The Collapse of Western Civilization
A View from the Future
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The Collapse of Western Civilization
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Narrated by:
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Lesa Lockford
About this listen
The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought, and - finally - the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order.
Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment - the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies - failed to act, bringing about the collapse of Western civilization.
Dramatizing science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, The Collapse of Western Civilization reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do, providing a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate-change literature.
©2014 Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Deniers of climate change sometimes quip that claims about global warming are more about political science than climate science. They are wrong on the science, but may be right with respect to its political implications. A hotter world, writes Andrew Guzman, will bring unprecedented migrations, famine, war, and disease. It will be a social and political disaster of the first order.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read!
- By Ted on 03-22-15
By: Andrew T. Guzman
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The Bet
- Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth's Future
- By: Paul Sabin
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4 out of 5 stars 37
In 1980, the iconoclastic economist Julian Simon challenged celebrity biologist Paul Ehrlich to a bet. Their wager on the future prices of five metals captured the public’s imagination as a test of coming prosperity or doom. Ehrlich, author of the landmark book The Population Bomb, predicted that rising populations would cause overconsumption, resource scarcity, and famine—with apocalyptic consequences for humanity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Why can't we even discuss Global Overpopulaion???
- By Leslie deGraffenried on 10-19-15
By: Paul Sabin
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The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
- By: Alex Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Epstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,708
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,514
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,513
For decades environmentalists have told us that using fossil fuels is a self-destructive addiction that will destroy our planet. Yet by every measure of human well-being, from life expectancy to clean water to climate safety, life has been getting better and better. How can this be? The explanation is that we usually hear only one side of the story. We're taught to think only of the negatives of fossil fuels, their risks and side effects, but not their positives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A different point of view
- By Ballofyarn on 01-12-17
By: Alex Epstein
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How Soon Is Now
- From Personal Initiation to Global Transformation
- By: Daniel Pinchbeck
- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story5 out of 5 stars 22
The world needs to change. We have unleashed an ecological mega-crisis which is threatening the future of life on Earth. The actions we take over the next decade are critical. They will determine the destiny of our descendants and the fate of our world. How Soon Is Now presents a compelling manifesto for personal and planetary change. It proposes a revolutionary new narrative for a unified social movement. Through global cooperation, we can face this collective threat ecologically, socially, politically and spiritually.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Relevant!!!!
- By Anonymous User on 12-11-23
By: Daniel Pinchbeck
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Simply Electrifying
- The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk
- By: Craig R. Roach
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Simply Electrifying: The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk brings to life the 250-year history of electricity through the stories of the men and women who used it to transform our world: Benjamin Franklin, James Watt, Michael Faraday, Samuel F.B. Morse, Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull, Albert Einstein, Rachel Carson, Elon Musk, and more. In the process, it reveals for the first time the complete, thrilling, and often dangerous story of electricity's historic discovery, development, and worldwide application.
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2 out of 5 stars
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decent, but ended up disappointing.
- By Alexander Douglass on 12-28-18
By: Craig R. Roach
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The Real Global Warming Disaster
- Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?
- By: Christopher Booker
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
This original audiobook considers one of the most extraordinary scientific and political stories of our time: how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history. Christopher Booker interweaves the science of global warming with that of its growing political consequences, showing how just when the politicians are threatening to change our Western way of life beyond recognition, the scientific evidence behind the global warming theory is being challenged like never before.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The message made my blood boil
- By George on 10-14-14
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Creating Freedom
- The Lottery of Birth, the Illusion of Consent, and the Fight for Our Future
- By: Raoul Martinez
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story5 out of 5 stars 35
A manifesto for deep and radical change, Creating Freedom explores the limits placed on freedom by human nature and society. It explodes myths, calling for a profound transformation in the way we think about democracy, equality, and our own identities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The BEST book, I've listened to in a long time
- By G. Newton on 04-16-17
By: Raoul Martinez
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The Quest
- Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
- By: Daniel Yergin
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 29 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 901
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 753
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 753
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best nonfiction book of 2011
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Daniel Yergin
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Age of Discovery
- Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
- By: Ian Goldin, Chris Kutarna
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Age of Discovery explores a world on the brink of a new Renaissance and asks: how do we share more widely the benefits of unprecedented progress? How do we endure the inevitable tumult generated by accelerating change? How do we each thrive through this tangled, uncertain time? From gains in health, education, wealth and technology to crises of conflict, disease and mass migration, the similarities between today's world and that of the 15th century are both striking and prophetic: we have been here before.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A monotonous text disguised as casual reading.
- By Rob on 07-29-16
By: Ian Goldin, and others
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Harmony
- A New Way of Looking at Our World
- By: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Narrated by: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
For the first time, HRH The Prince of Wales shares his views on how our most pressing modern challenges - from climate change to poverty - are rooted in mankind's disharmony with nature, presenting a compelling case that the solution lies in our ability to regain a balance with the world around us. With its holistic approach, this provocative and well-reasoned book takes the discussion of sustainability and climate change in a new direction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Excellent Exploration
- By Sara on 03-31-16
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It's Better Than It Looks
- By: Gregg Easterbrook
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Most people who pay attention to the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has been. In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too political
- By Anonymous User on 07-12-18
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The Precipice
- Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change
- By: Noam Chomsky, C.J. Polychroniou
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
In The Precipice, Noam Chomsky sheds light into the phenomenon of Trumpism, exposes the catastrophic nature and impact of Trump's policies on people, the environment, and the planet as a whole, and captures the dynamics of the brutal class warfare launched by the masters of capital to maintain and even enhance the features of a dog-eat-dog society to the unprecedented mobilization of millions of people against neoliberal capitalism, racism, and police violence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Of Incalculable Importance
- By Anonymous User on 12-15-21
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
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Climate Shock
- The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet
- By: Gernot Wagner, Martin L. Weitzman
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences. They show that the longer we wait to act, the more likely an extreme event will happen. A city might go underwater.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Nuance, balance, risk management.
- By John Christens on 11-23-23
By: Gernot Wagner, and others
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The Post-American World 2.0
- By: Fareed Zakaria
- Narrated by: Fareed Zakaria
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 735
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 601
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 607
Here is the New York Times and international best seller, revised and expanded with a new afterword. This is the essential update of Fareed Zakaria's analysis about America and its shifting position in world affairs. In this new edition, Zakaria makes sense of the rapidly changing global landscape. With his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination, he draws on lessons from the two great power shifts of the past 500 years - the rise of the Western world and the rise of the United States - to tell us what we can expect from the third shift, the rise of the rest.
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5 out of 5 stars
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S/B req reading for every man, woman and child...
- By Kopernicus on 10-20-11
By: Fareed Zakaria
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The Third Industrial Revolution
- How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
- By: Jeremy Rifkin
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Author Jeremy Rifkin presents an insider's account of the next great economic era: the Third Industrial Revolution, when a new ethic of sustainability will revolutionize the world we live in.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Lamenting "The Third Industrial Revolution"
- By Joshua Kim on 05-01-12
By: Jeremy Rifkin
What listeners say about The Collapse of Western Civilization
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- bill holck
- 02-26-19
Good but a tad pedantic
The readers performance is lovely but it really does sound very much like a historian giving a lecture. Since that is the essential premise, it works, but it can end up feeling like a historian giving a lecture!
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Crobey
- 12-21-20
Excellent Book
Horror story that we are currently living through! Let's hope it turns out to be a work of fiction.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Masoud A.
- 08-16-22
Nice
Eye opening story no one could predict what will happen in the future so let’s take it as is
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2 people found this helpful