A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World Tales of Fire, Wind and Water with Author David Gessner

In his latest book, A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World, veteran nature writer David Gessner uses powerful examples of environmental devastation to show a myriad of ways in which climate change is altering areas across the United States. Drawing on research, it describes a version of the United States in which the air itself is difficult to breathe, in which populated coastal areas have been abandoned to the tides, and wildfires have become ever more commonplace. Gessner describes a country wherein the rich and poor alike will pay the costs of the country’s inaction, and he uses current examples to set a troubling baseline upon which dangerous feedback loops build.

Drawing on personal experiences and conversations with affected communities, A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World issues moving warnings about future dangers while bearing witness to the precarious present.

 David Gessner is a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the author of thirteen books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism, including The Return of the Osprey, The Prophet of Dry Hill, Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt’s American Wilderness, and Quiet Desperation, Savage Delight: Sheltering with Thoreau in the Age of Crisis.

*Book signing to follow the program/Books available in the Museum Shop