As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial

by Derrick Jensen, Stephanie McMillan

Two of America's most talented activists team up to deliver a bold and hilarious satire of modern environmental policy in this fully illustrated graphic novel. The U.S. government gives robot machines from space permission to eat the earth in exchange for bricks of gold. A one-eyed bunny rescues his friends from a corporate animal-testing laboratory. And two little girls figure out the secret to saving the world from both of its enemies (and it isn't by using energy-efficient light bulbs or biodiesel fuel). As the World Burns will inspire you to do whatever it takes to stop ecocide before it’s too late.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Politics, Nonfiction, Environment, Philosophy, Nature

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 6, 2007

About the author

Derrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. He has published several books questioning and critiquing contemporary society and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S. in Mineral Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. He has also taught creative writing at Pelican Bay State Prison and Eastern Washington University.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the World Burns: 50 Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial makes the basic point that while a lot of well-meaning liberals (like me) making personal environmentally-better choices is a good ethical direction for them and everyone to take, they should not be confident that anything but a complete cessation of the burning of fossil fuels and putting a monkey wrench (cf. Edward Abbey) in rage against the short-sighted capitalist machine will have any effect on saving the planet. In other words, individuals doing what they can in the last 25 years have done basically nothing to reverse the course of total environmental planetary collapse (and yes, I am also reading The Uninhabitable Planet, which kinda makes the same points, as do Bill McKibben and a host of others).

So, yeah, I do bike instead of buying a second car, I do use organic hair shampoo and recycle religiously, but I am not naïve about it. I do it because it is the right thing to do, but I know I am not doing enough to rage against the capitalist machine. Among the strengths of this book include a streak of black humor running through the book--and aliens, to I guess weird the book up a bit, for some reason, and well, Jensen is right and smart.

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018...

[jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

i wish that someone had handed this to me when i was a 19-year-old environmental science major. i was sick and tired of developing recycling programs for schools, talking about the implications of pollution of global fashion, the World Bank's latest irrigation project, and discussing how long it really takes for compact fluorescent bulbs to burn out. and then there is this, satirical comics and hilarious illustrations that are simple enough to let the dry wit shine.

the plot is funny enough. robot aliens come to Earth. they shit out blocks of gold, and trade them to the US president for the rights and permits to eat the Earth. other countries complain. citizens complain. environmentalists sign petitions. dissenters are arrested. ultimately, the plants and animals of the world unite to fight the robots.

we're talking now about resource allocation, government, dissent, bureaucracy, compliance, and what is actually the solution to global warming? these days, i am even more dissatisfied with the Greenwashing of our world, our malls and marketplaces and supermarkets awash with psuedo 'green' products that pacify our believe that we should do something -- without actually requiring us to solve the problem! shop your way to a cleaner planet... yeah, okay, guys.

at the end of the day, we are complicit in the shitty things that are happening. you and me, we go to work and school and the grocery store knowing that there are dams and pesticides and herbicides and vivisection labs and coal burning power plants, and we don't burn them down or blow them up. we wake up every day, and accept that they exist, and this complacency is what keeps them around.

see, this is why i had to get out of environmental science. it depresses me a lot, and also makes me reconsider a career in ecoterrorism. or at least, eco-nagging or eco-harrassment or eco-whining, since i don't want to be on a terrorist watch list or anything. but i like this book, i really do, and i think that if you still live in a world where recycling your soda cans makes a difference, this is a great book for you.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self-righteous doesn't even really scratch the surface. At first I thought I was going to love this b/c it opened with talking about how futile recycling is, and how it accomplishes basically nothing other than making people feel good about themselves, which is so true, cuz omg I fucking hate recycling. But it quickly becomes apparent that the nutbags who wrote this book are just WAY more extreme.. like the environmentalist version of PETA. What's it called, EarthFirst? Like those people. Their manifesto (which is presented in the most obnoxious, unsubtle metaphors possible) is that they basically want to destroy all systems. They are like.. ALL corporations are evil and the government just cares about obtaining wealth even at the cost of life and we are destroying the planet. Which.. okay, maybe. But.. what do you suggest we do about it? Smugly complain in a graphic novel? Which is printed on PAPER, you know, and since you are against all industries and basically want people to sit in trees or whatever, makes you massive fucking hypocrites. Book publishing INDUSTRY. You obnoxious fuckers. Also.. in the about me author thing on the back one of the authors says he is a "philosopher". that alone is just so dickish, I don't even KNOW.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

