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Line in the Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice
Tar sands “development” comes with an enormous environmental and human cost. In the tar sands of Alberta, the oil industry is using vast quantities of water and natural gas to produce synthetic crude oil, creating drastically high levels of greenhouse gas emissions and air and water pollution. But tar sands opponents—fighting a powerful international industry—are likened to terrorists, government environmental scientists are muzzled, and public hearings are concealed and rushed. Yet, despite the formidable political and economic power behind the tar sands, many opponents are actively building international networks of resistance, challenging pipeline plans while resisting threats to Indigenous sovereignty and democratic participation. Including leading voices involved in the struggle against the tar sands, A Line in the Tar Sands offers a critical analysis of the impact of the tar sands and the challenges opponents face in their efforts to organize effective resistance. Contributors Greg Albo, Sâkihitowin Awâsis, Toban Black, Rae Breaux, Jeremy Brecher, Linda Capato, Jesse Cardinal, Angela V. Carter, Emily Coats, Stephen D’Arcy, Yves Engler, Cherri Foytlin, Sonia Grant, Harjap Grewal, Randolph Haluza-DeLay, Ryan Katz-Rosene, Naomi Klein, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Winona LaDuke, Crystal Lameman, Christine Leclerc, Kerry Lemon, Matt Leonard, Martin Lukacs, Tyler McCreary, Bill McKibben, Yudith Nieto, Joshua Kahn Russell, Macdonald Stainsby, Clayton Thomas-Muller, Brian Tokar, Dave Vasey, Harsha Walia, Tony Weis, Rex Weyler, Will Wooten, Jess Worth, and Lilian Yap. The editors’ proceeds from this book will be donated to frontline grassroots environmental justice groups and campaigns.
384 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2014
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July 27, 2015http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2014/1...
Review by Brad Hornick
As our governments willingly unleash unprecedented destruction upon the earth through the promotion of extractive industries, and growing mobilizations of climate activists challenge climate emergency, I am reminded of a cautionary warning: "the Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk."
This environmental metaphor conveys that the awareness of a historical period only becomes apparent when that era is coming to a close and as we come face-to-face with urgent tasks that need to be addressed.
As if responding to this desperate need to hurry the inauguration of a new historical era, Stephen D'Arcy, Toban Black, Tony Weis and Joshua Kahn Russell, editors of A Line in the Tar Sands, bring together the voices of activists and academics to argue "peoples' movements will either succeed in transforming our economic and political systems to build a new world, or we will burn with the old one."
This argument, cemented by Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben stating "the fight over the tar sands is among the epic environmental and social justice battles of our time" in the opening pages, suggests the very active tar sands struggle is no less than a life-and-death battle for the future of the planet.
It is a battle that pits these peoples' movement against the largest and most destructive industrial project -- a project driven by the big the most profitable and powerful transnational energy corporations: ExxonMobile, British Petroleum, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Sinopec.
And, this is a battle on a geological time-scale.
These corporations are digging up carbon that was produced by billions of years of decomposition of organic matter and remained underground through natural processes, permitting life to flourish on the planet's surface.
In a few short years, this capitalist enterprise has caused a dramatic overburdening, creating massive levels of carbon pollution as waste and a dangerous imbalance increasingly undermining those very life support systems.
And all is driven by crass and class politics.
The tar sands agenda, argues Martin Lukacs, empowers the political machinations of the reactionary Right in Canada. It reinforces a corporate constitutionalism that locks-in trade and investment through bilateral and multilateral agreements that secure investment "certainty" through the engineered collapse of environmental regulatory frameworks.
"In other words," says Lukacs, "these are not pipelines to build a nation. They are a scheme by which to swindle it."
Yet, tar sands infrastructure is quickly becoming the heart of a continental fossil fuel circulatory system with bitumen arteries that deliver the life-blood that fuels a global productive metabolism.
To sever those Northern Gateway, Line 9, Trans Mountain, Keystone XL and Energy East arteries, it is argued, would threaten prosperity and the disruption the economic system as a whole.
However, James Hansen, says that "continuing exploitation of the tar sands would amount to 'game over' for the climate, as it promise[s] to ensure a range of very dangerous feedback loops [that] would kick in -- the so-called 'runaway' climate change scenario."
But, does the battle to sever the tar sands arteries qualify as today's pre-eminent "urgent historical task that needs to be addressed?"
Yes! A Line in the Tar Sands presents compelling arguments as to why this is the central campaign in the wider climate justice movement and how this campaign is transforming activism itself.
