Award-winning journalist and CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir takes readers through time and around our changing world to confront the biggest threats to life as we know it and search for proven ways to build happier, healthier, and more resilient communities, come what may.
While reporting from every state and 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. And as the first Chief Climate Correspondent in network news, he is immersed in the latest scientific warnings and breakthroughs while often on the frontlines of disasters, natural and manmade.
After the birth of his son in April 2020, Bill began distilling these experiences into a series of Earth Day letters for his boy to read in 2050, weaving the worry and wonder into a reminder to other anxious parents that they are not alone and a better future can still be written. This dialog with a boy born into “The Age of Unreason” inspired Life As We Know It (Can Be). With a storyteller’s flair, Bill digs into fascinating corners of history, psychology, technology, and his own biographyto connect the lessons he’s collected from the happiest, healthiest, and most resilient societies.
Bill’s stories take readers on journeys from the Greek Island where people live to 100 at an astonishing rate to the one community in Florida that took on a hurricane and never lost power, from 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 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 brace for what’s next. ENGAGING EXPERT AUTHOR: Dubbed “the Anthony Bourdain of climate reporting” for his distinctive storytelling style and a focus on our connected planet, Bill Weir created the primetime CNN Original Series The Wonder List with Bill Weir in 2015. Previously, he had launched the weekend edition of Good Morning America, was co-anchor of Nightline, had his reporting featured on World News with Diane Sawyer, 20/20, and his own Yahoo! News digital series This Could Be Big. He anchored ABC’s Summer Olympics coverage from London in 2012 and reported from inside Apple’s Chinese factories for Nightline. He has also written and hosted projects for the FX and USA networks and was an anchor/reporter in Los Angeles, Chicago, Green Bay, and Austin, MN. This is his first book.
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE BOOK: Life As We Know It (Can Be) takes a positive and unabashed approach to exploring the science, politics, and human behavior that must be addressed to solve our most pressing problems. In the spirit of the words that concluded a first, beautiful letter penned to his newborn son in 2020, "the great thing about stories is that they are always under revision," Bill shares his strong belief that we all have the capacity to write a happy ending.
A GIFT BOOK FOR OUR TIMES: For the social activist, the global wanderer, the scientifically curious, the climate defender, and many more, this is a beautiful gift to inspire contemplation, connection, and action for the planet and the people who call it home. Perfect for:
- Parents seeking inspiring resources to share with kids
- Students and academic readers
- Anyone interested in sociology, social science, environmentalism, or climate change
- Travel enthusiasts
- Readers of The Way I Heard It, Field Notes From a Catastrophe, Lab Girl, Bicycle Diaries, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs