Chris Duffy

Today's guest, Bill McKibben, he has spent decades trying to teach humanity how to be better tenants of this planet.

His first book, The End of Nature, was published in 1989, and since then he has written over a dozen more, becoming one of the most prominent environmentalists around.

Bill is currently a leader of 350.org, an environmental advocacy group that he co-founded.

Their goal is to end the use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy by building a global grassroots movement.

Bill is also the founder and a leader of Third Act, which mobilizes Americans over the age of 60 to work towards climate and racial justice.

And as you can tell, just by those two organizations, there is a lot to talk about with Bill.

He is working overtime on being a better human.

And despite Bill's very busy schedule and important work that he does, he always makes time to remember what it is that he is fighting for, the profound beauty and majesty of this planet.

Bill lives in Vermont, where he spoke with me remotely.

And here's a clip about his love for that place in particular.

Dude, we are going to freak you out a lot over the course of this episode.

But first, we're going to take a short break.

Don't go anywhere.

Today, we're talking about the fight to save our planet with the environmentalist and author Bill McKibben.

Let's start with your personal interest in environmentalism.

Can you give me your backstory of how you first came to see this as the issue that you wanted to spend your life working on?

You have such a unique perspective on this because, like you said, you were really one of the first people to bring this into the popular consciousness.

And so you've now seen it be widely accepted.

People across the world are understanding that this is the existential issue of our times, right?

And yet, as you've written about in another book, there hasn't been nearly the kind of change that you would have hoped for or that we would think when people accepted that this is the reality that we would make.