Two general trends stand out: inclusiveness and radicalization.
First, the anti-tar sands movement is increasingly influenced by the inclusion of those who are most affected: the frontline communities marginalized by race and/or class. The movement as a whole is thus becoming less middle class, white, male and privileged.
Crystal Lameman, a member of Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, Canada and an Indigenous rights and tar sands campaigner, notes:
My home is under attack by an industry and by the Alberta and federal governments, which will stop at nothing to get the bitumen from the ground...We are warriors -- Mother Earth's Soldiers...We must follow through for the children and our future. With our boots on the ground, we will persist as we resist the colonial structures that have been forced upon us.
Indigenous activists are, by far, at the leadership of this movement, providing a shrewd political analysis and a spiritual power into the generalized tendency towards despair concerning the large odds activists face.
Clayton Thomas-Muller, a member of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in Manitoba, Canada and current campaign director for the Polaris Institute's Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign, notes:
A large part of the work of movement building was about defending the sacredness of our Mother Earth and helping our peoples decolonize our notions of government, land management, business, and social relations by going through a process of re-evaluating our connection to the sacred.
Second, the environmental and social justice concerns of the anti-tar sands movement are coalescing by drawing connections between neoliberal anti-environmentalism and much broader assaults on democratic processes and institutions. This leads to the deepening of critical stances against business-as-usual approaches of mainstream environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), and harsh denunciations of reactionary environmentalism and false, market-based solutions, argues Ryan Katz-Rosene.
Mainstream environmentalism has recently been and will continue to be schooled in new organizing tactics from frontline activists. Dave Vasey, a grassroots activist in Toronto and active in Environmental Justice Toronto, Occupy Toronto, the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network and anti-tar sands campaigning, relates a specific case of ENGO "interference":
In addition, [ENGOs] agreed to work with industry to "bridge the gap" between activists and industry, which involved opposing community struggles. Some bridges don't need to be built, and prioritizing relationships with industry over frontline communities was a critical mistake for ENGOs. This helped industry create the social consent required for public relations, despite widespread opposition by many grassroots and First Nations activists.
More generally, the voice of systematic anti-capitalist and anti-colonial critique leads to an application of strategies and tactics towards more foundational structures through what Stephen D'Arcy calls "secondary targeting."
"Much of the movement's potency," he says, "derives not from its capacity to directly influence the tar sands industry itself, but from its capacity to disrupt the system of financial, political and ideological support on which the industry depends."
The climate justice movement will continue to radicalize and abruptly challenge the priorities of capital. It will confront the traditional environmental movement as well as Left politics as it forges a new constellation of political forces concerned with Indigenous rights and title, migrant rights, labour rights and the rights of nature.
The climate justice movement, to which this volume adds an essential contribution, is at the forefront of revolutionary politics because it is birthed at the nexus of critical contradictions in the planet's society/nature metabolism. The multiple voices in this volume are expressions of this wide historical planetary praxis, nature becoming conscious of itself.
A Line in the Tar Sands should be read by activists and theorists alike. It will assist the movement in moving forward.
Brad Hornick is a perpetual student now doing a Ph.D. studying the relationship of climate science to political activism. Check out his blog on rabble for more of his writing and follow him on twitter @bradhornick
Review by Brad Hornick
As our governments willingly unleash unprecedented destruction upon the earth through the promotion of extractive industries, and growing mobilizations of climate activists challenge climate emergency, I am reminded of a cautionary warning: "the Owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk."
This environmental metaphor conveys that the awareness of a historical period only becomes apparent when that era is coming to a close and as we come face-to-face with urgent tasks that need to be addressed.
As if responding to this desperate need to hurry the inauguration of a new historical era, Stephen D'Arcy, Toban Black, Tony Weis and Joshua Kahn Russell, editors of A Line in the Tar Sands, bring together the voices of activists and academics to argue "peoples' movements will either succeed in transforming our economic and political systems to build a new world, or we will burn with the old one."
This argument, cemented by Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben stating "the fight over the tar sands is among the epic environmental and social justice battles of our time" in the opening pages, suggests the very active tar sands struggle is no less than a life-and-death battle for the future of the planet.
It is a battle that pits these peoples' movement against the largest and most destructive industrial project -- a project driven by the big the most profitable and powerful transnational energy corporations: ExxonMobile, British Petroleum, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Sinopec.
