The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World

by Ajay Singh Chaudhary

Marrying the scientific and political sides of the climate crisis issue, this is a hopeful call to arms about how we can overcome climate change.

This world is exhausted — capitalism extracts almost everything it can from the oceans, rivers, land and skies but also from so many of us, our lives, our worlds, even our minds. But exhaustion doesn't have to be a feeling of powerlessness and weariness in the face of a catastrophic climate change we feel we can do nothing to stop. Instead, it can be the foundation of a new climate politics fighting for a mass human and natural paradise still possible.


In The Exhausted of the Earth, Ajay Singh Chaudhary addresses both the science and politics of climate collapse head on. He shows why there is no "market-based" solution to climate collapse, and that in order halt the destruction of the environment, we instead need a bitter political struggle between those attached to the power, wealth, and security of "business-as-usual" and all of us — those exhausted , in every sense of the word, by the status quo.

Replacing Promethean, romantic and apocalyptic fairytales about climate change with a new story for every exhausted inhabitant of this exhausted world, The Exhausted of the Earth shows that overcoming climate collapse can be something far greater than mere survival – but only if it is grasped politically .

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Environment, Philosophy, History, Ecology, Climate Change

448 pages, Paperback

Published February 13, 2024

Reviews

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been sitting with this one for a minute, getting no closer to a satisfactory review, so here goes nothing.

Parts of this book were really interesting and nicely worded and overall I did think it was a good read. That being said, while this book is supposed to be for the general public there were quite a few segments that had me questioning which general public because the language used, and style certainly were very academic.

Fanon's name appears a total of 167 times in the book so at some points I wondered why I wasn't just reading Fanon but also like if you haven't read Fanon you might just find yourself a little lost.

I'm pretty much an all digital girlie when it comes to books, but I also like a chunky footnote and Chaudhary certainly seems to share my affection for them so in this case I would recommend reading the physical book instead of the digital edition unless you don't mind doing a lot of back and forth.

Many thanks to Repeater Books for providing me a digital review copy.

[Kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Exhausted of the Earth is a quicker read than i expected (largely due to having very extensive footnotes) and it really has 3 big chapters and 2 small chapters. the book is another salvo in the burgeoning left literature on the politics of the climate crisis. I picked it up because i knew it had a rather devastating critique of "Climate Lysenkoism" - the just-so story about the working class' purported preference for industrial production over environmentalism that has become common in Jacobin and its much worse right-wing spinoffs, Compact, Damage, and Unherd. As you might expect from the title, Chaudhary advocates a position informed by Frantz Fanon which he describes as "left wing climate realism." It is a bit refreshing, if at times a bit speculative, because Chaudhary is willing to admit that the political situation is pretty terrible and thus will require some compromises that we won't like. it also fulfills one of the most blatant absences in Andreas Malm's work - namely, thinking about the composition of "the subject" of the "climate left," with some important sense of how desires and emotions might inform the construction of that subject. beyond just gelling with the argument, I also felt like Chaudhary's analysis actually has some unexpected charms. it is really imaginative at times, with some compelling sections on how architecture, design, and even fashion might be imagined as the conditions of the climate crisis and capitalist production are overcome. a good follow up to readers of Max Ajl's People's Green New Deal with more of an emphasis on political organizing and struggle.

[Sarah Jaffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find it fascinating that while I have been writing about grief my friends, comrades, and broader circle of political thinkers have also been circling the topic and its related concepts: disappointment (Sara Marcus) and exhaustion (this book and also Nica Siegel). This book is good stuff, both bracingly realistic and (despite everything) hopeful, in the sense that, as Mariame Kaba says, hope is a discipline. Or perhaps the old "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" line applies. Anyway, you want this book.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best book on climate politics I’ve read in recent years. Pirate the hell out of it.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many great lines, read it for Ajay’s class on The Politics of Climate Change with BISR. A beautiful melting pot of stories and disciplines. Some random quotes:

for many, **extractivisim** is **one of the only paths available** to material development along the circuit as it is, towards some hope of relief

All of these, in the understanding of contemporary law and neoclassical economics, are “services” provided for consumers.

→ **We should see these “services” instead as facilitating
the frenzy of these live**s, as shifting literal time and energy
*not* to these individual consumers, but rather to the needs of
an “always-on” capitalism, creating the very crises to which
these services respond.

GVCs (global value chains) function best — that is to say *fastest* and *most profitably* — when the network of small-and medium-sized enterprises as well as more informal “arms-length” arrangements are “governed” by a TNC.3

TNCs headquartered in and yet untethered to a national economy - weaken the political power of the end-user, eroding what remains of the “safety net” and social fabric

The “privatization of stress,” of stressors, is a method by which
an individual’s exhaustion can lower the cost of capitalism’s
apparent functioning

- **Davis, who genuinely engages in ecological research, argues for a “sustainable equality” driven by “public affluence,” displacing individual “consumption” and defined through “great urban parks, free museums, libraries and infinite possibilities for human interaction.”**
-

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's stuff in here that's mildly annoying -- Chaudhury arguably strawmans some of his 'climate Lysenkoist' targets (though I do love seeing Leigh Phillips get trashed) and tends to get bogged down in academic jargon. But, (even if begrudgingly at times) I basically agree with all his conclusions and above all appreciate the book's effort to dismantle the degrowth vs. ecomodernism deadlock. The nexus of 'political realism/feasibility' (for whom?), ecological boundaries, and what people (which people? where?) desire is a tangled knot and this book does a lot to pick it apart. I sort of doubt anyone will self-consciously adopt 'The Exhausted' as a political label but the phenomenon being gestured towards is compelling. Also interesting is the provocative framing of the climate struggle as being like the anti-colonial struggles of the 20th c. insofar as they partially(?) occupy an orthogonal dimension to the struggle against capital more broadly.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book!

