On Fire : The Burning Case for a Green New Deal

by Naomi Klein

For more than twenty years, Naomi Klein has been the foremost chronicler of the economic war waged on both people and planet-and an unapologetic champion of a sweeping environmental agenda with justice at its center. In lucid, elegant dispatches from the frontlines of contemporary natural disaster, she pens surging, indispensable essays for a wide public: prescient advisories and dire warnings of what future awaits us if we refuse to act, as well as hopeful glimpses of a far better future. On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal gathers for the first time more than a decade of her impassioned writing, and pairs it with new material on the staggeringly high stakes of our immediate political and economic choices.

These long-form essays show Klein at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but as a spiritual and imaginative one, as well. Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of "perpetual now," to the soaring history of humans changing and evolving rapidly in the face of grave threats, to rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of 'climate barbarism,' this is a rousing call to action for a planet on the brink.

With reports spanning from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented 'ecological conversion,' Klein makes the case that we will rise to the existential challenge of climate change only if we are willing to transform the systems that produced this crisis.

An expansive, far-ranging exploration that sees the battle for a greener world as indistinguishable from the fight for our lives, On Fire captures the burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the fiery energy of a rising political movement demanding a catalytic Green New Deal.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Environment, Climate Change, Science, Economics, Audiobook

310 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 2019

About the author

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses; support of ecofeminism, organized labour, and leftism; and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism and capitalism. As of 2021, she is an associate professor, and professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia, co-directing a Centre for Climate Justice.
Klein first became known internationally for her alter-globalization book No Logo (1999). The Take (2004), a documentary film about Argentine workers' self-managed factories, written by her and directed by her husband Avi Lewis, further increased her profile. The Shock Doctrine (2007), a critical analysis of the history of neoliberal economics, solidified her standing as a prominent activist on the international stage and was adapted into a six-minute companion film by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonás Cuarón, as well as a feature-length documentary by Michael Winterbottom. Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014) was a New York Times nonfiction bestseller and the winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
In 2016, Klein was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for her activism on climate justice. Klein frequently appears on global and national lists of top influential thinkers, including the 2014 Thought Leaders ranking compiled by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, Prospect magazine's world thinkers 2014 poll, and Maclean's 2014 Power List. She was formerly a member of the board of directors of the climate activist group 350.org.

Reviews

[Mario the lone bookwolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

We can create heaven or hell on earth, change the system or drive it against the wall, go towards a real utopia or a dystopia. With the climate as a cruel tyrant, wiping many of us from the planet.

Klein presents a collection of essays and concrete ideas towards an ecosocial change. As living examples, the Scandinavian states with their Nordic model can be seen as proof of functioning of a fairer society. Because critics like to say that humans aren´t philanthropic and altruistic and won´t work together and that there is only one working, economic system. Interestingly Sweden, Norway, Finnland, Iceland and Denmark are highest rated in the Human Development Index. The Swiss and The Netherlands, are, to a certain extent, similar too.

It seems as if the state is highly regulated and the humans live in prosperity, security and peace, they are friendly to each other.
And if the state is unregulated and the full carnivore potential for cruelty is unleashed, they shoot and extort each other. I mean, just look at the prisons and the educational system of the US and those countries. Mass incarceration with people becoming real criminals in prison or real resocialization and amnesty. Stupid frontal education with a lot of dropouts or an education based on the child-friendly standards of Montessori and Waldorf. And so on.
But what do I know, I am no economist.

In astronomy, one can take a look in the future. On planets that went different ways of runaway greenhouse effects. Venus, Mars, etc. Certainly, the whole progresses are still not nearly understood, but the facts are on the table. And even the melting of all ice on the planet won´t be such a big deal in contrast to possible catastrophes. Superstorms, the size of continents, that won´t ever stop, milling the surface and making life impossible in many regions. Probably a skip to global cooling, so that Snowball earth is there again and all freezes to death. We don´t understand the sun, so if it´s activity level suddenly drops, that could get nasty. A supervolcano that strengthens the effects. Combine astronomy with geology and meteorology and one gets many possible outcomes. Not in decades or centuries, but in millenniums, much can happen, started by our today's actions. And we see proofs of it everywhere in the night's sky.

A completely subjective standpoint: Got me, I am biased. I believe in wisdom and education that lead to a technological singularity. Or, in shorter terms, I am a friendly technocrat. Technology will certainly save us and enable space colonization, the solving of many problems, yada yada yada. The critical factor is time and I don´t believe that we will have sufficient possibilities to manipulate weather and climate in adequate quantities if we mess up everything with such a speed. Just imagine the number of machines needed to change global weather systems. If we don´t stop right enough in front of the abyss, the green planet probably won´t change its colour, cause global greening is just one of the possibilities.

But it will have lost its unique habitability and up to 99 percent of all species on it. Just extremophiles, cockroaches and us in underground bunkers, dealing with the problem of avoiding or at least minimizing incest because so few of us survived or were privileged enough to enter the underground facilities. Could also be that even that isn´t the worst problem, but avoiding epidemics and turning towards cannibalism to survive.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this overrated real-life outside books.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_D...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planeta...

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beyond “No!” protests: building a future not on fire.

The Good:
--(2022 Update) Accessibility: unlike social science textbook hieroglyphs, I take the time to read Klein’s works to experience how she engages with the wider public.
--This book is a collection of her articles/lectures on one of the great ideas in the age of runaway capitalist climate destruction.

