Bill McKibben is one of America’s best known environmentalists. As a bestselling author, he has written books that, over the last quarter century, have shaped public perception–and public action–on climate change, alternative energy, and the need for more localized economies. McKibben is the founder of 350.org, the first big global grassroots climate change initiative.

McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment. His seminal books include The End of Nature, widely seen as the first book on climate change for a general audience, and Deep Economy, a bold challenge to move beyond “growth” as the paramount economic ideal and to pursue prosperity in a more local direction — an idea that is the cornerstone of much sustainability discourse today. A former staff writer for The New Yorker, McKibben is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, The New York Review of Books, Granta, and Outside. Bill has been awarded both the Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowships, as well as the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing.

In 2007, McKibben founded stepitup07.org to demand that Congress curb carbon emissions that would cut global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. On April 14, 2007, as part of the effort, McKibben helped lead over a thousand demonstrations, across all 50 states, a watershed moment described as the largest day of protest against climate change in the nation’s history.