The Path to a Livable Future

An urgent call for the political transformation needed to address the common causes of climate change, COVID-19, and racism.
“An iconoclast of the best kind, Stan Cox has an all-too-rare commitment to following arguments wherever they lead, however politically dangerous that turns out to be.”—Naomi Klein
2020 was a year defined by crisis. For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm about the urgency of addressing climate change, but it took COVID-19 to demonstrate clearly that the future of human life on Earth is interconnected and at risk. While the virus quickly spread across the globe, extreme weather events compounded the suffering and economic catastrophe. In the U.S., public demonstrations of outrage over the murder of George Floyd expanded to include a growing awareness of the pandemic's disproportionate impact on communities of color. In cities around the world, people took to the streets to protest racial inequity in all of its forms.
In The Path to a Livable Future, Stan Cox makes plain the connections between the multiple crises facing us today, and provides an inspired vision for how to resolve them. With a deeply informed, clear to-do list, Cox shows us how we can work together to address the climate emergency, white supremacy, and our vulnerability to future pandemics all at once. Our future depends on it.
«In The Path to a Livable Future, Stan Cox shows us that the calamitous problems faced by all humanity, from pandemic to environmental devastation and settler colonialism, have a common root: the Western doctrine of looting and exploitation. Cox lays out a refreshingly grounded roadmap for the survival of all life on earth, based on up-to-date science, and anchored in the racial justice imperative. Global civilization is on a disastrous trajectory that can only be averted through holistic and bold pivots. The Path charts the way forward and gives us a reason to cling to hope.”—Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, author of Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land
“Above all, he shows that a healthy, just, sustainable future is possible if we reduce our ecological footprint and share the earth's gifts equitably. For this we need to organize, resist, imagine, and forge another path together.”—Vandana Shiva, author of Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology
“Stan Cox cuts through the fog of mediocrity and offers a clear, honest vision for how social movements can win a truly just and sustainable society. There are few books I would recommend as wholeheartedly as this one. Don't miss it.”—Jason Hickel, author of Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
“As Cox shows in this devastating but clear-eyed assessment, the multiple existential crises of our modern world—from climate change to pandemics—are interrelated and can be traced back to centuries of colonial domination of land and people.”—Dina Gilio-Whitaker, author of As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock
«Stan Cox stands in a class of his own. . . . The Path to a Livable Future is a testament to the fact that meaningful responses to the multifarious crises we face are unlikely to come—first and foremost—from traditional urban liberal strongholds.”—Felix Marquardt, author of The New Nomads: How the Migration Revolution is Transforming our Lives for the Better