Fw: I Don't Want the World to Need This Book
Bill Sabey
----- Forwarded Message -----From: "Katharine K. Wilkinson from Human on Earth" <drkwil...@substack.com>To:Sent: Sun, May 3, 2026 at 10:36 AMSubject: I Don't Want the World to Need This Book
It’s a wild feeling to be on the cusp of releasing a book into the world—especially when it’s one you wish the world didn’t need.
That’s what I’m sitting with this spring morning, with a small black cat curled up and snoozing on my feet. Climate Wayfinding’s birthday is Tuesday. I am filled with the joy that comes from a long-tended creative project at last seeing the light. But I’m also thinking about the early readers I’ve met during pre-publication events the last couple of weeks. There’s been a lot of laughter, but there’s also been so much ache.
Feeling the shadow and light of this moment.
In San Francisco, tears streamed down the cheeks of a woman who works in solar installation, as she placed her book on the table to be signed. In DC especially, but honestly everywhere, so many have lost jobs or seen the work they’d been diligently building shelved or dismantled. In the Twin Cities, multiple people asked me to sign a book for a friend: “They really need this right now.”
In Seattle, a room full of green-building professionals linked hands, sang, and cried. (That had not been the plan for the workshop, but facilitation is, in part, about following where the group needs and wants to go.) In every city, people have asked me to sign books for their children—often teens or twenty-somethings, but also little ones who won’t be ready to read a book like this for years. They want to have it on hand when they are.
I now find myself in tears as I write this. I don’t want us to need this book. I don’t want our community, this movement, to have its heart broken again and again. I don’t want us to have to spend our days paddling upstream against polluting powers, never-enough greed, and entrenched affronts on life. It’s awful. And it is the work of our era.
Though I wish the world didn’t need this book, I hope it will meet some of the need of this liminal, loss-filled time. I hope Climate Wayfinding arrives into readers’ wringing hands as nourishment, practical resource, and deep care. Because we face more than a strategic challenge. We face a challenge of the human spirit.
We have a climate majority. We have powerful solutions. But the headwinds are damn strong, as are the emotions they rouse. It’s no wonder folks are burning out, bowing out, or never stepping in to begin with. Who among us isn’t feeling unsteady ground underfoot?
So we tend the heart of social change: the people who make it possible.
That’s you. That’s me. That’s all of us, together.
With love,
P.S. If a chance to be in Earth-loving community would fill you up, join us:
Sunday, May 3 • 4pm ET • Online (by some magic with signed books that can be sent your way)
Monday, May 4 • 7pm ET • Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta with musical guest, cellist Okorie Johnson
Tuesday, May 5 • 6pm ET • NYC with special guest, poet Tamiko Beyer
Thursday, May 7 • 6:30pm • Bedford, NY with my dear friend Dr. Kate Marvel
More stops ahead in Boulder, Portland OR, Asheville NC, Sewanee TN, and Decatur GA. And for two more days, you can give this book the love of a preorder.
Climate Wayfinding on Bookshop.org
Thank you so much for reading. It would mean the world to me if you’d share this newsletter with other humans on Earth who might enjoy it.
Connect with me on Instagram and LinkedIn. Find more of my work at The All We Can Save Project, Climate Wayfinding, and my website.
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© 2026 Katharine K. Wilkinson
