| ON FIRE The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal Naomi Klein New York: Simon & Schuster, September 2019 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-9821-2991-0 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-9821-2991-3 | 309pp. | HC | $27.00 | |
The Introduction to Naomi Klein's 2019 book pays credit to the youth movement sparked by Greta Thunberg in August 2018 when, recovered from the despair that learning what climate change meant had plunged her into, she began her Skolstrejk för Klimatet (school strike for climate) by spending every Friday sitting outside the Swedish parliament in protest. By March 2019 students all over the world had joined her strike, and she soon earned the right to tell world leaders where to get off. But note: her message, though sometimes angry, was to implore them to get on: to get with the program; to act as if their promises mean something.
But Greta, for all her courage, was not the first young woman to deliver this message. Others preceded her by at least a decade, and still others were active locally when Greta "went viral" and drew them together. Naomi Klein covers this well in her Introduction, telling of a British climate strike manifesto that announced, "Greta Thunberg may have been the spark, but we're the wildfire."
This book is not solely about climate change. It is a collection of Naomi Klein's prior works. It contains transcripts of several addresses she gave, and includes (among other topics):
Naomi Klein, a systems thinker, understands that these phenomena reinforce each other: poverty enables disenfranchisement facilitates racism expedites sacrifice zones greases the wheels of fossil-fuel extraction. Very often these problems flow together from our news outlets, and sometimes the confluence can be overwhelming. In September 2017, she began a grateful address to the UK Labour Party Conference thus:
It's been such a privilege to be part of this historic convention. To feel its energy and optimism. Because, friends, it's bleak out there. How do I begin to describe a world upside down? From heads of state tweeting threats of nuclear annihilation, to whole regions rocked by climate chaos, to thousands of migrants drowning off the coasts of Europe, to openly racist parties gaining ground, most recently and alarmingly in Germany—most days there is simply too much to take in. So, I want to start with an example that might seem small against such a vast backdrop. The Caribbean and southern United States are in the midst of an unprecedented hurricane season: pounded by storm after record-breaking storm. As we meet, Puerto Rico—hit by Irma, then Maria—is without power and could be for months. Its water and communications systems are also severely compromised. Three and a half million US citizens on that island are in desperate need of their government's help. But just like during Hurricane Katrina, the cavalry is missing in action. Donald Trump is too busy trying to get black athletes fired, smearing them for daring to shine a spotlight on racist violence. As if all this weren't enough, the vultures are now buzzing. The business press is filled with articles about how the only way for Puerto Rico to get the lights back on is to sell off its electricity utility. Maybe its roads and bridges too. This is a phenomenon I have called the shock doctrine, the exploitation of wrenching crises to smuggle through policies that devour the public sphere and further enrich a small elite. We see this dismal cycle repeat again and again. We saw it after the 2008 financial crash. We are already seeing it in how the Tories are planning to exploit Brexit to push through disastrous pro-corporate trade deals without debate. The reason I am highlighting Puerto Rico is because the situation is so urgent. But also because it's a microcosm of a much larger global crisis, one that contains many of the same overlapping elements: accelerating climate chaos; militarism; histories of colonialism; a weak and neglected public sphere; a totally dysfunctional democracy. And overlaying it all: the seemingly bottomless capacity to discount the lives of huge numbers of black and brown people. Ours is an age in which it is impossible to pry one crisis apart from all the others. They have all merged, reinforcing and deepening one another like one shambling, multiheaded beast. I think it's helpful to think of the current US president in much the same way. – Pages 234-5 |
She devotes another paragraph to further dissing The Former Guy. I see no reason to include that now that he is, at long last, former. But this passage gives us a glimpse into Naomi Klein's heart. I think that is worthwhile.1 She goes on to point out that crises can also be transformative in good ways, prompting those affected to unleash the better angels of their natures. She shows us that her outlook is at bottom hopeful.
Everything Naomi Klein writes is worth reading. This book is no exception. However, it is not focused into a coherent whole, as her previous books are. Think of it rather as a collection of essays that bear on one or another aspect of the problem: sea-level rise; pine-beetle infestations; clean-energy jobs; extreme rainfall and flooding; wildfires; energy efficiency and CAFE standards; nuclear power; political revolution; the Vatican; Edward Said. A multifaceted problem must be attacked in multiple ways; a worldwide problem requires international communication and cooperation, or individual nations will be spinning their wheels. Above all, solving this problem requires confidence that it can be solved. As in her previous works, and throughout this one, Naomi Klein shows us why that can be true — if only we will it so. I give this book top marks and rate it a keeper.
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