Oil and Honey, Bill McKibben
Oil and Honey, Bill McKibben
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Oil and Honey
The Education of an Unlikely Activist

Author: Bill McKibben

Narrator: Kevin T. Collins

Unabridged: 9 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/17/2013


Synopsis

Bestselling author and environmental activist Bill McKibben recounts the personal and global story of the fight to build and preserve a sustainable planet

Bill McKibben is not a person you'd expect to find handcuffed and behind bars, but that's where he found himself in the summer of 2011 after leading the largest civil disobedience in thirty years, protesting the Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House.

With the Arctic melting, the Midwest in drought, and Irene scouring the Atlantic, McKibben recognized that action was needed if solutions were to be found. Some of those would come at the local level, where McKibben joins forces with a Vermont beekeeper raising his hives as part of the growing trend toward local food. Other solutions would come from a much larger fight against the fossil-fuel industry as a whole.

Oil and Honey is McKibben's account of these two necessary and mutually reinforcing sides of the global climate fight—from the center of the maelstrom and from the growing hive of small-scale local answers to climate change. With empathy and passion he makes the case for a renewed commitment on both levels of the fight to stop global warming, telling the story of raising one year's honey crop and building a social movement that's still cresting.

Includes a bonus interview with the author

About Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is the author of more than a dozen books, including the best sellers Falter, Deep Economy, and The End of Nature, which was the first book to warn the general public about the climate crisis.He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and the winner of the Gandhi Prize, the Thomas Merton Prize, and the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called “the alternate Nobel.” He lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern. He founded the global grassroots climate campaign 350.org; his new project, organizing people over sixty for progressive change, is called Third Act.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alice on June 06, 2019

Really loved the parts about bees and beekeeping, but the rest was honestly just kind of boring.......more

Goodreads review by Merrikay on January 04, 2014

Perfect first book of the year!  McKibben, the internationally known environmentalist and winner of the 2013 Gandhi prize has brought two stories together to give us both hope AND a plan for saving the environment.  With the story of a Vermont beekeeper McKibben gives us hope.  While the rest of the......more

Goodreads review by Sharon on September 06, 2022

Incredible book with terrific insights and data regarding climate change, organizing protests, critical activism, influencing others, and being a change agent. The book highlights huge swings we have experienced with weather; as I was reading the book it was an unseasonably hot day in February. One......more

Goodreads review by Catherine on August 18, 2013

I'm a fan of McKibben's works, so I knew I would like this going in. This time, he centers on the local -- a bee keeper in Vermont who is fighting the good fight of localized, non-chemical, ethical production -- and the global -- his own turn to activism on climate change with 350.org. The frustrati......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on March 16, 2015

Just amazing... McKibben's account of the last couple of years of the environmental/350.org movement brings home the Urgency of the stand that must be made against the fossil fuel industry. As an aside, I read this just after hearing him speak for the very first time in the Chicago area; he delivere......more


Quotes

“McKibben and Collins succeed in delivering an account that couldn't be more timely.” —Booklist


Awards

  • Los Angeles Times Holiday Books Guide
  • Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year