‘Utterly brilliant – engaging, thrilling, disturbing, revelatory, explosive’ GEORGE MONBIOT
‘This extraordinary book, written with startling honesty and vulnerability, traces Charlie’s remarkable journey from deep despair to resistance, reconnection and remedy. If you are ready to channel grief within into action in the world, read on.’ KATE RAWORTH, author of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
‘Spinning Out is a salve, weaving together the intricacies of madness underscored by the backdrop of a changing climate. It’s an essential and insightful resource in the fight for climate justice.’ TORI TSUI, author of It’s Not Just You
‘Heart-rendingly, heart-stoppingly glorious‘ MANDA SCOTT, author of bestselling Boudica series
Humanity is driving the earth mad. Now, the earth is driving us mad in return.
Charlie Hertzog Young became a climate activist in his early teens. His journey led him onto airport runways and into the halls of power, but also to a serious mental health breakdown. He had to rebuild himself physically and psychologically, before focusing his efforts on collective mental recovery in response to a planet in crisis.
Spinning Out explores how climate chaos and the failure of those in power to tackle it are causing an inevitable mental health crisis across the globe. The relationship between the climate and our emotional wellbeing goes far deeper than eco-anxiety. It goes to he roots of our civilisation – its principles, its practices and its false solutions.
With testimony from dozens of activists, organisers and researchers across every habitable continent, Spinning Out is a celebration (of other ways to be) and a manual for anyone who wants to fight for a better world, while avoiding burnout and despair.
Wedding the needs of the earth with the needs of the human mind, Spinning Out offers a powerful, collective vision for change.
‘Utterly brilliant – engaging, thrilling, disturbing, revelatory, explosive’ – George Monbiot
‘This extraordinary book, written with startling honesty and vulnerability, traces Charlie Hertzog Young’s remarkable journey from deep despair to resistance, reconnection and remedy. If you are ready to channel grief within into action in the world, read on’ – Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
‘Spinning Out is a salve, weaving together the intricacies of madness underscored by the backdrop of a changing climate. It’s an essential and insightful resource in the fight for climate justice’ – Tori Tsui, author of It’s Not Just You
‘Absolutely, gloriously, heart-rendingly, heart-stoppingly glorious’ – Manda Scott, author of the bestselling BOUDICA series
‘This book is brave, creative and utterly necessary for understanding what is happening to us psychologically as a result of climate and societal breakdown’ – Joe Ryle, Director of the Four Day Week Campaign
‘A brilliant, compassionate account of the intersection between climate change and mental health […] deserves to be widely read, borrowed, shared and discussed by anyone who cares about the climate’ – Ro Randall, founder member of the Climate Psychology Alliance
‘Above all else, responding to climate emergency is a battle over our minds. Charlie Young had a natural entry point to this perspective through his own experience – and the consequences are radical. If we are able to wrestle and work with our psychology, we may be better able to relate to each other and planet of which we are part. The upshot could be a whole new way of being human. And Spinning Out is a gateway to that possibility’ – Anthony Painter, Director of Policy at the Chartered Management Institute (CMI)
CHARLIE HERTZOG YOUNG is a researcher, writer and award-winning activist. A proudly mad bipolar double amputee, he has worked for the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, the Good Law Project, the Four Day Week Campaign and the Centre for Progressive Change, as well as the UK Labour Party under three consecutive leaders. Charlie has spoken at the LSE, the UN and the World Economic Forum. He studied at Harvard, SOAS and Schumacher College and has written for The Ecologist, The Independent, Novara Media, Open Democracy and The Guardian.