شاید با طراحیش مشکل داشتم ولی حرف های خوبی میزد و خیلی هم مستقیم میگفت.
مرداد ۱۴۰۴

[Jenn "JR" · Rating 5 out of 5]

Derrick Jensen always writes about the atrocities of humanity in such an unflinching way - his books tend to be quite long and devastating to read: endless catalogues of the trauma and destruction of humanity against other humans, non-human animals and the environment. His books are important and truly a lot of work goes into them as both writer and reader.

I came across his 2007 graphic novel -- slightly less verbose than his books -- with a dry, critical sense of humor, satirizing and skewering politicians, capitalists and the brain-washed zombie hordes of consumers.



This graphic novel is offers some solutions for living in balance with the other animals on the planet -- and some compelling protagonists, including two children/teenagers, wild animals and some one-eyed bunnies who lead a revolution against vivisection and destruction of the environment.

Highly recommended reading for Unthanksgiving!

[Chezzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of people wouldn't give this book a chance because of how radical it is. They would automatically stop listening because they don't want to accept that we have a problem -- a major problem. Their response is, "Ridiculous! None of this happpens in our great country of America!" When what's being said in this graphic novel is all true. So true. All of it. I have to admit that I did raise my eyebrows at battling rabbits and tenderhearted bears, and that the narration came off as haughty at times (I find this understandable), but the message is still there.

People don't want to have to change. It's easier to ignore the fact that our country's obsession is money -- gold -- and that it's causing us to destroy our planet. There are very few Americans who have a lifestyle that isn't based around making money, spending money on shit we don't need, worrying that we don't have enough of it, and then passing this mentality on to the next generation. Destroying forests, bodies of water, the earth. Blocking nature. What kind of cruddy world is this we've created?

The graphic novel style is interesting and more friendly to someone not interested enough in this stuff to pick up a full-length book. It took me three hours to read.

I highly recommended this to anyone who will keep their minds open.

[Sadie · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I agree that the problem is bigger than everyone just taking shorter showers, I fail to see how one book (created from chopping down trees AND in a factory AND shipped by gasoline belching trucks to the stores) that's self-righteous, sarcastic, has no offered solutions beyond beating down hippies and burning down factories is going to help either.

I think the book is as narrow minded as the people they despise. Blech.

Also, a quick search of Medline reveals that the link between aluminum and alzheimer's is tenuous at best. Yet, here they are parading it out to make a point, all while trashing the "shaky" science of conservation. Seems a little hypocritical to me.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so fun to read! It reinforced everything I think about the Earth's current situation. Those two girls, the one who tries to save the world by recycling and the one who debunks all those "52 things you can do to save the world" lists - that's my partner and me. I am the debunker, but still, without denial, prospects seem bleak, so I do use it. But at least I know what it is.

I didn't know what was coming in the book, and it was also fun to see it unfold, so no spoilers here. Except, the only solution the authors came up with is not feasible (or maybe, when it gets worse?). So I still don't know what to do except to buy eco-friendly light bulbs and keep my car tires up to pressure.

Also, I want to believe the facts in the book, but aluminum doesn't cause Alzheimers (the book says it does on page 2) and I think there was at least one more easily debunkable item. I am in denial that the authors could be wrong with their other facts, though.

The meditator, the psychiatrist, the militant bunnies, the president, the legislator, the corporate schill, hilarious! And the cute little baby bear. And the nonprofit board members concerned with image and fundraising - the do-gooders don't come off well. Really it's a very dark book, but so lightly presented.

Oh yeah, and there's an alien invasion. This book has it all.

[Evren Bay · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Herkesin en az bir kez okuması gereken kitaplar"da bu ay :)

Radikal çevreci Derrick Jensen ve anti-kapitalist sanatçı Stephanie McMillan tarafından yazılıp çizilmiş, oldukça sarsıcı, satirik bir çizgi roman. Çevreciliğin nasıl pazarlandığı öyle güzel anlatılmış ki kendini çevreci olarak addedenlerin bile duvara toslamaması imkansız.

