Feeling impotent in the face of the climate crisis? Jonathan Safran Foer joined us to show that we really can make a difference.

The climate crisis is the single biggest threat to human survival. And it is happening right now. We all understand that time is running out – but do we truly believe it? Caught between the seemingly unimaginable and the apparently unthinkable, how can we take the first step towards action, to arrest our race to extinction?

Jonathan Safran Foer is on a mission to demystify climate change. His ability to spin beauty, wit and insight from tragedy in novels like Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close have seen him lauded as the most gifted storyteller of his generation. And his ‘shocking, incandescent, brilliant’ (Times) bestseller Eating Animals shifted attitudes away from industrialised farming and meat-eating for good.

He joined Matthew Stadlen on stage at How To Academy to bring the climate crisis to life – and offer us a way out. Together Matt and Jonathan explored how the task of saving the planet will involve a great reckoning with ourselves – with our all-too-human reluctance to sacrifice immediate comfort for the sake of the future. We have done it before and we can do it again. Collective action is the way to save our home and way of life. And it all starts with what we eat, and don’t eat, for breakfast…

Praise for Jonathan Safran Foer:

‘Should be compulsory reading. A genuine masterwork. Read this book. It will change you’ Time Out

‘Everyone who eats flesh should read this book’ Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

‘Universally compelling. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book changed me’ Natalie Portman

‘Gripping [and] original. A brilliant synthesis of argument, science and storytelling. One of the finest books ever written on the subject of eating animals’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Horrifying, eloquent, timely’ Spectator

‘If you eat meat and fish, you should read this book. Even if you don’t, you should. It might bring the beginning of a change of heart about all living things’ Joanna Lumley