Bill McKibben is the author of numerous bestselling books on the environment, including The End of Nature (1989), the first book to alert general readers to the climate crisis. His new book is The Flag, theCross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened (2022), a reflection on disturbing developments in the nature of American patriotism, faith, and prosperity.

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This is Bill's first appearance at the NYS Writers Institute since 1992. He also attended our inaugural Telling the Truth symposium in 1991.

 

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said, “If we survive the interlocking plagues of climate change, right-wing authoritarianism, and savage inequality, future generations will utter the name of the New England moral visionary and activist McKibben with the reverence we speak of Emerson, Thoreau, and Garrison.”

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McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal.

 

He stepped down as board chair of 350 in 2015, and left the board and stepped down from his volunteer role as senior adviser in 2020, accepting emeritus status. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors. In 2014, biologists credited his career by naming a new species of woodland gnat —Megophthalmidia mckibbeni – in his honor.

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