Chaucer’s Bookstore, will host local author David Obst for a book talk and signing of “Saving Ourselves From Big Car,” 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18 at 3321 State St.

In the story, cars are killing people and making the planet uninhabitable. Crashes take the lives of more than a million people around the world each year.

Air pollution linked to motor vehicles contributes to even more untimely deaths. Highways and unsafe streets have devastated cities, yet traffic congestion still swallows up countless hours.

And carbon emissions from transportation are a key driver of climate change, which now threatens to make the world unlivable.

Why do we still worship at the altar of the car, and how can we find alternatives that are healthier for the planet and ourselves the book asks.

Obst ‘s book exposes how “Big Car” — the complex of companies in the automobile, oil, insurance, media, and concrete industries that promote and entrench car dependence — has pursued profit at the expense of the common good, Chaucer’s said.

Obst explores how “Big Car” gained almost immeasurable influence over our lives, weighing the benefits and the costs of reliance on private automobiles. He details how industry covered up the harms of lead additives, fought against seatbelts, and continues to fund climate-change denialism, Chaucer’s said.

Obst considers the future of mobility, surveying how cities worldwide are experimenting with forms of transportation that offer alternatives to the dominance of cars.

“Provocative and comprehensive, ‘Saving Ourselves from Big Car’ is a powerful wake-up call for us to change how we use cars before it’s too late,” according to Chaucer’s.

Obst is a former journalist, publisher, screenwriter, and film producer. He worked as a literary agent for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, among others.

Obst is also the author of “Too Good to Be Forgotten: Changing America in the ’60s and ’70s” (1998).