Dünyayı bu derece sömüren kurumlar, şirketler, devletler yokmuş gibi bireye indirgenen çözüm önerileri, kendimizi iyi hissetmek için uydurulan (tırnak içinde) ‘çevreci’ tavsiyeler ne yazık ki dünyayı nihai sona hızla yaklaştırmaktan alıkoymuyor.

“Hep su krizinde çözümün daha kısa duşlar almak olduğunu duyuyoruz. Ama genelde söylenmeyen şey insanların kullandığı suyun yüzde 90’ının aslında insanlar değil tarım ve sanayi için kullanıldığı. Yani halklar yeterince suları olmadığından değil, suları madencilik ve fabrikalar, şişe su ve içecekler, pazara yönelik tarım ve hayvan çiftliklerinde kullanılmak üzere çalındığı için ölüyorlar."

Tasarruflu ampul kullanarak, geri dönüşüm yaparak ya da daha kısa duşlar alarak kendi kendimizi kandırmaktan başka hiçbir şey yapmıyoruz. Kendimizi kandırmayı başaramayıp, aslında sistem yüzünden kaynaklanan sorunlar karşısında güçsüz düştüğümüzde de sorun yine bireye indirgeniyor. Psikologlar ve kişisel gelişim guruları tarafından nefes, yoga & meditasyon gibi şeylerle sakinleşmemiz, anda kalmamız, anı yaşamamız, yani bu kültürün gezegeni öldürdüğü gerçeğine gözümüzü kapatmamız teşvik ediliyor.

- Nesli tükenen kurbağa türleri ve artık yerinde olmayan buz kütlelerine ulaşmak için okyanusta yüzmek zorunda kalan kutup ayılarına,
- Sivil olsun asker olsun, savaşta ölen sayısız insana ve onların parçalanmış ailelerine,
- Devlet tarafından yasaya uygun şekilde işkenceye uğratılan ve kaçırılıp kaybedilen insanlara,
- Ölümüne çalışan ama yine de ailelerini besleyemeyen ya da sağlık güvencesi sağlayamayan insanların durumuna,
- Sırf insanlar satın alsın diye üretilen şeyler için yapılan deneylerde hayvanların diri diri kesilip biçilmesine,
- Okyanusta endüstriyel ekonomi faaliyetlerinden kaynaklanan iki yüz tane ölü bölge bulunduğuna,
- Kanserin temel nedeninin çevreye saçılan zehirler olduğu gerçeğine, …

yani gezegenin aç gözlü şirketler tarafından yok ediliyor olmasına gözümüzü kapamamız ve anı (!) yaşamamız isteniyor. Kişisel gelişim sektörü tarafından sürekli üretilen yeni yeni tekniklerle, anı yaşayamadığımızda, alternatif olarak sigara, içki, kumar, son moda beslenme trendleri, televizyon, bilgisayar oyunları, tablet, sosyal medya, yetmediği yerde anti-depresanlar ile uyuşmamız ve dünyada olup biten şeylere gözümüzü kapamamız da diğer seçenekler arasında tabii.

Bizi; çaresiz olduğumuza, insanların hiçbir şeyi değiştiremeyeceğine, bu kültürün deniz kaplumbağaları ve diğer her şeyi öldürmesine engel olamayacağımıza inandırmak için ellerinden gelen her şeyi yapıyorlar.

Neyse ki Derrick Jensen gibi gerçekten dünyayı düşünen, bu konuda mücadele eden insanlar da var. Bu çizgi romanda tabii ki bizi çözüme götürmüyor fakat gerçek sorunlar konusunda farkındalık kazanmamızı sağlıyor ve gerçek çözüm için içimize, çocukluğumuza, çekirdek ailemize değil de dünyaya ve topluma dönmemiz gerektiğini çok güzel bir şekilde anlatıyor. Bu kitabı herkese mutlaka tavsiye ediyorum.

