Literary Lecture: Auden Schendler

Auden Schendler visits Crested Butte to discuss his book Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul.

In breathtaking vignettes, Schendler recounts his own journey searching for solutions and the unlikely places where they occur—from taking over the stodgy board of a rural electricity co-op, to the frustrations of being a progressive town councilor in a community resistant to change.

He shares dramatic and humorous moments of friendship, the joyous yet heart-wrenching role of being a parent in a climate-changed world, and the random calls he gets at his job about banning Kleenex or supporting famous snowboarders in climate action, which result in meaningful action at a global level.

Schendler also asks deep questions about the current thinking on corporate sustainability and the pervasive notion of “doing well by doing good” when the evidence suggests it is too little, too late.

Provocative and empowering, Terrible Beauty is a refreshing and compelling argument for the necessity of solving climate change, and how to do so meaningfully.