1) Beyond denial: the greater threats of hopelessness and climate barbarism:
--US fossil fuel companies have been planning for climate change for over 40 years now. For the past decade, the US military has been (openly) planning too. Those in power only use denialism as a tool, as they fortify their own properties with higher walls and contingency plans:
-Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
-Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence
--Let us not get bogged down by the manufactured "debates" with denialists who conveniently imagine an alternate universe with inverse power structures. Reactionary "populist" politics try to parody leftism/revolutionary critiques such as “follow the money”, “propaganda”, “science”, etc. to divide the masses: The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
--Once we bypass this, we can focus on the greater threats of:
a) Hopelessness: as Klein emphasizes, climate change became an issue at a catastrophic time, during the peak of "Neoliberalism" where governments gave way to the divine right of capital (and austerity for the rest), and social imagination for collective action dissipated into there-is-no-alternative individualism.
b) Climate barbarism: societies gutted of solidarity and empathy breed monsters during crises. Thus, the rise of the far-right (including Eco-fascism) as a backlash to domestic austerity, triggered and diverted by more visible scapegoat threats like immigrants (in part climate refugees). Vijay Prashad on the rise of the Right: https://youtu.be/z11ohWnuwa0
-Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis

2) The Necessity of the Green New Deal:
--Hopelessness (with the #1 concern of “jobs”) is directly tackled by the Green New Deal, which is at its core a jobs program directed at social needs rather than bullshit jobs. The “New Deal” part revives and builds on the social imagination of previous New Deals government programs to combat the Great Depression, as well as the Marshall Plan to reconstruct Western Europe after WWII.
--Climate barbarism is directly tackled by providing domestic relief as we ready for more crises: Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century. Centrist plans to narrowly focus on climate change without addressing inequality fail especially during economic downturns; this was made vivid by France's Yellow Vests protests against the economic inequality of centrist president Macron's regressive taxes hitting the masses rather than corporate producers and elite consumers most responsible for ecological destruction. Meanwhile, far-right Le Pen eagerly waits in the wings (Alt Right parody of "populism" amidst crises). Economic justice slays monsters before they can fester.

3) Deeper maladies: capitalism’s colonialism:
--Klein considers how national narratives influence social values when analyzing why countries like the US, Canada, and Australia are behind Europe in climate action. Settler colonialism was built on narratives of the endlessness of the "New World", as Europe was exhausted by its capitalist industrialization. For more:
-Degrowth as decolonization! (capitalist markets generate artificial scarcity by enclosing the "Commons", esp. markets for land/natural resources/finance/intellectual property): Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
-The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
-Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming

The Missing:
--While this book is a compelling intro for the general public and a useful refresher for activists, the next steps require synthesizing:
1) The immediate needs of shifting to renewables, where Green New Deal is an excellent fit: The Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet
2) Given the Green New Deal's raw material needs and Global North focus, how do we address the needs of the Global South (esp. petty producers) without falling for imperialist technocratic schemes leading to mass displacements: A People’s Green New Deal.
3) Fitting the Green New Deal with an overall downscaling of capitalism's cancerous profit-seeking (rather than directly fulfilling social needs) production and manufactured mass consumerist addiction, which threaten not just climate change but the other 9 planetary boundaries and beyond:
-Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
-Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage
-Captains Of Consciousness: Advertising And The Social Roots Of The Consumer Culture

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Naomi Klein’s book of essays roils with indignation at the consequences of stretching the limits of the environment, as in deep sea oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and of ignoring the actuality, let alone the implications, of climate change.

If you’re not familiar with these issues, this is a lively place to acquaint yourself. If you are, it’s useful to be reminded of the need for all of us to play as active a role as we can to influence governments and corporations to change their decision making models. And, of course, to do our own tiny bits to think global, act local.

As GR friend Jan-Maat pointed out, the title is horrifyingly accurate as Australia burns in this apocalyptic summer, still with a long way to go. The consequences of these fires are unimaginable. Estimates several days ago were that 4 million hectares (nearly 10 million acres) of forest and farmland had been burned in the state of New South Wales alone. New areas have since gone up in flames, nearly half of the pristine environment of Kangaroo Island is burned. Over 500 million native animals are estimated to have died, and that doesn’t include insects.
With the continued lowering of rainfall, the plant species that have burned can’t necessarily be replaced. What should we plant instead? Goodness knows.

And then there are the thousands of people who have lost their homes and their animals. Communities razed to the ground, holiday makers rescued by the navy from coastal areas where the skies are red and black from fire.
Our capital, Canberra, has the worst air quality amongst world cities at the moment as it is enveloped with smoke from fires on three sides, 60 km and more away,

We live in a beautiful part of the Adelaide Hills that so far has escaped, but we know that we are living in a precarious space.

Our incompetent and slippery government still denies climate change, recently negotiated the carry over of carbon credits so it wouldn’t have to do anything to reduce emissions, let alone impede the extraction and burning of coal.
And we have nothing approaching a water policy.
As inland towns run out of water and rivers run dry, we have huge irrigation franchises for foreign-owned companies to grow cotton in the desert (Cubbie Station is the worst).
A Chinese company has been given approval to mine underground water in Queensland:
https://www.theguardian.com/environme...

A Norwegian oil company is planning to drill for deep sea oil, not in its own waters, but in the remarkable marine environment of the Great Australian Bight.

I could go on, but you get the picture. My own head of indignation is running very high!

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, I got this book from the publisher sponsored by LitHub.com.

I have read other books by Klein that were though provoking and moving. I expected no less from this book.

This book is a collection of essays that Klein has written over the years about the Earth heating up and what individuals and groups are doing to “turn down the thermostat”. It also focuses on groups that don’t want to hear about it and want to keep on as business as usual.

I will admit I came to this book with a bit of a bias, I am a long time recycler and I try to find ways to encourage everyone to do it in a way that works best for them.

With this book it shows that little things are not in vain. It’s the small things that can inspire a movement.

I am using this book as a tool to inspire me even more with my work and I hope it inspires everyone who reads it to do better for the planet.