[Filip Boberić · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I found this graphic novel about capitalists and politicians screwing up the planet, mostly clueless humans, alien robots eating everything and shitting gold and animals ready to fight tooth and nail for freedom, I knew it must be good (at least), even though there were so many negative reviews. Actually, I made the assumption about the book thanks to those reviewers who had been angry just because it mocks toxic liberal bourgeois pacifism and advocates the use of diverse violent means against the oppressive structures while allegedly offering no viable solution. "We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution." Subcomandante Marcos

It may be true that no precisely planned solution is provided, but this is not some 1000-page science book. Its main purpose is to be fun, bash mainstream environmentalism and present the basics of radical environmentalism (basically green anarchism). Not every anarchist book can (and should) provide cures for certain problems we're all facing, especially concerning too complex environmental problems. I mean, there are so many books (both anarchist and non-anarchist) out there with aim to scientifically present diverse environmental issues and some concrete solutions to them.

Overall, the book is quite good, just as I expected. The point is more than clear, we can try as hard as possible to make our lives green by buying energy-efficient light bulbs, recycling, composting, taking shorter showers, being vegetarian/vegan, and so on, but capitalism will never be sustainable. Our individual efforts have little-to-no positive impact on the environment, for corporations and governments are responsible for the most damage done to our planet. Jensen doesn't say that green lifestyle is inherently wrong or that we shouldn't care about our individual actions, but it's not enough and everyone who thinks it can bring some significant change is quite deluded because there is still the destructive system which will not simply wither away. Therefore, the answer isn't to buy some "efficient" things from the same institutions that have brought us here in the first place, but to abolish the state, capitalism and other oppressive structures altogether. No environmental NGO can save us because they are just an instrument for pacifying the enslaved and enraged by embracing the use of only non-violent and lawful (and usually reactionary) methods (e.g., petitions, letters, green consumerism, cooperation with politicians and capitalists...) and opposing the ones who use any kind of violence in order to liberate themselves.

Though I have generally enjoyed reading As the World Burns, I cannot say that it is perfect. The story is crazy and interesting (I mean, all those bunnies and other rad animals fighting vivisection, exploitation and alien robots who were given the permit to devour the planet...), and drawings by Stephanie McMillan are nice, but I've hardly learnt anything new, since it's basically written for complete beginners. Also, I'm not fond of anprim obsession with hunter-gatherers.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Graphic Novel by Stephanie McMillan (Minimum Security) and Derrick Jensen is great to read aloud and view with a good friend.

Alien Robots come to earth, shit gold, give said shit to the President of the US in exchange for written permission to eat every tree, fish, mountain, etc. (except 12 trees, 7 fish, etc.). The two protagonists argue the finer points of eco-friendly corporate cooptation, Social activists hand over power to power all too easily, and the wild revolts, bloodily.

It's funny in that "if I didn't laugh I would cry" kind of way. I guess efficient light-bulbs and "eco-friendly" cars really aren't all that helpful. The book takes on those remedies found in that Al Gore movie and tells the reader what that is really all about. I found that one of the important messages was that the average person should stop feeling guilty and rather concentrate on dismantling the machines. That is not to say that the authors are saying the individual shouldn't reduce their consumption to save the planet.

Long live Bunnista, the dynamite carrying rabbit that escaped from a cosmetics testing lab where one of his eyes was destroyed.

[Damien · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book, so full of promise and hype, was really stupid. It almost could've been cute, if you try to think of it as total camp, what with the posi hippy girl constantly being emotionally pulverized by the gothy type girl. Alien robots that shit gold is also kind of funny, including an army of wild forest creatures fighting back. Yeah, it is true that recycling is not going to "save the planet", nor is full spectrum light bulbs, but unfortunately neither is Derrick Jensen or his literary fans. This book is like some one laughing at you for stepping in dogshit, and for some reason you think it's funny, too.

[Marisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, Katigreen. I thought this book was silly. I asked the crows and the trees if they wanted to engage in armed battle against corporations with me and they said "No." Furthermore, I don't think that "civilization" is inherently evil, and the world doesn't have room for 6 billion hunter-gatherers. I do agree that compact florescent light bulbs will not save the world.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required reading by every high schooler and talked about in class. This is a graphic novel Derrick wrote with Stephanie McMillan’s delightful illustrations about today’s new agers in different vignettes wanting to achieve inner peace more than fight to save the planet being killed by Civilization. For Derrick’s two main dialog characters – think Betty and Veronica - if Betty was calm, centrist, and ever hopeful about tech solutions to all future problems, while Veronica is a dark cynical realist asking delightfully deep questions and requiring hard evidence.

