Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World

In this combination of memoir and investigative journalism, Wells (The Fix) asks the question: Given that climate change is pushing us toward ecological catastrophe and potential societal and economic collapse, how should we live? How can we work toward a sustainable world? She spends time with several people and groups who are attempting to address the myriad issues of climate change. One group, led by a woman who lived off-grid for decades, is planting edible wildflowers on non-agricultural land (both public and private), in an attempt to restore the vast tracts of flowers that were used as food by Indigenous peoples in North America. Another group, Christians based in Taos, have committed to living in community and simplicity. One man, an expert tracker, teaches others to track by reconnecting with the natural world. Several groups of restoration specialists are overcoming desertification, wildfire damage, and the ravages of erosion and deforestation by successfully reclaiming such land to grasslands and forests. In addition to each of their stories, Wells also tells of her own and her friends’ activism as teenagers and young adults in Portland, OR.