[foteini_dl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Η κλιματική αλλαγή είναι ίσως το πιο καυτό θέμα των τελευταίων χρόνων. Δεν είναι τυχαίο που η Klein ασχολείται για δεύτερη φορά με αυτή μετά το 2014 (και το βιβλίο This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate). Oι συνέπειές της είναι καταστροφικές, ωστόσο παρουσιάζεται μια μεγάλη πρόκληση.

Battling climate change is a once-in-a-century chance to build a fairer and more democratic economy,

λέει κάπου η Klein. Και έχει δίκιο. Αν θέλουμε να ελπίζουμε σ' ένα καλύτερο (κοινωνικά/οικονομικά/περιβαλλοντικά) μέλλον, η ριζική αλλαγή του υπάρχοντος κοινωνικοοικονομικού συστήματος είναι η μόνη λύση. Ή, πιο σωστά, αν θέλουμε να ελπίζουμε ότι θα υπάρχει μέλλον. Γενικά.

Πρέπει να δράσουμε έστω και Τ Ω Ρ Α, αν και θα έπρεπε να το είχαμε κάνει Χ Θ Ε Σ. Ο χρόνος πιέζει.

We are fighting for our lives. And we don’t have twelve years anymore; now we have only eleven. And soon it will be just ten.

Και αυτό δεν το λέει μόνο η Klein ή άλλοι ακτιβιστές ή οι επιστήμονες. Έχει αρχίσει να το λέει και ο κόσμος και να το συζητάει ανοιχτά. Και αυτό είναι σημαντικό και, κυρίως, ελπιδοφόρο. Ακόμα και οι λέξεις που επιλέγουμε και το πώς τις επικοινωνούμε είναι μια μορφή ενεργού συμμετοχής στα όσα γίνονται.

(...) regular people, not just governments, need to be active participants in this process of retelling and reimagining our collective stories, symbols, and histories.

Είμαστε έτοιμοι να αλλάξουμε τον μέχρι τώρα τρόπο ζωής μας και τη θέση μας στον κόσμο; Το βιβλίο μου έδωσε μια γερή δόση ελπίδας ότι ναι.

(...) a new vision of what humanity can be is emerging. It is coming from the streets, from the schools, from workplaces, and even from inside houses of government. It's a vision that says that all of us, combined, make up the fabric of society.
And when the future of life is at stake, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

Ευχαριστώ, Naomi. Προσωπικά, χρειαζόμουν αυτή την ελπίδα και την πίστη στη δύναμή μας. Βασικά, όλοι μας τη χρειαζόμαστε.

[CM · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy Naomi Klein's books and I would not say that this one is any different. It is a very interesting book on some very important topics of today; such as climate change and it's disastrous effects, systemic racism, capitalism, economic inequality within countries and between countries and the dismal outlook on our future if immediate and drastic changes are not made.

I genuinely think that this is a book for everybody and that at the very least, even if you do not agree with all of the things that she says, the topics, news and ideas alone would make for a very interesting read and good topics of conversation.

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the many things that has intrigued me about the long run emergence of the climate emergency we now live in has been the shifting language we use to describe it. Leave aside the outright deniers, although in recent years many of them have shifted from denial of global warming to denial of it human causes; the rest of us have gone from talking of a build-up of greenhouse gasses (this is after the hydrofluorocarbon focus of the 1970s, and the hole in the ozone layer) to global warming to climate change. We’ve shifted from a technical description (complete with potent, comprehensible, metaphor) to (scary) literal description to (less scary) vaguely generic label, almost as if we’ve sought to downplay the extent of the crisis. Yet the message I seem to have taken from this ever shifting language is one of deferral, that we’ve called it something less scary and although the collective efforts of a global environmental movement have brought about less change than necessary the issue seems to have been left in the we’ll get to it soon basket.

Reading this collection of Naomi Klein’s essays from over the last decade reminds me how dangerous that deferral has been but also how language and practice have changed in important ways and that we’ve come a lot further than it might seem, amid the incremental tweaks and failures of state policy. Of the 18 essays, 15 are previously published – some presented here in a largely unchanged form with notes or an epilogue to adjust and update key points – while some of the more recent pieces, from the last two years, have been reworked and in some aspects extended or deepened. There is a long scene-setting introduction, and a shorter final essay making the case for a Green New Deal.

The overall sense is clear; we are in a state of climate emergency. If the advice from scientists is right (and increasingly it looks as if they might have been conservative, at least in respect of melting ice caps and high mountain areas) then we’re edging towards the last decade where meaningful action is possible. We know that tipping points can be abrupt, that we might incrementally move towards a moment of change, and when that moment arrives change is rapid, intense and profound – that’s why it is called a tipping point, but that’s also what makes the Green New Deal inspiring: the state of emergency Klein outlines can only be addressed by comprehensive, coordinated action tailored to local/national/regional policy, social, economic and cultural situations. It is a compelling case. She looks at wild fires and rising sea temperatures, at the Deepwater Horizon disaster and Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico made worse by the economic evisceration of the territory; she explores emerging social movements and unexpected institutional changes to remind us that amid the crisis there is not only a long-standing network of activists an organisations, but that there are also unexpected allies and the dangers of hanging on to the gradualism that has infected policy responses in the last 25 or more years. Throughout it all, there is powerful case for a global response based in the principles of justice, and a reminder that around 250 years of economic development and practice has been based on the extraction of value – of land and labour – from colonised and otherwise occupied parts of the world, many of which are bearing the brunt of climate change….. there I go, euphemising again – global warming!

