The Conceivable Future is a must-read for everyone who wants to make a difference in the world—and secure a sustainable future for all families.

The Conceivable Future

Planning Families and Taking Action in the Age of Climate Change

MEGHAN ELIZABETH KALLMAN
AND JOSEPHINE FERORELLI

with a foreword by ELIZABETH RUSH

In The Conceivable Future, authors Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli explore the ways in which the climate crisis is affecting our personal decisions about family planning, parenting, and political action. This book offers fresh, timely answers to questions such as: How do I decide to have a baby when there's the threat of environmental collapse? How do I parent a child in the middle of the climate crisis? What can I actually do to help stop global warming?

Drawing from their decade of work with the organization Conceivable Future, Kallman, a sociologist and Rhode Island State Senator, and Ferorelli, an activist and former Climate Bureau editor, offers both informed perspective and practical steps for taking meaningful action in combating the climate crisis, while also making smart, balanced decisions when it comes to starting and maintaining a family.

• Booklist Starred Review: “This reassuring consideration of a deeply personal matter teams seamlessly with a reasoned, emphatic call to action."

• Commended, Top 10 Books on the Environment & Sustainability (Booklist, 2024)

• Winner, Nellie Bly Book Award (journalistic non-fiction) (Chanticleer International Book Awards, 2024)

• Winner, Readers’ Favorite Book Award (environmental non-fiction, 2024)

What People are saying

  • "Brilliant, wise, and humane, The Conceivable Future is a fierce declaration of love for the world our children will live in. If the question "What can I do?" makes you feel lost in the weeds, this book will plant a garden in your mind."

    — Jonathan Meiburg, author A Most Remarkable Creature

  • "Kallman and Ferorelli provide a compelling and compassionate framework for working through seemingly insoluble dilemmas, beginning with the decision to have a child, but not ending there. The book ends with a commonsense guide on how to make change happen."

    —Amitav Ghosh, author The Nutmeg's Curse; Parables for a Planet in Crisis

  • "I know so many young people trying to figure out what a burning world means for their most important choices--they email me often, to ask if they should have kids. Now I'll be able to send them this wonderful book, which manages to be both shrewd and kind; it understands on the deepest level that when we think of the world only as a series of individual decisions, those decisions become overwhelming, and that the only alternative is to build joyful and humane societies that work for all of us, including those who haven't gotten here yet!"

    — Bill McKibben, founder Third Act

  • "This is a book full of feeling as much as politics; a rigorous, compassionate and empowering companion which holds its readers close while navigating the hardest of questions."

    Brett Story, filmmaker, The Hottest August (2019)

  • "Pioneers of family-focused climate activism Kallman and Ferorelli offer a powerful, timely correction to the climate/baby conversation. The Conceivable Future takes on tender questions with insight, compassion, and much-needed humor."

    Britt Wray, author of Generation Dread and Director of CIRCLE at Stanford Psychiatry

  • "This book is like finding a friend when you are lost in a wilderness of despair and disinformation. With compassion, radical honesty, and humor, Kallman and Ferorelli guide us through one of the most heart-wrenching and necessary questions of our time: should we bring children into a world destabilized by climate crisis?" The authors help us navigate uncertainty and find the collective will to change what’s possible."

    — Madeline Ostrander, author of At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge

  • "The climate crisis is a crisis of reproduction. Reproductive justice is climate action. Kallman and Ferorelli have created a guidebook for climate action that recognizes these realities, and which is fierce, funny, open-hearted and never prescriptive."

    Meehan Crist, writer in residence in Biological Sciences, Columbia University

  • "The impact of climate change on future generations, and the necessity for action may sound familiar, but they are rarely discussed with as much depth and intelligence as will be found in this volume. In lucid, conversational prose the authors bring together the latest scientific data, offer a fresh analysis of the issues, and present an original, down-to-earth approach to organizing. An invaluable source."

    —Carolyn Eisenberg, author Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia, and Co-Founder Brooklyn Parents for Peace

  • " The Conceivable Future is a manifesto for parenting with purpose in the era of climate upheaval."

    — Michael Levitin, author Generation Occupy

  • "This reassuring consideration of a deeply personal matter teams seamlessly with a reasoned, emphatic call to action."

    - Booklist, Starred Review

What you can do

If you are interested in getting more involved with our organization, or are looking for ways to build climate community in your town, consider hosting your own house party, discussing the book with your group, or donating to support the work.