This book is filled with unforgettable characters – the bearded man blissfully cross-legged meditating on a fresh tree stump surrounded by clear cut – animals lamenting how humans used to talk with them rather than consume them. Businessmen and aliens excited about turning all still living things into profit. This culture wants us to feel helpless, yet this book is about how rejecting the dominant Taker/Wetiko culture (western civilization) is the only way to avoid extinction. Derrick even shows how therapists often work to get patients inured to the very system causing them stress, rather than helping them to focus on abolishing or changing that system of oppression. Police say they arrest only those who are a threat to society, yet polluters, CEO’s, neoliberals, bipartisan warmongers, and weapons manufacturers will never be on their bad list. “You have the right to remain silent” – and the right to stay silent and remain inactive. At the end of the book, a bunch of animals come out of hiding and say what needs to happen from their (and the dying planet’s) perspective. “Betty” gets upset because she will lose air conditioning and Beethoven if western civilization crashes. “Betty” learns that humans lived most of their history outside of civilization pre-agriculture. She learns how humans separated themselves from all living things in order to better commodify and kill them over the centuries without considering the long-term ecocidal result. But since the birth of agriculture, Western Civilization has been at war with the planet; if aliens did to our planet what it alone did, the people would nobly rise up against them (like in the movies), but instead the enemy is both human and is Civilization itself. In this wonderful book for kids, the natural world and the animals are rooting for humans to come to their senses and regain their long-lost connection to the planet and to all living things before it’s too late (implied collapse and extinction).

Along with Noam Chomsky, Derrick has long been one of my favorite writers. During COVID, I’ve begun rereading everything Derrick wrote and am about to review eight more of his anti-civilization books. If you have kids, this is THE first anti-civ book to get them. For me, the best in depth Derrick book to start with is “The Culture of Make Believe” but anything by him is better than never reading Derrick. Some call him the world’s top living eco-philosopher; I agree. Everything Derrick does is five stars because he gives every subject his all; few humans have devoted their lives to unflinchingly examining the darkest aspects of western civilization. For most of us, reading such painful stories as the last hours of the lives of Jesse Washington and Sam Hose, or studying in depth animal testing history is just too damned painful, but in Derrick’s kind and loving hands, we all can do it. Taking the Derrick Matrix red pill means not turning back and not backing off in order the understand the full horror of man forever turning his back on tribalism and living lightly on the land, as “pre-state” man did for so long before. Daniel Quinn’s brilliance is in teaching a critical outlook towards western civilization to the majority without scaring some readers off with actual unvarnished stories of civilization violence. Derrick’s brilliance in his books, is in knowing that you can’t do a critique of western civilization for future resistance leaders without looking at the nastiest stuff throughout the system in depth and not protecting the reader from the highly uncomfortable. Shattering a westerner’s many lifelong harmful preconceptions of Civilization requires the act of not just cracking, but breaking, and Derrick has long been the best guide for that truth that I’ve found.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very bleak, but also very funny. This amazing book comes from the blackest of black humor. The world is doomed, the environment is collapsing, aliens are destroying it and doing a better job of it than humanity has been doing. Most of the simple, easy things people think they need to do to help save the earth are ineffective at best. How can this all be stopped? Jensen takes an unpalatable message and manages to sneak it through by engaging the reader's sense of humor. I suspect he's got the figures to back up his position, though nothing is actually cited in a bibliography or anything. Anyway, an excellent, excellent graphic novel that will make you laugh but will also make you think. More people should read this.

[Anina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a scary and informative* comic about how you are totally going to die from global warming no matter what any one does. Which is a theory I do subscribe to but I just realized I never ever want to read about again.

*possible punk rock propaganda, small press & not sure where they are getting their statistics, of which there are many and not a single cited source

[Nusfaq Mahmood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is hilarious as well as a brutal reality check.

[Dave Peiser · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to push myself to get through to the end, possibly because I am aware of many of the points made in this graphic novel. I also don't think graphic novels are my thing, but if you do, it would be worthwhile to read this one.