It is, however, a collection of essays so while there is an overarching argument in support of the Green New Deal the book lacks the coherence of This Changes Everything , as it should – such is the nature of the essay; so this could be considered an appendix to the earlier book, even as it overlaps both in time and issues traversed. As an appendix, it raises the stakes, from the analysis of extractivism to the need for comprehensive action; in that it is a vital extension and intensification of the earlier book, but also stands independently – such is the virtue of the essay form.

There is a lot of hoo-ha about the Green New Deal – those who see it as a plot and those who see it as the solution to all. Both are wrong: it is however, it seems to me, on the basis of Klein’s demystification of much of it here and other readings, a valuable frame to work within – and as I hear the deniers (who we now call sceptics, which gives then undeserved credibility) deny, I am reminded of that cartoon that used to do the rounds suggesting that even if the science is wrong, we’ve finished up making the world a better place – but then I’ve been convinced since the late 1970s that the science is right, so I would say that….

On Fire is engaging, accessible and a compelling foray into the basic question of our times and timely reminder of the state we’re in. What’s more, despite the sense of crisis, it’s an inspiring read.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you haven't read much else by Klein, this is a good intro to her take on the climate movement. But since I had just read her earlier book on the movement, "This Changes Everything," I found the new book less interesting. "On Fire" reprints two chapters from the earlier book, perhaps with some minor changes, though if so, not immediately apparent ones. Other essays are speeches given in various countries including Britain and Australia with less appeal outside of those particular nations.

What I did like was her take on the Green New Deal at the very end. She makes a good case for why a serious effort to fight climate change is needed and why it needs to include everyone in society, from the government on down. However, I'm still not convinced that we require "democratic" socialism to fight climate change and that conservatives need to be excluded from solutions. No major policy changes will be long lasting if the left just shoves them down the throat of everyone else. It's too easy for the opposing party to reverse them in the future.

Finally, it's helpful that she refers back to the history of FDR's original New Deal. But she doesn't seem to see much role for national feeling or patriotism, which was a huge selling point of Roosevelt's approach. Instead, Klein seems to imagine a series of GNDs that happen in various countries but are driven by cosmopolitan elites and the "woke" masses, much like an international socialist revolution. This is idealistic but I'm not sure how realistic it is, given that successful movements in the past combined an international outlook with one that was also national.

I'd love to see Klein find a place in the climate movement for people who love their country as much as they care about the world and also for people who are inspired by the past accomplishments and philosophies of our own Western countries as much as they are by the traditions of the indigenous peoples that Klein so admires.

But this book is worth reading alone for Klein's skillful critique of the doomerism of Nathaniel Rich's book "Losing Earth." Rich wrongly asserts that the late 1980s were the best time to fight climate change, ignoring the ascendance of extreme capitalism and a culture of greed-is-good driven by globalization and deregulation whose beau ideal was Ayn Rand. Rich claims that "we" (meaning you and me, not Exxon and the US govt) missed this once-in-a-lifetime chance to save the climate in 1988-89 because we were too selfish or shortsighted to make major changes in our consumer lives. He's wrong and Klein places the blame where it belongs, with oil companies and the governments they control, and offers hope that ordinary people can and will mobilize for an economy that's both clean and fair.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

As both parties happily drift to the right, we should not be surprised that the number of Americans who believe climate change is real has plummeted from 71% in 2007 to 51% in 2009, and 44% in 2011. If the trend continues, the Simpson’s character Cletus will become the fount of all wisdom while Americans report to work in Snuggies. Republicans are opposed to recognizing the climate crisis simply because they know its solution would mean wealth distribution, resource sharing and reparations. As Naomi says, “climate change detonates the ideological scaffolding on which contemporary conservatism rests.” It’s hard to keep vilifying collective action when it’s the only workable solution.

As Greta Thunberg said, “We have to stop competing with each other. We need to start cooperating and sharing the remaining resources of this planet in a fair way.” One of the advantages of autism, Greta Thunberg says, is that you are less apt to repeat the social behaviors of your peers which helps to forge a unique path. This allows you to focus with great intensity, removes the need for deception and lying, while seeing things more in black and white. As a result, Greta’s public comments are often, “short, unadorned and scathing”. Naomi shows how FDR’s New Deal showed us how the Green New Deal could easily help the people, infrastructure, economy, common spaces, air and water. The IPCC report shows that every half degree of warming involves the death of hundreds of millions of people. The Union of Concerned Scientists has shown us that, “the U.S. Military is the largest institutional consumer of oil in the world.” The current immigration logic is to treat immigrants with such “callousness and cruelty” that no one would want to enter the country unless they looked like Melania. The Great Depression only caused a 10% reduction in CO2 for a few years. A recent discovery is that the genocide of indigenous Americans factored into the Little Ice Age of the 1500 to 1600’s which was caused by so much land being removed from production (which led to more sequestering of carbon). The great Auks were killed off to keep the pillows and mattresses in Europe stuffed.

In the United States, we are taught to hate “the other” – we hate migrants (comically forgetting most of us are technically migrants – Jared Diamond said the American people move, on average, once every five years), we hate Muslims (because they gave us the concept of bathing and washing), hate Blacks (because for centuries we’ve owed them reparations) and hate women (to better pretend we rank higher or we’re the Lord of the trailer). In the end Naomi sees the solution is Kimberle Crenshaw’s Intersectionality, where all paths converge with low-carbon policies. Changing our lifestyle and maybe our neighborhood must go hand in hand with demanding structural changes in insure a future. And mass uprisings of the people are the way to create the necessary “friction” to slow the capitalist machine. What we need is “an intersectional approach to social and political change.” For Naomi, Socialism has made many mistakes with the environment which is why the answer is Eco-Socialism.

[Will Fuqua · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you already accept climate change and the need for massive changes, this book is really repetitive and won't give you anything new. If you're a denier, this won't convince you. I'm not sure what the point was.