And, this is a battle on a geological time-scale.
These corporations are digging up carbon that was produced by billions of years of decomposition of organic matter and remained underground through natural processes, permitting life to flourish on the planet's surface.
In a few short years, this capitalist enterprise has caused a dramatic overburdening, creating massive levels of carbon pollution as waste and a dangerous imbalance increasingly undermining those very life support systems.
And all is driven by crass and class politics.
The tar sands agenda, argues Martin Lukacs, empowers the political machinations of the reactionary Right in Canada. It reinforces a corporate constitutionalism that locks-in trade and investment through bilateral and multilateral agreements that secure investment "certainty" through the engineered collapse of environmental regulatory frameworks.
"In other words," says Lukacs, "these are not pipelines to build a nation. They are a scheme by which to swindle it."
Yet, tar sands infrastructure is quickly becoming the heart of a continental fossil fuel circulatory system with bitumen arteries that deliver the life-blood that fuels a global productive metabolism.
To sever those Northern Gateway, Line 9, Trans Mountain, Keystone XL and Energy East arteries, it is argued, would threaten prosperity and the disruption the economic system as a whole.
However, James Hansen, says that "continuing exploitation of the tar sands would amount to 'game over' for the climate, as it promise[s] to ensure a range of very dangerous feedback loops [that] would kick in -- the so-called 'runaway' climate change scenario."
But, does the battle to sever the tar sands arteries qualify as today's pre-eminent "urgent historical task that needs to be addressed?"
Yes! A Line in the Tar Sands presents compelling arguments as to why this is the central campaign in the wider climate justice movement and how this campaign is transforming activism itself.
Two general trends stand out: inclusiveness and radicalization.
First, the anti-tar sands movement is increasingly influenced by the inclusion of those who are most affected: the frontline communities marginalized by race and/or class. The movement as a whole is thus becoming less middle class, white, male and privileged.
Crystal Lameman, a member of Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, Canada and an Indigenous rights and tar sands campaigner, notes:
My home is under attack by an industry and by the Alberta and federal governments, which will stop at nothing to get the bitumen from the ground...We are warriors -- Mother Earth's Soldiers...We must follow through for the children and our future. With our boots on the ground, we will persist as we resist the colonial structures that have been forced upon us.
Indigenous activists are, by far, at the leadership of this movement, providing a shrewd political analysis and a spiritual power into the generalized tendency towards despair concerning the large odds activists face.
Clayton Thomas-Muller, a member of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in Manitoba, Canada and current campaign director for the Polaris Institute's Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign, notes:
A large part of the work of movement building was about defending the sacredness of our Mother Earth and helping our peoples decolonize our notions of government, land management, business, and social relations by going through a process of re-evaluating our connection to the sacred.
Second, the environmental and social justice concerns of the anti-tar sands movement are coalescing by drawing connections between neoliberal anti-environmentalism and much broader assaults on democratic processes and institutions. This leads to the deepening of critical stances against business-as-usual approaches of mainstream environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), and harsh denunciations of reactionary environmentalism and false, market-based solutions, argues Ryan Katz-Rosene.
Mainstream environmentalism has recently been and will continue to be schooled in new organizing tactics from frontline activists. Dave Vasey, a grassroots activist in Toronto and active in Environmental Justice Toronto, Occupy Toronto, the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network and anti-tar sands campaigning, relates a specific case of ENGO "interference":
In addition, [ENGOs] agreed to work with industry to "bridge the gap" between activists and industry, which involved opposing community struggles. Some bridges don't need to be built, and prioritizing relationships with industry over frontline communities was a critical mistake for ENGOs. This helped industry create the social consent required for public relations, despite widespread opposition by many grassroots and First Nations activists.
More generally, the voice of systematic anti-capitalist and anti-colonial critique leads to an application of strategies and tactics towards more foundational structures through what Stephen D'Arcy calls "secondary targeting."
"Much of the movement's potency," he says, "derives not from its capacity to directly influence the tar sands industry itself, but from its capacity to disrupt the system of financial, political and ideological support on which the industry depends."
The climate justice movement will continue to radicalize and abruptly challenge the priorities of capital. It will confront the traditional environmental movement as well as Left politics as it forges a new constellation of political forces concerned with Indigenous rights and title, migrant rights, labour rights and the rights of nature.
The climate justice movement, to which this volume adds an essential contribution, is at the forefront of revolutionary politics because it is birthed at the nexus of critical contradictions in the planet's society/nature metabolism. The multiple voices in this volume are expressions of this wide historical planetary praxis, nature becoming conscious of itself.
