Auden Schendler's 'Terrible Beauty' tells stories of human experience to depict the need for environmental policy change and corporate advocacy
In his new book, "Terrible Beauty -- Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul," author Auden Schendler discusses the shortcomings of modern environmentalism. The book was published last week.
Schendler, senior vice president of Sustainability for Aspen One, intertwines stories of his own experiences in the natural world with climate history, science, family, and community, telling the reader how we arrived at our current brand of environmentalism, what we must do to improve the climate crisis in the future, and why we should care.
"I wanted to tie (this book) to story, to parenting, and outdoors, and beauty," he told The Aspen Times. "I wanted to write this thing that was part philosophical meditation and part climate solutions manual."
Apart from a handful of climate-oriented government policy initiatives, Schendler discusses how society has taken a "free market" approach to the climate crisis, relying on corporate sustainability practices to improve the environment.
Hiding behind token measures, corporations call themselves "green" while failing to advocate for environmental policy or disrupt the status quo, which is true of most modern environmentalism, he said.
For example, Salesforce Microsoft pretends to care about the climate while financing the US Chamber of Commerce to block climate legislation, he said.
"I basically feel that modern environmentalism and my field of corporate sustainability has not just failed -- CO2 emissions are skyrocketing, consequences of warming are getting worse -- but actually this work has become complicit with a fossil fuel status quo, a fossil fuel economy," he said.
What's the difference between tokenism and systemic change? Systemic change comes from advocacy on a widespread level, he said.
Governments must draft legislation. Individuals must advocate in their communities. Corporations must advocate for environmental policy.
"You should not be able to pollute for free," Schendler said.
University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Studies Professor Joel Hartter said Schendler's idea that corporations should advocate for environmental policy is a call to action.
"It's calling corporations and the private sector to the mat and saying, 'Look, you haven't done enough. The work that you've done right now hasn't really changed anything,'" Hartter said. "And that's hard. That's a hard pill to swallow; that's a hard truth to hear."
On corporate leadership, Schendler references Patagonia CEO Yvon Chouinard's 2022 decision to donate his $3 billion company to fight climate change.
Aspen One, too, has taken great sustainability steps, he said.
While at first the company struggled to reduce carbon emissions, they spent years encouraging the board of Holy Cross Energy, their energy provider, to change their energy source from predominantly coal to renewable.
"Holy Cross is now 90% renewable energy," he said. "Which means we've cut our carbon footprint radically because of that work."
The company, too, has become an environmental advocate.
"Real progress comes from asking 'What's our biggest lever?' and 'How do we act at scale?" Aspen One CEO Dave Tanner said in a press release about the book. "Our company's commitment is about using influence, voice, and resources to drive systemic change."
But beyond the nuts and bolts, the causes and solutions of the modern environmental crisis, in "Terrible Beauty," Schendler tells us why we should care -- for our families, for our children, for our youthful memories in the wilderness.
He takes the reader on a journey from his upbringing in New Jersey to his adult life in the Roaring Fork Valley; from dust devils in Utah, to granite craigs in Yosemite, to aspen groves in Basalt.
"There's a moral and ethical and soulful motivation for solving climate change," he said.
He will give a talk about his book at 5 p.m., Dec. 17, at Explore Booksellers in Aspen. The event is free to attend.