The exhausted of the Earth attempts to use the idea of "exhaustion" to link ecological destruction and overwork under capitalism. Rather than traditional leftist, socialist, or Marxist perspectives that see the working class as the subject of history, the author believes that the subject of a contemporary climate politics is the "exhausted," which encompasses many diverse groups from slave labourers in the global south, to overworked tech employees in the global north, to surplus populations. Exhaustion can be used to forge solidarity between these groups who exist along (and are exhausted by) capitalism's "extractive circuit."

[Oscar Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not the cheeriest of reads

[Silje · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The respite, the relief, the abundance, the wild, radical possibilities of the sustainable global human ecological niche”, we read in this wonderful book. The potential of a SLOWER life, which can support all of us instead of “the cruel optimism” or “the armed lifeboat” of the people supporting business-as-usual and the continued extraction and exhaustion of both the majority of people and the natural resources of the planet. The potential for EXHAUSTION to create a politics that unites us across traditional groups, based on THE DESIRE FOR THINGS TO BE RADICALLY OTHERWISE. Aren’t you sick and tired of being sick and tired?

Even for me having read very little Marxist political analysis in my life and therefore don’t know many of the references from before, this book is so convincing in its argument. I salute the editor making sure almost 150 pages is taken out and put into endnotes - which I barely consulted! This exhaustion so many of us are feeling must make us seek new alliances, new spaces of care where solidarity can grow, and where we can gather around a “minor paradise” as Chaudhury puts it, of a life organization which is actually human and ecologically sustainable. Not “dynamic” and growth oriented, trying to mimic some form of endless patriarchal colonial capitalist growth like in the second half of the 20th century. We don’t want dynamism, speed, treadmills. We want stasis, stability, rest.

The book is placing a lot of emphasis on affect and desire, and a form of new aesthetics in the original sense of the word, meaning sense perception and the feeling they generate. It distances itself from the concept of utopia, because what we want is already here in many imperfect forms. We can talk more about these, take part in practicing sustainable agro-ecological food production, social and ecological house- and community building and many forms of local economic cooperation.

Also, what we fear is already here. Climate change does not negatively impact some prospective future generations. Already costs are being extracted from most people currently alive, while benefiting a rather small number immensely. “Paradoxically todays needs and today’s desires - at least those of the vast majority of people on Earth - are precisely what we need to fulfill to meet the fundamental technical needs of a sustainable global human ecological niche.”

I feel I need to write a whole article about this book to do it justice - and to reflect so much of my own experience of being burnt out and cut off from work while dreaming of other solidarities, other everyday aesthetics. Maybe I will do that. Maybe I will use this inspiration to finally go out there and write that book about the minor paradises there already are out there. I know a lot of you. And I know so many lovely friends who live alternative lifestyles, one without a permanent home, couples where one quit jobs to stay at home and build family and community, people who give space to create communities for us who are now disillusioned and searching. Five years ago some first steps were taken for a book. Maybe now is the time for both a book and using the last of my savings to actually commit to a community and speak my heart about exhaustion.

Conclusion to part four of Chaudhury’s book: “Now, isn’t it time to tell your story of exhaustion? Isn’t it time to pick a side? Aren’t you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Isn’t it time to fight fire with fire?” 🔥

[Parker Eisen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Exhausted of the Earth by Ajay Singh Chaudhary is a comprehensive analysis of a politics of exhaustion to create a left-wing climate realism. It is a beautifully written book that makes complex philosophical, political, and scientific topics easy to understand as Chaudhary analyzes what he calls the "extractive circuit" of capitalist production. Examining our composition through this lens is essential to seeing the North's interconnectedness to the South and vice versa when creating global climate politics. As he shows, we're all exhausted from the cobalt mines to the digital workers at home and everywhere in between. And while, these levels or reasons for exhaustion are not the same, they are a baseline for every living under capitalism.

I think his profession as a teacher shows throughout breaking down complex ideas into understandable concepts and building on ideas throughout the book.

His critique of current climate policies on the right and the left are brilliant takedowns of what will not work. Through a range of thinkers and radicals, the book leans on Fanon, Marx, Malm, Fisher, Berlant and more to develop their theories and critiques of capital into a leftist climate realism that has potentials far beyond just climate politics. Ultimately finding that we need "The Long Now" in order to achieve the most habitable Earth possible. Much of his brilliant analysis stems from the scientific fact that, unlike how many frame, climate change is not doomsday and its effects are not felt equally. This is a key aspect to come away with through this book.