A Line in the Tar Sands should be read by activists and theorists alike. It will assist the movement in moving forward.
Brad Hornick is a perpetual student now doing a Ph.D. studying the relationship of climate science to political activism. Check out his blog on rabble for more of his writing and follow him on twitter @bradhornick
July 31, 2016
This is essential reading for climate justice activists, and a great resource for anyone wishing to learn more about tar sands (and extreme energy more broadly) development and the contours of the growing movement to resist it. Already nearly two years old, certain parts of the book show their age in what is a fast-evolving issue, but there is still a lot to be gained from the 28 contributions put together by a mixture of academics and grassroots activists including Bill McKibben, Crystal Lameman, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Winona LaDuke, Clayton Thomas-Muller, and many others.
The collection is divided into three sections. The first provides valuable frameworks for understanding tar sands politics and development, such as petro-capitalism and cultural hegemony, along with overviews of key issues including migrant labour and foreign investment. The second section focuses on grassroots struggles against the tar sands, offering lessons from years of campaigning; subjects include Indigenous communities directly impacted by tar sands development, resistance along various pipeline routes, the UK Tar Sands Network, and labour organizing, among others. Finally, the third section pulls back and offers insight into the movement as a whole and how it might move forward, including examining a Native Rights-based strategic framework, appropriate targeting, and alternative economic models, among other topics. Altogether, the contributions offer a fairly comprehensive overview of the tar sands issue from a resistance perspective, making the issues clear and offering useful insights and advice for moving forward. If you are looking to join the struggle or for advice to bolster your organizing, you will find many chapters inspiring and useful. If you are wondering how the movement might scale up going forward, there is plenty of food for thought. And if you just want to learn more about why the issue matters and what people are doing about it, there is plenty to gain as well.
Ultimately there is a fair bit of crossover between different contributions, with many retreading the same topics and even referencing each other; this helps to hammer home particular points but can be tiresome at times. There is also a fairly big disparity in tone between many chapters; most are straightforward and easy to read, but some are quite academic, which can be jarring at times. Even so, everything is fairly complimentary, providing an excellent overview of an important contemporary topic. This book enhances our understanding of the struggle against the tar sands, offers tremendous insight for those involved in the struggle, and proposes some worthwhile suggestions for the escalation of the movement.
As a note, my favourite contributions were the following:
"Petro-Capitalism and the Tar Sands," Angela V. Carter
"Assembling Consent in Alberta: Hegemony and the Tar Sands," Randolph Haluza-DeLay
"Canadian Diplomatic Efforts to Sell the Tar Sands," Yves Engler
"Migrant Justice and the Tar Sands Industry," Harsha Walia (interviewed by Joshua Kahn-Russell)
"Kihci Pikiskwewin-Speaking the Truth," Crystal Lameman
"Beyond Token Recognition: The Growing Movement against the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project," Tyler McCreary
"The Enbridge Pipeline Disaster and Accidental Activism along the Kalamazoo River," Sonia Grant
"Ending the Age of Fossil Fuels and Building an Economics for the Seventh Generation," Winona LaDuke
"Pipelines and Resistance across Turtle Island," Sâkihitowin Awâsis
The collection is divided into three sections. The first provides valuable frameworks for understanding tar sands politics and development, such as petro-capitalism and cultural hegemony, along with overviews of key issues including migrant labour and foreign investment. The second section focuses on grassroots struggles against the tar sands, offering lessons from years of campaigning; subjects include Indigenous communities directly impacted by tar sands development, resistance along various pipeline routes, the UK Tar Sands Network, and labour organizing, among others. Finally, the third section pulls back and offers insight into the movement as a whole and how it might move forward, including examining a Native Rights-based strategic framework, appropriate targeting, and alternative economic models, among other topics. Altogether, the contributions offer a fairly comprehensive overview of the tar sands issue from a resistance perspective, making the issues clear and offering useful insights and advice for moving forward. If you are looking to join the struggle or for advice to bolster your organizing, you will find many chapters inspiring and useful. If you are wondering how the movement might scale up going forward, there is plenty of food for thought. And if you just want to learn more about why the issue matters and what people are doing about it, there is plenty to gain as well.
