An Idea Can Go Extinct

In twenty short books, Penguin Classics brings you the ideas that have changed the way we think and talk about the living Earth.

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 is a journalist and activist who founded the environmental organisation 350.org. The author of fifteen books, including the bestsellers The End of Nature, Eaarth and Deep Economy, 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. He lives in Vermont.