Beginning to End the Climate Crisis acknowledges the challenge of affecting long-term change, but says that it’s important to keep trying.
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“Climate change is the biggest crisis of humankind. We can’t watch other people drive our future right against the wall.”
This is a quote by Luisa Neubauer – the most famous German climate activist. As global climate change forecasts become more drastic and fear is spreading, young activists, like Luisa and Alexander, are taking the floor. Both are young, full of courage and zest for action, they want to infect us with their strength to oppose climate change and to take responsibility for the future of our planet. What does the future hold? When it comes to the climate, the predictions are pretty precise by now. And just as frightening. In this book, Luisa Neubauer, the best-known German climate activist, and the sociologist Alexander Repenning create the history of our future. For humankind is at a crossroads. If we don’t change course now, we’ll eliminate ourselves. Politicians, entrepreneurs, citizens, everyone must take action. But how? One thing is undisputed: There is no planet B. Everyone must inform and organize oneself to save the future. In Beginning to End the Climate Crisis Neubauer and Repenning present solutions that are ready to be implemented and must finally be put into practice. But they also demonstrate the attitude with which we must deal with this exceptional situation: undaunted but level-headed. And unyielding towards those who determine our future. Because the last chance for a positive end to the climate crisis is NOW.
This is a very important book about the climate crisis… May they stay at it, and may we all pitch in!
Bill McKibben
Founder 350.org and Third Act
Beginning to End the Climate Crisis acknowledges the challenge of affecting long-term change, but says that it’s important to keep trying.
In a time where climate disaster is taking hold all over the world, this book is needed now more than ever. This book strikes the balance between not sugar coating the climate crisis, but also providing hope in the form of action.
Luisa and Alex remind us across generations, to unflinchingly take responsibility and face the future together. Read this book. Learn where we have been and where we can and we must go.
The young have every right to say to us: how could you fail us like this? Luisa and Alex sing a new song and we all have to sing it with them.
The book covers a lot of ground, initially expressing powerfully the injustice that younger generations feel, as their future is stolen. But beyond lamenting the crisis, Luisa and Alex propose steps toward meeting the challenge. From institutionalizing responsibility to creating clear communication, rethinking economic systems, redefining the good life, addressing justice issues, getting educated, imagining a positive future, and getting organized, they challenge the reader to participate.
Luisa Neubauer, born in Hamburg in 1996, is one of the co-organizers of Fridays For Future and the most prominent representative of the German movement. In 2018 she met the Swedish student Greta Thunberg at the UN Climate Change Conference and then started Fridays For Future in Germany together with other activists. Since then, Luisa has mobilized hundreds of thousands of people for numerous demonstrations, met various heads of state and government, participated in the world climate conference in Madrid and Glasgow and the world economic forum in Davos. Luisa completed a bachelor’s degree in geography in 2019 and is currently completing a masters in resource analysis and management at the Georg-August University in Göttingen. In July 2021 she published the book Noch haben wir die Wahl [We still have a choice] together with journalist Bernd Ulrich of DIE ZEIT (German weekly). In October 2022 her book Gegen die Ohnmacht [Against Powerlessness], with her grandmother Dagmar Reemtsma, will be published. She is the host of the Spotify Original Podcast “1,5 Grad” (1.5 degrees). Luisa Neubauer lives in Berlin.
Alexander Repenning, born 1989 in Hamburg, is a comprehensivist, facilitator and writer engaged for climate justice since 2015. With a background in Social Sciences at the Humboldt-University of Berlin (BA) and Economics at the Cusanus Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung (Cusanus University for Shaping Society) (MA), he has been active in pushing political participation, Global Learning and has written about a variety of topics such as the climate crisis, postcolonial perspectives on volunteering for development, concrete utopias, and the student movement in Chile. He has published book chapters, articles and blog posts among others for attac and the blog Postwachstum (degrowth). He is currently working as education manager at Right Livelihood, the so-called Alternative Nobel Prize, connecting activism and academia and creating learning formats for system change. He lives in Annecy, France.
Sabine von Mering (translator) is Professor of German and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University. She is a core member of the Environmental Studies Program and a longtime climate activist with 350Mass and NoCoalNoGas. She is also currently working on an edited volume entitled Multidisciplinary Approaches to Global Climate Activism.
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