JUST RELEASED in a new, fully revised edition … click here for ordering information

Alan AtKisson’s classic introduction to sustainability … “bold and controversial” … “a bridge over the sea of despair”

When it first appeared, Believing Cassandra was called “controversial” by some reviewers because it dared to look the seriousness of our global environmental problems straight on … and make the case for optimism.

If we are powerful enough to destroy the planet’s ecosystems, argues Alan AtKisson, then surely we are powerful enough to save them.

For ten years, BELIEVING CASSANDRA has been many people’s preferred book for introducing colleagues, students, family and friends to our global-scale challenges – while inspiring them to get involved in creating solutions.

This beautiful new edition from Earthscan has been fully updated, covering the latest scientific assessments and world events.It also includes new personal stories and follow-ups to the illuminating case studies that made the first edition, in the words of Paul Hawken, “exceptionally readable.”

BELIEVING CASSANDRA rose to be the #1 bestseller on Amazon’s environmental book list for all of 1999, after just four months in release. Companies, universities, and government agencies ordered it by the carton. It covers:

• The origins of our crisis, and the story of the scientific “Cassandras” who tried to warn us decades ago – and why those warnings were ignored
• A guided tour through the “Gallery of Global Trends,” with a compelling explanation of why humanity is still rocketing in the wrong direction
• How to be a “sustainability change agent” and redirect the momentum of human economic, technological, and social development toward solutions

“Optimism, it turns out, is not a character trait. It is a choice we make. By ‘believing Cassandra’, and choosing to act on the dire warnings [about the fate of the Earth] that she has been communicating to us for decades, we can … prove her wrong. She, like all the ‘Cassandras’ who have come after her, would prefer it that way.”

- from the new Preface by Alan AtKisson

Readers and reviewers’ praise for the first edition

“BOOK OF THE YEAR” … “In BELIEVING CASSANDRA, Alan AtKisson offers a realistic analysis of the global situation with upbeat examples of past social change successes and current brilliant pragmatic responses to our species’ greatest challenge. This book is cajoling, joyous and entertaining. It is chocolate for the soul, offering a way to consider our future with a constructive attitude. You will laugh, you will understand, and you will start to develop an appetite for solutions.”
- Sandy Bradley, The Seattle Press

“Woven throughout the story are the essential tools for understanding the current state of the challenges facing civilisation … candid, humorous, and full of memorable anecdotes.”
- Worldlink, the magazine of the World Economic Forum

“BELIEVING CASSANDRA is an original – and for some people, controversial – take on environmentalism. … AtKisson challenges businesspeople to understand the difference between ‘growth’ and ‘development’ and why the world needs less growth and more development. … His book is written in a fresh, candid and sometimes humorous style, spiced with personal anecdotes.”
- Natural Life Magazine

“The fact that BELIEVING CASSANDRA brings a message of hope didn’t hurt in our eventually choosing it as THE book, among all the other books we were reading, to pass out in a wider circle [of participants in the US Army's Installation Sustainability Program].”
- Manette Messenger, US Army

“BELIEVING CASSANDRA is a treatise of hope…. The book is a brilliant display of the author’s ability to combine fact, wit, observation, common sense, history, math, and art in one great blend, an unexpected antidote for anyone worried about the demise of planet Earth.”
- NAPRA Review

“… well written and fascinating. Since reading BELIEVING CASSANDRA, I walk around in a constant state of amazement that not everyone understands what is going on. I also firmly believe in your prescription: we can develop our way out of this. We have to.”   -  B.O., a reader in Texas

“Clarifying and inspiring. Read it and you’ll not only know how to think sustainability and do sustainability – you’ll know how to dance, sing and laugh it as well.”
- Vicki Robin, co-author, Your Money or Your Life

Order BELIEVING CASSANDRA today from your favorite bookseller. Read it together with THE SUSTAINABILITY TRANSFORMATION: How to accelerate positive change in challenging times

Visit www.AtKisson.com

For a review copy write to: Cassandra@AtKisson.com