[David Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's exciting to have the opportunity to read a book that feels so important. Our rapidly advancing climate crisis has advanced beyond the worrisome stage and we are faced with the possibility of catastrophic disaster if we continue on the destructive path that has brought us to this place. Naomi Klein shares her considerable expertise and formidable knowledge concerning climate change, environmental disaster, and the intersectionality of economic inequality, systemic racism, the dangerous excesses of unregulated capitalism, the immigration crisis, declining health outcomes, and more. That might make it sound like an enormously depressing read, but the good news here is that Ms. Klein has created a compelling case for a comprehensive Green New Deal that would create the potential for improving and even alleviating most or all of these problems. She exhaustively documents the need for such a program and convincingly lays out her case for adopting a Green New Deal now.
This very moment.
I was tempted to despair as I read her account of the many climate disasters our world is currently subject to, some of which I did not even know about. Thankfully though, I found reason for hope in the pages of this book. "On Fire" is certainly one of the most important and inspiring books that I have read in a very long time, and I am enthusiastically recommending it to everyone who lives on this planet, and wants to keep doing so.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and LitHub.com for the complimentary advance review copy.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is both a huge success and a massive failure; it depends on who you were before you opened the book. It won't change your mind. The arguments in here are not going to convince anyone who doesn't want to believe. In fact, I would venture to say very little of this book can serve as an argument. Instead, this book should be seen as a way to galvanize those already invested in this idea.

The actual book is a collection of writings: some essays, some articles, some random musings near as I can tell and one graduation speech. The rest of the book is a 50 page introduction. One sixth of the book is spent on the intro. This would be strange except it is the only part of the book that feels *written*. The book feels a bit like a hodgepodge, like rummaging though a box of old photos at the last minute to put on a poster at a wedding or shower. The articles feel a bit dated, out of sorts, and don't mesh super well together. It's hard to hear a clear point of view or a consistent voice. The pace changes a bit too much and even the goal seems fluid. If possible, I would highly suggest starting at page 200 and only read the last one third of the book, which, by the way, is excellent.

If you are a person who is already interested in these issues, you will probably like this book. That is especially true if only read the last 100 pages and you are wanting a call to action.

[Carolina Ibanez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even if you don’t agree with her view or solutions, it’s a must read for this time.

[Mirek Jasinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read on a very difficult subject - climate change!

[Lilli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Naomi Klein does it again. How can a book be so simultaneously devastating and encouraging? Full thoughts to come. I bought my own computer so maybe I can finally get caught up 😂

[Steffi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naomi Klein’s latest book ‘On Fire. The Burning Case for a Green New Deal’ (2019) is a very timely collection of essays written between 2009 to 2019 - in many ways a lost decade but one of a profound shift between the 2009 UN climate summit where Bolivian climate negotiator Angelica Navarro Llanos called for a ‘Marshall Plan for the Earth’ to AOC and ‘the squad’ introducing the Green New Deal to Congress in 2019 and the UK Labour Party adopting the GND at their 2019 party conference earlier this week.

It’s also the decade since the global financial crisis which in many ways ended liberal democracy as we knew it. Obama was symptomatic for the West’s initial response to both financial and climate crises - his advisors included both former Wallstreet and BP Executives - more of the same market based, neoliberal ‘solutions’ zero structural change. It was a total capitulation of politics before the markets and corporate interests, the triumph of technocracy which here and there emboldened the far right. The centre left’s capitulation in this lost decade also brought about social movements addressing various dimensions of exploitation and discrimination, Occupy Wallstreet, Blacklives Matter, Fight for 15, Standing Rock, #metoo, medicare4all - many find an expression in the political movement which came out of the 2016 Bernie campaign and finally brought together these siloed struggles in the Green New Deal on which both Bernie and Warren will run in 2020.

At the same time, the 2018 special IPCC report on keeping warming below 1.5C made clear that business as usual is not an option and triggered the global Fridays for Future movement and brought the the Green New Deal into the political mainstream.

The essays capture some of these developments that took place in the last decade and which led us to the current cross-roads: A world ruled by Trump and Johnson or Bernie and Corbyn - both worlds are currently within reach, equally scary and exciting.

We’ve lost a decade to the moderates who changed nothing and convinced the electorate that democracy is rigged against them, ironically culminating in the elites in the form of Boris Johnson leading a campaign of ‘the people versus parliament’. Should Congress impeach Trump, the same will happen in the US.

The next decade will be a defining period and I hope that when I buy Naomi Klein’s book in 2030 (which I will) which looks back at the ‘20s, it will be a story of collective action of change rather than empty rethoric.

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn’t read Naomi Klein before, so this served as an introduction for me. It is so easy to become overwhelmed and hopeless/passive in the face of the climate crisis, or to simply obsess over the small individual choices we make as consumers, and she addresses this (I definitely felt recognition when she referred to “how the mismatch between climate change and market domination has created barriers within our very selves, making it harder for us to look at this most pressing of humanitarian crises with anything more than furtive, terrified glances”). Furtive? Terrified? Naomi, I think we’ve met and I feel so seen. I really appreciated her critique of the current system and her galvanizing approach to the necessity of change, albeit in an ever-narrowing window.

The book is a collection of articles and speeches, bookended by a lengthy introduction and a stellar concluding piece that outlines the case for a Green New Deal or, in its Canadian form, the Leap. Because it’s a collection written over time, it felt a little choppy and it was hard to read speeches written for moments of potential change that have passed (though the passing of time is something we need to be painfully aware of and motivated by, it made me quite sad). One piece, “Season of Smoke,” was especially poignant, conveying the feeling of a terrible wildfire season in British Columbia in 2017, which was the worst in record at the time. 2017 wasn’t an anomaly, and we’re now in 2021 and much of the province spent another summer on fire. I definitely had to take breaks while reading the collection, but there’s hope and energy here as well, which is needed. I’d also like to learn in more depth about many of the topics covered just briefly here, such as the false promise of geotechnical solutions or more details of the plan for change that she and others have developed.

