‘One of the most perceptive and thought-provoking books …Essential reading for these turbulent times.’ Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement

‘Dougald Hine’s brilliant book demands we stare into that abyss and rethink our securest certainties about what is actually going on in the climate crisis. It’s lucidly unsettling and yet in the end empowering. There is something we can do, and it starts with where we look, how we see and what we choose to change.’ Brian Eno, Musician

‘[A] rich book, which like a poetic or religious text deserves multiple readings’ Richard Smith, British Medical Journal

‘I consider this book a must-read for all those activists feeling lost, desperate and perhaps subject to ‘press-on-itis’.’ Gail Bradbrook, cofounder, Extinction Rebellion

Dougald Hine, world-renowned environmental thinker, has spent most of his life talking to people about climate change. And then one afternoon in the second year of the pandemic, he found he had nothing left to say. Why would someone who cares so deeply about ecological destruction want to stop talking about climate change now? At Work in the Ruins explores that question.

‘Climate change asks us questions that climate science cannot answer,’ Dougald says. Questions like, how did we end up in this mess? Is it just a piece of bad luck with atmospheric chemistry – or is it the result of a way of approaching the world that would always have brought us to such a pass? How we answer such questions also has consequences.

Through our over-reliance on the single lens of science, Dougald writes that we are blinded to the nature of the crises around and ahead of us, leading to ‘solutions’ that can only make things worse. At Work in the Ruins is his reckoning with the strange years we have been living through and our long history of asking too much of science. He offers guidance by standing firmly forward and facing the depth of the trouble we are in, to ultimately, helps us find the work that is worth doing, even in the ruins.

"Invited to speak at gatherings with scientists and policymakers, with archbishops, Indigenous activists and students, Dougald Hine, storyteller and social thinker, has spent most of his life talking to people about climate change. And then one afternoon in the second year of the pandemic, he realized he had nothing left to say. Why would someone who cares so deeply about ecological change want to stop talking about it now? At Work in the Ruins is the book that grew out of Dougald's attempt to answer that question. He delves deeply into what he discovered during the globally shared, isolating Covid moment; why the virus and the measures taken against it drove so many of us to despair; and how we can refind our bearings if the pandemic is not the big event that changes everything but simply one in a chain of emergencies that are bringing about the end of the world as we knew it. At Work in the Ruins explores the role science is playing in shaping public policy and how this is deteriorating our appreciation for the natural world, our capacity for short and long-term problem-solving, which results in the erosion of our freedom. Dougald questions our seemingly unbreakable attachment to modernity and how it blinds us to the numbing effects of relentless emergencies, including climate change and the pandemic. At Work in the Ruins is a book for anyone who has found themselves needing to make sense of what we've been through, what is ending, and how we learn to talk about it. Only then can we choose to face the problems that really matter so that we can find solace at work in the ruins"--