{"product_id":"entertaining-futility-andrew-mcmurry-9781623496852","title":"Entertaining Futility: Despair and Hope in the Time of Climate Change","description":"In playfully pessimistic and thought-provoking essays, author Andrew McMurry explores a vital but fundamentally perverse human practice: destroying our planet while imagining we are not. How are humans able to do this? \u003ci\u003eEntertaining Futility: Despair and Hope in the Time of Climate Change\u003c\/i\u003e investigates the discourses of hope, progress, and optimism in the era of climate change, concepts that, McMurry argues, are polite names for blind faith, greed, and wishful thinking. The itemized list of humanity's arrogance can quickly lead to despair, so McMurry compensates by presenting the news in a darkly comic and irreverent style. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e McMurry believes human culture relies on a full suite of rhetorical tricks to distract us from our own demise. He investigates the role language, discourse, media, and technology play in shaping perceptions and misperceptions of our complex environmental crises. Writing in a mode that freely mixes the scholarly, fictive, poetic, and personal, McMurry draws on philosophy, history, ecology, film, science fiction, and pop culture to raise questions that are difficult to face, let alone answer. In the author's words, \"our age is utterly paralyzing unless you can crack jokes about it.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eEntertaining Futility\u003c\/i\u003e offers no easy solutions to today's environmental calamities and, in fact, claims that perhaps the continual proposing of solutions is part of the problem. Instead, McMurry encourages readers to examine their own deeply held beliefs about the environment and the future and to look more closely at where those beliefs originate. By pulling back the curtain, he reveals the rhetorical and cultural ruses that distract us from the reality of our environmental crises.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Andrew McMurry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1623496853\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781623496852\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Texas A\u0026amp;M University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/06\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 224\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.60d","brand":"Andrew McMurry","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48442448871679,"sku":"9781623496852","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_ed849435-3ab7-4115-b6d7-5462d8275212.jpg?v=1777197489","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/entertaining-futility-andrew-mcmurry-9781623496852","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}