[Sara Shakouri · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent thirty-something page pamphlet, stretched to three hundred pages, repeating itself, with scattered, sometimes interesting facts which do not lead to any conclusions.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have 11 years. That's according to Naomi Klein (although she humbly adds she is merely one of many voices in her field who have been drawing similar conclusions).

Nevertheless, we only have 11 years. That's not anything resembling idle speculation. Its not just talk; it's a rather exact measurement. And it's not negotiable. We have 11 years to get the Green New Deal in motion.

Or we're fucked. And... should The Thing in the WH get re-elected... well, in Naomi's words: "Game over."

She knows this stuff inside and out. I knew - not nearly enough - about it, so I read this brilliant, accessible, concise and compassionate book. Naomi knows her shit. Let me let her express it a little in her own words:

"Climate change is a collective problem demanding collective action on a scale that humanity has never actually accomplished. Yet it entered mainstream consciousness in the midst of an ideological war being waged on the very idea of the collective sphere."

Right. In other words... some 'force' does not want us all to come together for this purpose. That 'force' is the elite - the wealthy and the corporate - who are quite happy seeing all of the 'minions' scrambling around without a unified deal. Naomi explains later in more detail:

"Climate change acts as an accelerant to many of our social ills (inequality, wars, racism, sexual violence), but it can also be an accelerant for the opposite, for the forces working for economic and social justice and against militarism. Indeed, the climate crisis, by presenting our species with an existential threat and putting us on a firm and unyielding science-based deadline, might just be the catalyst we need to knit together a great many powerful movements bound together by a belief in the inherent worth and value of all people and united by a rejection of the sacrifice zone mentality, whether it applies to peoples or to places."

And for what result?

"In tacking the climate crisis, we can create hundreds of millions of good jobs around the world, invest in the most systematically excluded communities and nations, guarantee health and child care, and much more. The result of these transformations would be economies built both to protect and to regenerate the planet's life support systems and to respect and sustain the people who depend on them."

~the kind of result one would expect from a plan taking its inspiration from FDR's New Deal of 1933-36. Klein believes that, if it worked then - and it did - it can work again... if it's put in motion soon. ~which is why that *must* happen. Solidarity in this must be our priority. If we are to survive.

Remember when you thought 'The Twilight Zone' was just a tv show, and things like that couldn't really happen? Think again.

Surprisingly, Klein remains rather relentlessly upbeat in her writing. My guess re: that is that she chooses to believe in the best in people... that, when necessary, people will overcome the odds to achieve greatness in stability.

I don't want to just hope that's the case. I want to see that day begin. Don't you?

[Rhys · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was of the opinion that This Changes Everything was a fuzzy-headed and tentative book, but Naomi Klein is on fire in this one. The Introduction is among the best things she has written. And the following essays are well crafted and fit the overall theme of the book supporting the Green New Deal. It is a call to action.

On Fire is hard hitting and honest: "So, let’s summarize. Responding to climate change requires that we break every rule in the free-market playbook and that we do so with great urgency. We will need to rebuild the public sphere, reverse privatizations, relocalize large parts of economies, scale back overconsumption, bring back long-term planning, heavily regulate and tax corporations, maybe even nationalize some of them, cut military spending, and recognize our debts to the Global South. Of course, none of this has a hope in hell of happening unless it is accompanied by a massive, broad-based effort to radically reduce the influence that corporations have over the political process. That means, at a minimum, publicly funded elections and stripping corporations of their status as 'people' under the law. In short, climate change supercharges the preexisting case for virtually every progressive demand on the books, binding them into a coherent agenda based on a clear scientific imperative" (p.90).

As Naomi Klein says: Later is officially over.

[Jolanta (knygupė) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Naomi Klein tikrai on fire. Skuba. Galima suprasti ja.
Manau, knyga yra reikalinga, tad daviau tris zv. Buciau davusi maziau, nes as nieko naujo ar verto demesio nesuzinojau. Si knyga -kazkoks miksas. Izanga skirta Gretai, pabiros ese, jau publikuotas straipsnis, pasikartojimai is jos ankstesniu knygu...Man pasirode sis rinkinys skirtas jaunimui ikvepti ir/ar pradedantiems rupintis aplinkosauga.

[Bettie]

@AllenLaneBooks will publish @NaomiAKlein's On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal: http://bit.ly/2SIp1TR

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree with more or less the whole book, but wow, I find Naomi Klein's writing to be annoying.

[Garret Giblin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naomi Klein writes (and speaks) with an urgency and clarity that is unrivalled when it comes to climate imo. She convincingly makes the case for a truly intersectional solution to climate change. It's not simply right to address historical and contemporary injustices while dealing with the climate emergency. Klein asserts that any climate movement that leaves out justice for minority groups, women, the global south, and indigenous peoples, is doomed to fail.

tl;dr polluters must pay

[Anika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Endlich habe ich es mal geschafft, ein Buch von Naomi Klein zu lesen! Ihre Sammlung zum Thema Green New Deal vereint Kolumnen, Essays und Reden zum Thema Klimawandel/Umweltzerstörung, Folgen, Lehren und Forderungen nach mehr Gerechtigkeit. Nach einer längeren aktuellen Einführung geht es dabei zunächst zurück ins Jahr 2010 (Deepwater Horizon) um sich dann, in zahlreichen weiteren Kapiteln unterschiedlicher Länge und Tiefe, langsam wieder der Gegenwart anzunähern. Der Weg dorthin ist gesäumt mit gut recherchierten und sehr lesbaren Berichten über weitere erschreckende Umweltsünden, interessante Hintergründe, berührende Schicksale, innovative Ideen und unerschrockene Optimisten.