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t disagree with the points they’re trying to make, just find it a bit too sarcastic and depressing for my current state of mind.

[Vineeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this book.

Funny as hell.
While some reviewers (and the back of the book) see the book as a wake-up call that'll inspire readers to stop ecocide, I got a different message from the book.
The take home message that I got was that we are all fucked.
I remember watching the Inconvenient Truth in middle school and being to "shut up" and "stop being rude" because I was being critical about the suggestions presented in the movie. I was saying it wasn't enough.(DANO GAVE ALL OF US EXTRA MATH HOMEWORK BECAUSE OF SOMETHING I SAID. And you know how much kids in grade seven like math. Jen I'm sure you remember this. Way 2 isolate Vineeth ms. dano.) Anyway, this book made me feel like I'm not so alone.
It's difficult to address these issues in public the way that Jensen and McMillan do because a critical view of the matters at hand, which acknowledge the dire environmental situation and our entirely careless way of dealing with it, isn't a popular one to uphold. People are defensive and I get that. But the problem at hand is much larger than lowering your thermostat on energy saving bulbs!
Yo, it's the truth, things are only getting worse despite increasing awareness about environment issues because convenience in the present takes precedence over everything. Convenience is our god and denial is a tool to serve that end. And this book addresses that mentality along with a lot of other issues.

"It might not be nice, but I'm not going to lie to myself or to you, give you false hopes and busywork just to make you feel better." -pg 144. No bullshit, this books keeps it real.

<3

A MUST READ.

Please read Scott's review. It's somewhere here.

(To me the ecoterrorism in the book isn't something the creators actually condone. I didn't interpret it that way. Would advise anyone reading this book to not view this book as a hardcore manifesto, but rather as a funny/sad graphic novel that serves as an analogy for how we worship convenience and legitimize ecocide.)

CORP:"We get convenience. We get power. We get money. We get gold."
ALN1:"Don't you love these people? They trade their planet for a bunch of crap."
ALN2:"Literally, in this case."

<3

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was funny and entertaining, but I couldn't help but be disturbed by the ideas presented. Don't get me wrong, I'm big on environmentalism. I'm at least 60% hippy. But the author is a tad extreme for me. Not only does he explicitly condone eco-terrorism, but he is guilty of many of the things he seems to condemn the "evil corporations" of, such as manipulation for one.
Let's get one things straight here folks: corporations are not by definition evil. Sure, there are some, actually many, bad ones. But shit like this is the kind of claim that people make right after saying the man is keeping them down, if you conform you're always a slave, and capitalism is the devils work. They don't know why they say it, but they feel damn superior when they do.
And thus ends the tangent....
The author promotes fear of a situation that, while it may not be overcome, can still be fought. He offers absolutely no solutions other than "kill em all" and "go back" to being at one with the land. (because its just that easy kids! you know the author doesn't take any part in the society that produces things like paper products or ships those products using oil....oh wait)
Umm...I want to say more and not leave this summary so shitty but I'm lazy. Overall the book is incredibly naive, depressingly pessimistic, and is almost disturbing in the only solution it does offer. However, since it is funny and it is a graphic novel, maybe I'm just taking it too seriously. But I suggest you take it with a grain of salt. Hell, two grains.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This graphic novel connects the capitalist machine to ecological destruction, which I do think needs to be done in engaging ways for readers. It's a bit short on posing solutions though. It diagnoses the problem but doesn't truly offer a way forward. In that way, it's both helpful and frustrating.

Some thoughts a week later...

Okay, so initially I wrote that the book doesn't offer a way forward. But maybe it does. And maybe that solution is just too drastic for people (including myself, admittedly a leftist) to see it as a solution. At the end, the "wild" comes alive and they dismantle the robots, and then some of the characters and the wild imply that the system is next.

At first, I thought that maybe this was just a narrative ploy to end a book that doesn't really have a typical narrative. I'm realizing, though, that that attack on the system is in fact the solution. The point of the back, after all, is that our personal attempts to save the environment are nice, but to affect true chance, we need to change industry and government and how those systems are arranged so as to maximize profit. The ending of the book, the taking down of the system, may very well be the solution. I just wonder if it's a solution many are willing to confront -- myself included. Things to wonder...