[Rajiv Chopra · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book by Ajay Singh Chaudhary has a few core points.
1. Climate change will affect humanity, but not everyone equally. First, the Global South and the poor and powerless. Only when all hell breaks loose will it affect the neoliberal order.
2. Humanity is becoming increasingly exhausted by the twin effects of globalization, capitalism, and climate change. Also, the neoliberals continue to live in their bubble.
So far, so good.
From there, he danced between Marx, Fanton, and Walter Benjamin and did not draw straight lessons from their writing for the modern era.
There were sections on issues like farmer's suicide, for instance, but once he raised these topics, he danced off elsewhere.
I believe he missed a glorious opportunity to write a descriptive and prescriptive book.
The book is not meant for a general audience; maybe he meant it for an audience captivated by abstruse philosophical inquiry.

[David Goldman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jay Singh Chaudhary's book, "The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics of Burning World," does something that seemed impossible- provide a fresh perspective on climate change. Unlike other books that focus on data dumps, apocalyptic visions, or technological fantasies, Chaudhary, a critical theorist, uncovers the underlying connections between seemingly unrelated problems and provides space for exploring solutions. While the book is not easy, it is accessible to those unfamiliar with critical theory due to Chaudhary's chatty style and relative lack of jargon.


The heart of the argument beginning chapter one, "We're not in this together," is his explanation of Right-wing climate realism. Climate change is political, but it's "not the imaginary politics of universal consensus" nor the "anti-politics of miraculous technological salvation." It's also "not the end of the world." Instead, it's a struggle between "actually existing people over existing crises with existing differences, interests, and prospects. Climate change is about power. The wealthiest capitalists have bet their brand of extraction capitalism based on taking from the economy, not growing it. Combine stockpiling of resources, privatizing security and other services, keeping out immigrants (we don't want to take care of too many people), and promoting neofudalism democracy gives rise to a situation where many, many people would die, and many more would suffer, but a few would be just fine. Thus, Chaudhary reveals how the "extractive circuit of capitalism connects political phenomena that seem separate.

One of the book's strengths is the connection between the exhaustive use of environmental resources and people's exhaustion worldwide. The exhaustive circuit of eco-modernism creates both an exhausted earth and exhausted people. Chaudhary suggests that rather than focusing on technological solutions that won't work or dreaming of revolutions, we should concentrate on solutions that can work with existing technology. These solutions require getting off the extractive circuit and living differently than we do now. This is not a marginal solution but relieves us from the exhaustion caused by constant extraction.

[Kayhell · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

It’s a wordy but clearly well-intentioned and passionate book. Requires a slow reading to digest properly. The concept of “climate lysenkoism” (nostalgic & mystical view of the history, material realities and science, full of conservative turns as well as minimization of potential radicalism. in their eyes absolute decoupling of economy and carbon/climate issues must be possible lol while staying in planetary boundaries; reliant on miracle technologies) was very interesting. The entirety of the argument of exhaustion along the extractive circuit - both resource and social aspects considered - also spoke to me. The parts involving affect theory - in which i am still simply a novice - may be partially lost on me albeit intriguing to read about. Overall, lots to chew on and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The writing style does lean academic but not towards waffling. In terms of nonfiction on climate & related politics, it’s a new favourite

[Bambue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excessively complex language

The introduction made me think this was intended for lay people, but it fails to be accessible. The author regularly uses em dashes, commas, and other structures to create incredibly long sentences. They also regularly quote people and reports without giving a proper introduction, and only those who are already familiar will be able to understand. There was one section quoting a report I have read, and the quotes and framing chosen felt disingenuous to the content of the report.

I am left unsure about the ideas in the book as I was not able to understand many without undue effort and I have a lack of trust that they are citing sources responsibly.

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Spend any time online, and you’ll form the impression that we’re all exhausted. That’s the premise of this book: that we’re all exhausted by capitalism. These days, you can’t talk about capitalism without talking about the climate crisis, how the one has led to the other. Chaudhary begins not with a broad criticism of capitalism, though, but with what he calls right-wing climate realism and the “Rex (Tillerson) Position”. Rex Tillerson is “not a climate denier per se,” but thinks there are engineering solutions to the climate crisis; yet he feels no urgency to switch to renewables. People who take this position want to continue with business as usual—capitalism as it’s operated since the 1970s.

Full review: https://shonareads.wordpress.com/2024...

[Michael Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the note on methodology at the end suggesting this book is for a general audience, it is often too abstruse and coins too many neologisms to fit that bill.

That said, I found myself highlighting large texts and reading up on the sources. So many of the sections on resilience and work were resonant.

It was a slog to get through, but a daring project such as this published by a small outfit deserves grace.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of important arguments for a consequent and holistic left-wing climate politics. The critique of Climate Lysenkoism is uncompromising and important. The final chapter lost me somewhat, but I hope to return to it with more of ASC's reference points to get a better grasp. Perhaps that's what I'm missing to consider this a 5/5.

[Karin Eckhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was ok, at times I found that it read like a PhD thesis.