Einige Geschichten haben mich mehr begeistert als andere, einiges war bekannt, vieles neu. Ich emfand die Zusammenstellung so gesehen als sehr ausgewogen und gelungen.

Naomi Klein trifft hier genau den richtigen Ton: Radikal (zumindest vermutlich augenscheinlich zunächst für die Menschen, die sich kaum oder erst wenig mit dem Thema Klimaungerechtigkeit usw. befasst haben), dabei aber nie belehrend oder moralinsauer. Sie schafft es, ihre akribischen Recherchen nicht nur sehr gefällig zu präsentieren, sondern erzeugt durch den sehr gekonnten Einsatz persönlicher Noten schnell eine verbindende Sympathie zur Leserschaft. Ich freue mich jetzt schon darauf, mir nach und nach mehr von ihr zu lesen.

[J TC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um dos mais marcantes libelos das causas das alterações climáticas. Uma acusação contra um consumo e um crescimento económico insustentáveis.
Não podemos ter todos vidas privadas de luxos. O nosso consumo leva a uma acumulação de efeitos secundários na atmosfera, nos oceanos, na terra e na geografia que é incomportável com os luxos que pretendemos ter. Devemos sim ter todos as nossas necessidades mínimas garantidas e os luxos esses serem públicos.
Por detrás deste consumo sem limites está o estado liberal libertário, estão as grandes empresas dos combustíveis fósseis, as instituições financeiras e todos os políticos que a soldo directo ou indirecto nos empurraram para esta encruzilhada.
Tudo isto Naomi Klein nos descreve e exemplifica de forma magistral, indicando-nos as pistas para escaparmos da armadilha em que nos colocaram.
Importante é não é demais sublinha-lós, o apoio que devemos investir no Green New Deal e na derrota de Donald Trump.
Uma das críticas recorrentes a Naomi Klein é a de ela ter uma posição anti capitalista. Não creio que quem a faz a tenha compreendido de forma adequada.
Naomi tanto se assume anti capitalista como condena os regime dos petrodollars da Venezuela ou o Socialismo dos Sovietes. No fundo o que condena são todos os regimes que exploram os recursos (humanos inclusive) à exaustão para benefício apenas de uma elite de privilegiados.
E fá-lo de forma magistral
Um livro a não passar ao lado

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is comprised of a lengthy forward and essays/speeches Naomi Klein had given throughout the 2010s, often in response to climate disasters. She's added her 2019 reflections at the end of each essay to contextualize any changes to events in that location, policy, or her own thinking.

Initially, I was a bit taken aback because I thought the book was all original work... but then I found the book structure was brilliant. It's vital to keep a clear history of environmental justice movements and political (in)action, both in relatively recent and decades-long time frames. I found the 2010s in review structure very grounding - it helped me fill in the gaps I think so many of us have from fast-paced social media news gathering and solidify the urgency of the now.

Naomi is so skilled at being incredibly specific with her weaving of politics, history, geography, and media, without sacrificing any legibility. I'm obviously a fan already, but I think this is an excellent book to share with others. It's informative and critical. Devastated and angry. Insightful and hopeful. Local and global. It offers smart rebuttals to all the noise, confusion, and denial about the stark realities of climate crisis and capitalism and the possibilities of collective action. I highlighted so many sections that I'm sure I'll keep referring to in the future.

[Craig Bellamy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not about a Green New Deal

I tried to read this, but it doesn't live up to the title. Whilst there is some good work in it about a Green New Deal, it is superficial and I wish the whole book had been dedicated to this much needed topic. It makes random and at times ethically questionable connections to current affairs like the Christchurch massacre, to support what is largely a rhetorical argument of stirring prose but little else. It's a long way from the seminal No Logo written 20 years ago.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked Naomi Klein's On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal, a book which collects Klein's essays on climate change from the 2010s, and here are some reasons to read it.

First, it can be read as a sort of representative history of how climate activists thought and reacted during this past decade. I often feel a need for a history of green thought but have not yet stumbled upon one.

Second, these essays show that by the end of the decade a group was organizing around the thought of Klein, McKibben, Monbiot, Hansen, Raworth, Ocasio-Cortez, and Thunberg. I mention this group not as a comprehensive list, nor to dismiss the shoulders of their predecessors, so much as because these folks are synthesizing and referencing each other's works (maybe not Hansen). What is this group thinking? I wonder if Klein might see within the group intersectionality. Because intersectionality encourages people to see how effects compound and speak to one another, the climate crisis becomes tied up in economic systems, class conflict, structures of racism and sexism, the imbalance between the North and the South--and more. Raworth represents many of these ideas in her doughnut and Ocasio-Cortez also envisions the Green New Deal as a way to mitigate these conflicts.

Third, I like that Klein's analysis, because it is proud and uncompromising, shows the diversity of greens. This group is not well divided into prophets and wizards, as one might take from Mann. Nor is it romantics and eco-modernists, as Brand and Pinker suggest. There are all sorts of people under this tent, a phrase I take from David Roberts.

Fourth, I do admire how proud and uncompromising Klein's analysis is. It's not uncommon to see conservatives argue that the Green New Deal is a sort of "trojan horse" for left policies. Klein does not stutter but rather argues that these intersectional policies are indeed the best way to build a healthy and prosperous society in response to the climate crisis. She further argues that the climate crisis reveals how bankrupt, useless, and ultimately harmful neoliberalism's individualistic policies can be. She refuses to accept that humans are failing to respond to climate change and instead argues that capitalism is failing to respond to it. So often, greens try to compromise, soft sell their aspirations, or they worry over how to most enticingly convince deniers to accept climate science. I admit that I sometimes find this obsequiousness exhausting, though of course I do it all the time, and I was so happy to see someone with the courage to just forge ahead.