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little graphic novel version of Derrick Jensen's basic points: The world is being destroyed by industrial civiliation, which has built up, madly, systems to expidite that destruction. There are some aliens, in a sort of ... satire I guess, or maybe just an additional lens through which to view the situation... I guess the aliens are a metaphor. Anyway. The basics will be familar in detail to those who are familiar with Jensen and in broad scope to those who are paying attention. Nothing actually new comes up, but it is an entertaining read that comes to a rousing finale that, I admit, brought a tear or two to my eyes.

As a side note. I went to see Derrick Jensen speak later in the same day on which I finished this book. His writing style, I must say, at least as I'm familiar with it from his first book, works better in person than it does in text. I'm going to delve into The Culture Of Make Believe next I think... wish me luck.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had me laughing out loud at certain spots, rolling my eyes at others, and being served up some serious challenges the whole way through. Granted, it's not as heartfelt and thorough as Derrick Jensen's other work, but the pairing of his overstated allegory about alien robots who eat the Earth and poop out gold bullion is better told with Stephanie McMillan's haphazard comics than without. It's also way more digestible than some of Jensen's heftier tomes. A good one to read and then pass on to a friend or relative.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such promise, for what it was: Ohm-ing changes nothing but your insides, which are small comparatively. "We will go quietly, meekly, to the end of the world if only you will allow us to believe that buying low energy light bulbs will save us."
All this excoriation of denial to devolve into a Noah's Ark, Noble Savage, animist fantasy in which all the animals and rocks and wind and shit tell the humans how to live, and then join forces with them to kill the earth-eating aliens. You'd think a graphic novel against denial would refrain from sanctimonious, talking rocks. Oh well.

[Larry-bob Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this from the AK Press table at SF Zine Fest. It seemed like it was pushing my buttons a bit with its criticisms of liberal environmentalist half-measures, so I thought I'd check it out. As other reviewers have pointed out, its solutions aren't really any more practical. The dialogues come off more like straw-man arguments. Still, it was somewhat through-provoking. But if these folks can't even take over the town of Eugene, Oregon, I don't really see how they're going to move beyond a vanguard to forment a global revolution.

[Ashleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yessss. Buy this for all your friends who tend toward sadness when things are going well for them, sadness because they know that things aren't going well for most of the world, most especially the environment, and they feel guilty they aren't doing more to help. Guilty, and angry, and pissed off, and maybe a little mad. This book won't make them feel better, but for a short time they will laugh and fell understood by at least one other person.

Why do you hate violence that frees the victims of greater violence, even more than the original violence?

[Emilia P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suprisingly, I kind of loved this book.
Basically, it was about the capitalist industrial complex and how hard core it sucks and how we should probably live with a whole lot less.

In comic book form! Actually pretty funny.

I am both embarrassed and pleased by how easy it is for me to agree with such a anti-establishment book. It reminded me constantly of Ani Difranco's Evolve album: "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

[David Gross · Rating 3 out of 5]

A comic parable about environmental catastrophe that makes some good points and doesn’t bother to try to avoid radical environmentalist/luddite hyperbole. It’s designed to reach folks who believe that people are making the planet uninhabitable out of short-sighted greed, but who are still hoping that the solution won’t be terribly disruptive to the status quo.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh boy, it's difficult to put into words how disappointed I am with this one. Jensen is an anarcho-primitivist who smugly proposes that we simply "return to nature" against the entire march of history. While I'm all for a critique of liberal solutions to environmental degradation, Jensen basically presents a foolish girl who wants to use all variations of individualist solutions to heal the planet, then rebukes her with the ultimate individualist solution of direct-action, ostensibly through free-association with likeminded people who want to destroy all industry. Jensen creates caricatures of political leaders and corporate CEOs that do more harm than good, as they completely and utterly reduce all of their motivations to the desire for money. One might argue that it's just supposed to be cheeky, but I was hoping for something at least remotely thoughtful. To me, the metaphoric rise of the animals against alien machines, corporate CEOs, and political leaders perfectly demonstrates the impotence of any of Jensen's philosophy to have any actual power to counter the deleterious effects of capitalism. It was physically hard to finish this awful comic.