Life as We Know It (Can Be)

Stories of People, Climate, and Hope in a Changing World

by Bill Weir

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Pub Date Apr 16 2024 | Archive Date Apr 16 2024

Chronicle Books | Chronicle Prism

Biographies & Memoirs | Health, Mind & Body

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Description

Award-winning journalist and CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir draws on his years of immersive travel and reporting to share the best ideas and stories of hope and positivity from the people and communities around the world who are thriving in the wake of climate change, and what we can learn from them to build a more promising future.

While reporting from every state and every continent, and filming his acclaimed CNN Original Series The Wonder List, Bill Weir has spent decades telling the stories of unique people, places, cultures, and creatures on the brink of change. As the first Chief Climate Correspondent in network news, he’s immersed in the latest science and breakthroughs on the topic, while often on the frontlines of disasters, natural and manmade.

In 2020, Bill began distilling these experiences into a series of Earth Day letters for his then-newborn son to read in 2050, to help him better understand the world he will have grown up in and be better prepared to embrace the future. Bill’s work and his letters were the inspiration for Life As We Know It (Can Be), which confronts the worry and wonder of climate change with messages and examples of hope for all of us on how a better future can still be written.

Highlighting groundbreaking innovation in fields of clean energy, food and water sources, housing and building materials, and more, and touching on how happiness, resilience, and health and wellness factor into the topic of climate change, Bill’s stories take readers on a global journey, from one community in Florida that took on a hurricane and never lost power, to the Antarctic Peninsula where one species of penguin is showing us the key to survival, to the nuclear fusion labs where scientists are trying to build a star in a box. In these pages, we join a search for ancient wisdom and new ideas.

Life As We Know It (Can Be) is a celebration of the wonders of our planet, a meditation on the human wants and needs that drive it out of balance, and an inspiration for communities to galvanize around nature and each other as the very best way to best prepare and plan for what’s next.

Advance Praise

"There is no other correspondent like Bill Weir, and there's certainly no other book like this one. It's moving, funny, frank, well-researched, beautifully written, and looks at climate change in a way I've never seen before."
—Anderson Cooper, CNN anchor, 60 Minutes correspondent, and New York Times-bestselling author

"Bill Weir provides insightful, alarming, but ultimately hopeful coverage of the climate crisis. His new book is a gorgeous love letter to his son but also to Earth and humanity. Read this for insight, solutions, and an exhilarating journey."
—Jake Tapper, CNN anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent, and New York Times-bestselling author

"Bill Weir is one of America's great storytellers. In this timely debut, he takes us around the world and gives us a front-row seat to one of the world's most pressing issues: climate change. Life as We Know It (Can Be) gives us hope-and some real solutions-to build a more promising future."
—Dan Buettner, National Geographic Fellow and #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Blue Zones books

Available Editions

EDITION	Other Format
ISBN	9781797213613
PRICE	$27.95 (USD)
PAGES	272

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Featured Reviews

Andrew S, Reviewer

In Life As We Know It (Can Be), Bill Weir has written a book touching on events that is currently happening around the world. He is an award-winning journalist and he is an CNN chief climate correspondent. This book is made to be one who is written to his first son who was born in 2020. He has high hopes that his son, River will read it in around the year 2050. It is in the style of an Earth Day letter. The book is divided into a few parts such as physiologically, safety needs, love and esteem needs, and self-actualization. In the book he explored Hurricane Katrina, the changes in energy throughout the years, temperature changes, and the hope we can have for the future.

One of my favorite chapters he discussed was about Hurricane Katrina and his experience in reporting this event. At the time, he worked for ABC news and they were the only network without any coverage on the ground. He explained how they had to get a rental that cost them around $10,000 dollars for the trip to the French Quarter. He explained what he encountered on his different reporting on storm damage. He learned that water is either too much or never enough. He shared how it can throw people into the hierarchy pyramid on needs all at once when they experience a horrible event happen.

I would recommend this inspiring book to anyone who enjoys reading about weather, climate change, and the history of past events. I liked how he wrote it in the style of an Earth Day letter to be read in the future by his son and our children. It mixed history and explained what current events we are facing. I liked how he touched on what could happen in the future and the hope we can have.

"I received this book free from Chronicle Books for my honest review.”