Ultimately there is a fair bit of crossover between different contributions, with many retreading the same topics and even referencing each other; this helps to hammer home particular points but can be tiresome at times. There is also a fairly big disparity in tone between many chapters; most are straightforward and easy to read, but some are quite academic, which can be jarring at times. Even so, everything is fairly complimentary, providing an excellent overview of an important contemporary topic. This book enhances our understanding of the struggle against the tar sands, offers tremendous insight for those involved in the struggle, and proposes some worthwhile suggestions for the escalation of the movement.
As a note, my favourite contributions were the following:
"Petro-Capitalism and the Tar Sands," Angela V. Carter
"Assembling Consent in Alberta: Hegemony and the Tar Sands," Randolph Haluza-DeLay
"Canadian Diplomatic Efforts to Sell the Tar Sands," Yves Engler
"Migrant Justice and the Tar Sands Industry," Harsha Walia (interviewed by Joshua Kahn-Russell)
"Kihci Pikiskwewin-Speaking the Truth," Crystal Lameman
"Beyond Token Recognition: The Growing Movement against the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project," Tyler McCreary
"The Enbridge Pipeline Disaster and Accidental Activism along the Kalamazoo River," Sonia Grant
"Ending the Age of Fossil Fuels and Building an Economics for the Seventh Generation," Winona LaDuke
"Pipelines and Resistance across Turtle Island," Sâkihitowin Awâsis
February 12, 2017
Informative primer on the politics and consequences of the Athabasca tar sands and fossil fuel extraction generally, highlighting the current efforts against the tar sands, pipelines, and fracking on Turtle Island, and the importance of having Indigenous communities lead the way.
June 20, 2019
This was a great collection, although a bit repetitive. It’s a deep dive into the issues of tar sands exploration and extraction, and the voices (especially Indigenous voices) affected most by the industries they’re fighting. It’s an interesting spread of academic analysis, first-person storytelling, and reflection on campaign tactics and strategy. I do wish they had included 1-2 more in depth reflections on campaigns (maybe with worksheets or how tos), but also understand why they had the spread of contributions they did. Also interesting to read a mostly Canada-focused book - an updated/expanded edition of this talking about Standing Rock, Bayou Bridge, Line 3, and other struggles + U.S. context might be really interesting!
January 7, 2019
There were many insightful esseys included in the book. It definitely fell on the side of Environmentalist vs Environmental Science. I read the book for a class on Environmental Justice and Public policy. I liked some of the suggestions in the book. It would be interesting to see an update on the book as it's been about 4 years since its publication and there has been a new government in place in Canada.
January 20, 2021
Book is a well balanced compendium of the history, strategy and tactics of those opposed to the exploitation of Canada’s Tar Sands. Chapters address issues of climate change, environmental degradation, social justice, indigenous treaty rights, direct action etc. Unfortunately, the book is often overtly hostile to those it perceives to be its enemies, whether they be the oil companies themselves, the administrations of Canada and the USA, more mainstream conservationist NGOs and even the “new-liberal, capitalist“ system itself. This hostility blinds the various authors to the underlying truth that this is a highly complex debate between the quest for money, taxes, political power and jobs on the one hand with competing demands for social justice and saving the planet. The challenge, beyond marches, web-based campaigns and other tactics that may impact the fossil fuel industry’s efficiency, is to convince all members of society that current systems of finance and governance are not yet correctly accounting for the cost in ignoring either social justice or planetary destruction. In sum, the book needs to seek to attract more allies to a just cause rather than touting its own righteousness. (Not saying that’s easy!)
April 23, 2022
This book should be required reading for every person above on earth at this moment. I
t contains a lot of info about the tar sands and other "extreme" or "unconventional" energy projects. This right here would be reason enough to say that everyone should read it, because as we choose to continue the status quo of capitalism and consumption, I think many people are unaware of exactly what it is that they are choosing. The Industry and governments have done a great job of muddling the conversation so I believe that many people believe that we are okay, and that there is such a thing as "ethical, clean Canadian oil," etc etc. I personally have spent way too much of my life trying to figure out how to get people to want to know the truth and to get in the habit of seeking it out for themselves. We live in the Information Age, for gods sake. We can literally each of us be gods, considering the amount of information we have access to. So here we are, with a public understanding that is muddled, confused, exclusionary, delusional, white-supremacist, and often just plain old wrong. This book cuts through that muddle and lays things out as they are. But of course, when I say it should be required reading, I understand that will not happen.