Fifth, I particularly liked the section of the introduction that analyzes what Klein calls "climate barbarism." Basically, I interpret this idea as the haves bunkering down behind their walls and their hoarded wealth, which they will use to adapt to rising seas, changing weather patterns, and heat waves--damn the have-nots. In this moment, one might do well to think of all those "climate change might be bad, but maybe not for us" arguments that get thrown around.

Sixth, there are many useful concepts in the book. Klein often refers to the dominant ecological mindset of the West as "extractivist." This model is built on some infinite concepts--an infinite frontier and an endless "away" into which we can sweep our pollution. The climate crisis is disorienting because it is increasingly difficult to believe in limitless resources and the endless away.

Finally, while Klein's earlier work, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, may seem better to me, it's also much longer. There are articles here that are powerful but also short, which makes them an effective entry into Klein's reasoning. Most of them can easily be found online, but I particularly recommend "Capitalism vs. the Climate," "Geoengineering: Testing the Waters," "Stop Trying to Save the World All By Yourself," "Let Them Drown," and "Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not 'Human Nature.'" Agree or disagree, these essays are thoughtful, clear, and worth considering.

If I had to criticize The Burning Case for a Green New Deal, I'd note that there is no bibliography, though that's typical of collected works, and I found the most recent stuff the least powerful--though I wonder if I'll appreciate it more in a couple years. Ultimately, Klein is a thoughtful and talented writer.

[Sotiris Karaiskos · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many books that refer to the ugly way in which the world works and causes many problems for much of humanity, but Naomi Klein's books always stand out for one reason: they are not simply whining but suggest some solutions. In this she goes on to argue in favor of the idea that imposing of specific drastic solutions to climate change can bring about major changes in the way the world economy operates, thereby creating a fairer world. Drawing inspiration from the drastic political changes Franklin Roosevelt has brought to bear to face of the great financial crisis, she proposes a corresponding New Deal where huge investments in renewables and the social state will create millions of new jobs, especially for the vulnerable groups of the population, and in parallel with the salvation of the planet, the salvation of mankind from very big social problems will come also.

The author, in a simple and comprehensible way, then arguing on the basis of the facts available, then invoking the emotion, warns of the great danger that threatens humanity, sounding the alarm and warning that the time we have to act is ending without, however, never leaving room for despair, making a call to arms for all of us to react and force governments around the world to do something at once, putting aside their hesitations, stopping to succumb to the pressures of the economically powerful who profit from the ongoing catastrophe of the planet. A necessary read nowadays as the wave of mobilization against climate change is growing.

Υπάρχουν πολλά βιβλία που αναφέρονται στον άσχημο τρόπο που λειτουργεί ο κόσμος και δημιουργεί πολλά προβλήματα σε μεγάλο μέρος της ανθρωπότητας, τα βιβλία της Ναόμι Κλάιν, όμως, πάντα ξεχωρίζουν για έναν λόγο: δεν περιλαμβάνουν απλά γκρίνια αλλά προτείνουν κάποιες λύσεις. Σε αυτό συνεχίζει την επιχειρηματολογία της υπέρ της ιδέας ότι η επιβολή συγκεκριμένων δραστικών λύσεων για την αντιμετώπιση της κλιματικής αλλαγής μπορεί να φέρει μεγάλες αλλαγές στον τρόπο που λειτουργεί η παγκόσμια οικονομία, δημιουργώντας έτσι έναν πιο δίκαιο κόσμο. Αντλώντας έμπνευση από τις δραστικές πολιτικές αλλαγές που έφερε ο Φράνκλιν Ρούσβελτ στην προσπάθειά του να αντιμετωπίσει τη μεγάλη οικονομική κρίση, προτείνει ένα αντίστοιχο New Deal όπου πολύ μεγάλες επενδύσεις στο χώρο των ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας και στο κοινωνικό κράτος θα δημιουργήσουν εκατομμύρια νέες θέσεις εργασίας, ειδικά για ευάλωτες ομάδες πληθυσμού, με αποτέλεσμα παράλληλα με τη σωτηρία του πλανήτη να έρθει και η σωτηρία της ανθρωπότητας από πολύ μεγάλα κοινωνικά προβλήματα.

Η συγγραφέας με απλό και κατανοητό τρόπο, πότε επιχειρηματολογώντας με βάση τα διαθέσιμα στοιχεία, πότε κάνοντας επίκληση στο συναίσθημα, προειδοποιεί για το μεγάλο κίνδυνο που απειλεί την ανθρωπότητα, κρούοντας τον κώδωνα του κινδύνου και προειδοποιώντας ότι ο χρόνος που έχουμε για να δράσουμε τελειώνει, όμως, ποτέ να αφήνει χώρο για την απελπισία, κάνοντας ένα κάλεσμα στα όπλα προς όλους μας για να αντιδράσουμε και να αναγκάσουμε τις κυβερνήσεις όλου του κόσμου να κάνουν κάτι άμεσα αφήνοντας στην άκρη τους δισταγμούς, σταματώντας να υποκύπτουν στις πιέσεις των οικονομικά ισχυρών που έχουν κέρδος από τη συνεχιζόμενη καταστροφή του πλανήτη. Ένα απαραίτητο ανάγνωσμα στις μέρες μας που το κύμα της κινητοποίησης ενάντια στην κλιματική αλλαγή γίνεται ολοένα και μεγαλύτερο.