Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul by Auden Schendler is a sort of sequel to his 2009 book, Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution.

I had read Getting Green Done in 2012. I was both fascinated and repelled by Auden Schendler’s real-life stories about his efforts to implement energy-saving and sustainability initiatives at the Aspen Skiing Company, now known as Aspen One.

On the one hand, it was heartening to learn that a corporation was supporting and funding projects to reduce the environmental impact of its operations. On the other hand, making snow and diverting money from sustainability projects to buy bottles of wine costing $10,000 or more are not environmentally-friendly activities.

Book Review

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.

“The truth of the matter is that Matt, Stu, and I hadn’t ever said, ‘Hey, auto industry. Can you provide me with mobility, please? But a favor: Could you do so in a way that will threaten and eventually destroy civilization? And everything we love out here? And our kids’ future?”

In this book, you will:

• Read about how the fossil fuel industry has deflected its responsibility in the climate crisis by pushing the blame onto you and me. For instance, British Petroleum popularized the concept of a carbon footprint.
• Discover how sustainable-business practices haven’t just been ineffective in dealing with the climate crisis; businesses have been complicit with the fossil fuel industry.
• Learn about the falsehood of the free market system. Businesses are allowed to emit as much carbon pollution as they want while pushing the costs onto the public.

“Instilling fear and confusion is the best way to keep people distracted from the astounding inequity of the economic divide in the United States…The fact that we are fighting about something so obviously in need of repair as climate change shows that the oligarchs have won.”

While reading this book:

• Be inspired by Auden Schendler’s stories from his own life, both personal and business, which show that one person can find their own power and work with other people to get things done.
• Find out how the nexus between climate change and equity is creating a social movement.
• Learn how Auden Schendler defines terrible beauty and contemplate what it means to you.

The Bottom Line

A small part of me feels like it’s wrong to say that I enjoyed reading a book about how businesses, the fossil fuel industry, and the government, backed by the richest people in the world, are destroying our planet and blaming us for it. But Auden Schendler is a compelling writer, so I did enjoy it.

He explains concepts in terms that most people can probably understand, is honest about his successes and failures, and sprinkles in humor here and there.

I recommend Terrible Beauty to both people who think they know about the climate crisis and the so-called field of business sustainability, as well as people who are looking to learn about these topics for the first time.

Shortly after reading Terrible Beauty, I came across an article announcing that after twenty-six years with Aspen One, Auden Schendler was resigning his position of Senior Vice President of Sustainability. I wonder what he is going to do next.

Featured Image at Top: A young girl holding a painted cardboard globe of the Earth — Image Credit iStock/Anastasiia Stiahailo.

Related Posts

• Amity and Prosperity – Book Review
• Being the Change – Book Review
• Civil Rights and the Climate Crisis
• Climate: A New Story – Book Review
• Dark Money – Book Review
• Falter – Book Review
• Generation Dread – Book Review
• Getting Green Done – Book Review
• On Fire – Book Review
• The Climate Crisis – Rejoin the Movement

Resources

• Auden Schendler
• Aspen One senior office to leave position this spring, by Skhler Stark-Ragsdale, Aspen Times