On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal by Naomi Klein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book suffers from a very common problem with many books of this type.

It attempts to convince an audience that is already convinced. Those who ought to read a book like this generally avoids it at all costs. This is a nasty paradox.

The good: It touches upon much of the opposition, the climate deniers and free-trade-at-all-cost, the ones who are focusing on profit to the detriment of any long-term good, and some of the well-funded organizations.

It also illustrates just how bad off we are along many milestones.

Best of all, it shows us how many of us are on board, that there is vast climate support. What we need is a truly massive popular movement to put the right kind of pressure on those who would lie, cheat, and loot -- and this includes pressure on all political and oligarchical bad-actors.


The bad: As I've said, this is all old news. One individual person asking, "But what can *I* do?" is never going to get the answer they wish. There is no easy solution. What we need is a full mass-movement that must push through opposition from the rich, from astroturfing and propaganda, and resisting the worse danger of physical force that would put down the greater number of us as we just try to secure our futures.

Because let's face it: our futures are far from certain and most of us are getting very close to the breaking point. The point where either we're completely broken, or where we must all stand up and do the right thing.


This book came out about 5 years ago and it was already pretty dire. After what we've gone through so far, it should be extremely clear just how much danger we're in. Make no mistake: emissions from the rich make up the vast majority of the pollution and waste, and yet their movement to just use up the rest of the earth is reaching a fever pitch.

Do we want to live the rest of our increasingly unpleasant lives in fatalism, or what?



View all my reviews