The book also gives a pretty good basic guide to how the climate crisis is much more than simply carbon emissions. There is a lot of good info and discussion on how the forces of capitalism, racism, colonialism, misogyny, etc are all deeply at play in this climate crisis. The contributors do not shy away from the obvious conclusion that simply building more windmills or adding staff to the recycling facilities is absolutely not going to be enough. This is all important stuff, because I believe we are long past the time where we can afford to diddle around with green jobs. (To be clear- it never would have been enough or acceptable in that it overlooks white supremacy, injustice, capitalism, exploitation, etc. All I am saying is that purely from a time perspective, we don't have time anymore to learn those correlations slowly. We must hit the ground running.) Many more people are comfortable with electric vehicles than are comfortable with doing away with private corporate interests. But that latter is what we need. We need to people to read about it, and talk about it, and do the work on their own to become accustomed to it. Because it's going to happen. No one knows if it will happen in a compassionate, orderly manner or a violent manner- most likely there will be pockets of everything- but we know it's going to happen.
In addition to providing an education on extreme energy and social forces of climate change, this book also provides an education on front-line communities and organizing. Many of the contributors are themselves from front line communities, so the education is coming from where it should: lived experience. As well, the book goes into fairly deep detail about organizing efforts from lots of types of groups- ENGO's, First Nations activists/leaders, allies, scholars, etc etc. Not only are different viewpoints and styles represented, but there is a fair amount of discussion bout how these disparate parties have, can, and perhaps should, work together. Which is not really a given, as it is quite an art form to have different POV's working together in a just way. This particular part of the conversation in this book seemed especially unique to this book and even as someone who has been working in activism and organizing (volunteer only) for many years now, I still found it heartening and enlightening.
So yes, read this book. It's not popular or flashy, but it will make you a better person who is more equip to live in a good way and spend your life song in a meaningful way.
t contains a lot of info about the tar sands and other "extreme" or "unconventional" energy projects. This right here would be reason enough to say that everyone should read it, because as we choose to continue the status quo of capitalism and consumption, I think many people are unaware of exactly what it is that they are choosing. The Industry and governments have done a great job of muddling the conversation so I believe that many people believe that we are okay, and that there is such a thing as "ethical, clean Canadian oil," etc etc. I personally have spent way too much of my life trying to figure out how to get people to want to know the truth and to get in the habit of seeking it out for themselves. We live in the Information Age, for gods sake. We can literally each of us be gods, considering the amount of information we have access to. So here we are, with a public understanding that is muddled, confused, exclusionary, delusional, white-supremacist, and often just plain old wrong. This book cuts through that muddle and lays things out as they are. But of course, when I say it should be required reading, I understand that will not happen.
The book also gives a pretty good basic guide to how the climate crisis is much more than simply carbon emissions. There is a lot of good info and discussion on how the forces of capitalism, racism, colonialism, misogyny, etc are all deeply at play in this climate crisis. The contributors do not shy away from the obvious conclusion that simply building more windmills or adding staff to the recycling facilities is absolutely not going to be enough. This is all important stuff, because I believe we are long past the time where we can afford to diddle around with green jobs. (To be clear- it never would have been enough or acceptable in that it overlooks white supremacy, injustice, capitalism, exploitation, etc. All I am saying is that purely from a time perspective, we don't have time anymore to learn those correlations slowly. We must hit the ground running.) Many more people are comfortable with electric vehicles than are comfortable with doing away with private corporate interests. But that latter is what we need. We need to people to read about it, and talk about it, and do the work on their own to become accustomed to it. Because it's going to happen. No one knows if it will happen in a compassionate, orderly manner or a violent manner- most likely there will be pockets of everything- but we know it's going to happen.
In addition to providing an education on extreme energy and social forces of climate change, this book also provides an education on front-line communities and organizing. Many of the contributors are themselves from front line communities, so the education is coming from where it should: lived experience. As well, the book goes into fairly deep detail about organizing efforts from lots of types of groups- ENGO's, First Nations activists/leaders, allies, scholars, etc etc. Not only are different viewpoints and styles represented, but there is a fair amount of discussion bout how these disparate parties have, can, and perhaps should, work together. Which is not really a given, as it is quite an art form to have different POV's working together in a just way. This particular part of the conversation in this book seemed especially unique to this book and even as someone who has been working in activism and organizing (volunteer only) for many years now, I still found it heartening and enlightening.
So yes, read this book. It's not popular or flashy, but it will make you a better person who is more equip to live in a good way and spend your life song in a meaningful way.
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