author to skip around themes and avoid building a serious and coherent framework for tying it all together. At the end of the day, it's not clear what I should be doing as an individual or how I should approach decision-making in this arena.
Maybe those anecdotes and flights of imagination work for some people, my guess is that they are meant to somehow bring to mind the almost oxymoronic title of the book, but they don't work for me. They detract from the valuable pieces, where the author talks about his experiences trying to drive sustainable change within a business, gives us tiny glimpses into the lives of some of the heros of the movement (e.g. Chouinard, Amory, etc.), and shows how CSR, SGE, and general corporate environmental management have utterly failed.
Ultimately, I think the riffing and family sketches, weaken the entire book as they allow the author to skip around themes and avoid building a serious and coherent framework for tying it all together. At the end of the day, it's not clear what I should be doing as an individual or how I should approach decision-making in this arena.
January 7, 2025
I drove an hour each way to get my copy signed by Auden on Nov 6, a cold, dismal day after the election. Attending his book talk was the best possible way to combat the helplessness and loneliness many of us were feeling that week. Now that I’ve finished it, I want to recommend it to all of my environmentalist friends and climate denier family members alike. It has helped me with a mindset shift from climate despair back to reigniting hope by reminding readers of our responsibility and a call to action for civic engagement.
Auden’s story beautifully tells how actions that can feel small and negligible are the foundation of historical movements, and exactly what we need now more than ever. I also appreciate how he addresses the topic of working for a corporation that inherently has significant negative impact on the natural environment while still identifying as an environmentalist, despite accusations of hypocrisy.
Auden’s story beautifully tells how actions that can feel small and negligible are the foundation of historical movements, and exactly what we need now more than ever. I also appreciate how he addresses the topic of working for a corporation that inherently has significant negative impact on the natural environment while still identifying as an environmentalist, despite accusations of hypocrisy.
December 24, 2024
Auden Schendler's new book is both inspiring and practical. Drawing from his personal experience, he shares with readers the most effective ways to make a meaningful impact on climate change. While personal actions, like making your home more energy-efficient, and corporate sustainability practices can help, they are not enough to move the climate needle on their own. Achieving real progress requires a different approach. Auden offers valuable knowledge and insights for anyone who cares about our collective future. What he has learned and shared extends beyond climate issues, offering lessons applicable to other challenges as well. The book is eloquently written and a joy to read. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to make a real difference in the world.
December 1, 2024
In Terrible Beauty, Auden Schendler describes a world which needs serious attention. Through humor and great thought he tells a tale of how we got here and gives hope that we can move forward through continuous fights at all levels. A great read, I blew through this book. Smart and funny, sad and insightful, he describes how corporations have made us the blame for problems they created.
December 12, 2024
A great discussion on the failures and shortcomings of corporate environmentalism and a look towards solutions to climate change by utilizing corporate and individual pressure. It’s not our fault our energy isn’t being generated in a clean way, but it’s up to us to pressure the utilities and our governments to make the change
December 31, 2024
Had to read this for a class I took at IU. There’s a fine line between optimism and pessimism, and being unrealistic and realistic when it comes to the climate crisis, but somehow he seems terribly out of touch with reality. The chapter on “NIMBY” was absolutely ridiculous. I enjoyed Schendler’s writing style, though, so it was enjoyable to read nonetheless.
January 1, 2025
Superb book about climate change and what businesses can do that really does make a different (HINT: it is not "measuring and reporting"). Using examples from his own work, Schendler shows us how corporate activism can and does work. He also tells stories of the world he loves - his family, his friends, the natural world around us - to anchor the reader in why activism matters and is necessary.
April 9, 2025
I wanted to love this book. I wanted fresh ideas and direction on where to go within the environmental movement. I ended up feeling kind of hopeless. Maybe I lost the point he was trying to make? I guess my takeaway is that corporate and individual action is a distraction from real policy change and we should become more civically active in order to make progress.
April 27, 2025
Inspirational story by corporate sustainability officer, climate activist and organizer, local city councilor and environmental author Auden Schendler. If you need something to motivate you to join the cause this is a book for you.
September 2, 2025
I felt like Auden Schendler and I might be on the same page from the very beginning of Terrible Beauty, where he recounts a story involving his friend’s huge Toyota SUV.
Read the whole review at: https://greengroundswell.com/terrible...
Read the whole review at: https://greengroundswell.com/terrible...
May 4, 2025
I agree with much of what Auden writes. The book rambles and there are diversions upon diversions, often for no point. Some thing shorter and focused would have more punch.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews