BY KAREN BOSSICK

Auden Schendler has made a career out of trying to address climate change, in particular how it relates to the ski industry.

But he admits that he’d probably give an emphatic “No!” if someone were to tell him, “Hey, I’ve got a new climate book, want to read it?”

“I’d probably say, ‘No,’ because they’re all very similar: some science, some doom, some limited but impractical solutions,” he says.

But Schendler, senior vice president of Sustainability at Aspen One, the parent company of Aspen Hospitality, has now written his own book: “Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul.” And he wants you to read it.

“This book is different. It’s more about parenting, love, beauty and how to take on impossible tasks than it is climate. It starts with a bunch of guys in the desert chasing a dust devil, succeeding in getting inside it. It’s got stories about Little League baseball, turtle boils, river running,” he says.

Schendler will discuss some of his findings during a free talk at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 4 in the Silver Creek Room of the Limelight Hotel. The doors open at 5 p.m. for drinks, book sales and mingling.

Schendler offers personal stories of chasing powder turns and desert wanderings in the book to remind us how our love for our children, our community and the natural beauty that surrounds us can and must fuel transformative action.

“I also talk about how to stage a coup at your utility, how to pressure businesses with a form of asymmetric warfare; how to wake up every day and keep going in the face of impossible odds,” he says. “This is book for everyone who wants to live a life that includes beauty, joy, meaning, and dignity.”

“Terrible Beauty” offers a first-hand view of the failure of the modern environmental movement in a world where people separate recyclables while wondering whether it makes a difference and where American businesses announce their commitment to carbon negativity while sponsoring oil conferences.

The problem is, we’re living a big green lie, following talking points that could have been advanced by the fossil fuel industry, Schendler says.  The things those living in places like Sun Valley and Aspen hold most dearly, such as tall mountains and clean, clear rivers, are threatened by climate change. And that impacts our joy and the simple act of thriving.

Schendler offers a prescription for change in his book, calling the inhabitants of Planet Earth to a new environmentalism. We need to tap into a people-led revolution to change political systems and prompt corporations to drive big-scale change, he said.

An example might be changing the board of members of the local utility company so they go to 100 percent clean power.

“Why do we say we love our communities, our world, then do next to nothing to take care of them?” he asks.