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Political Science Environmental Policy

On Fire

The Burning Case for a Green New Deal

by (author) Naomi Klein

Publisher
Knopf Canada
Initial publish date
Sep 2019
Category
Environmental Policy, Environmental Economics, Essays
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780735279223
    Publish Date
    Sep 2019
    List Price
    $32.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780735279247
    Publish Date
    Sep 2020
    List Price
    $22.00

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Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A MUST-READ book. Naomi Klein pairs a decade of her powerful writing on our acute environmental decline with new material on the staggeringly high stakes of what we choose to do next; and inspiringly offers here a politically viable, just, sustainable path forward.

For more than twenty years, Naomi Klein has been the foremost chronicler of the economic war waged on both people and planet--and the champion of a sweeping environmental agenda with stability and justice at its center. In lucid dispatches from the frontlines--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"--she has penned surging, indispensable lectures and essays for a wide public, with prescient, clarifying information about the future that awaits us and our children if we stick our heads in the sand. They show Klein at her most thoughtful, tracing the evolution of the climate crisis as the key issue of our time, not only as an immediate political challenge but as a spiritual and imaginative one too.

Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of "perpetual now," to the soaring history of humans' ability to change rapidly in the face of grave threat, 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. Above all, she underscores how we can still rise to the existential challenge of the crisis if we are willing to transform our systems that are producing it, making clear how the battle for a greener world is indistinguishable from the fight for our lives.

On Fire is a critical book: it captures the burning urgency of this moment, the fiery energy of a rising movement demanding change now, and lays out an inspiring vision for a sustainable future.

About the author

When we invited journalist and activist Naomi Klein to campus in the fall of 2004, five years after the international success of her bestselling first book, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, she was a literary star. She had recently returned from a trip to Iraq for Harper's Magazine, which would form the foundation of her next book, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. We expected she would draw a crowd, so we moved the lecture into the 400-seat St. Thomas University chapel and set up an overflow room downstairs in the cafeteria. When Klein arrived and discovered the overflow room was full, she insisted on stopping there first to address them in person for a few minutes. She said she is always running late; the people in the overflow room were her people. A version of the talk she gave that evening was published in Harper's.

Naomi Klein's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“Naomi Klein’s work has always moved and guided me. She is the great chronicler of our age of climate emergency, an inspirer of generations.” —Greta Thunberg

"I didn’t know this would change my life. It told me what I had to do, and it motivated me to do it."
Jane Fonda

“Naomi Klein is a precious gift: every time I read her words, my heart leaps from sadness and anger to action. She takes us deep, down to the roots of what is wrong—and then up, up to a height from which we can see what must be done. Everything we love is at stake now: these writings are our best and brightest hope.” —Emma Thompson

“Masterful. . . . What separates Klein from many other advocates for a Green New Deal is her balanced combination of idealism and politics-based realism. . . . Another important addition to the literature on the most essential issue of our day.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“Klein’s passion for action reflects the political, social, and scientific gridlock that makes such sweeping, transformational legislation imperative. Her zeal and eloquence will inspire, engage, and motivate those who are concerned about the planet’s future to become even more involved in taking any and all possible steps to curb or reverse further disruption and destruction.” —Booklist
 
“For a quarter century, now, Naomi Klein has been an outspoken and fearless voice on that which late-stage hyper-capitalism has wrought upon the world: income inequality, overreaching corporate power, for-profit empire building and, of course, the consequent climate crisis. Honestly, we don’t deserve her, and looking back at her seven books one can’t help but think of Cassandra, her warnings ever accurate yet unheeded . . . with her eighth book, On Fire, Klein collects her longform writing on the climate crisis—from the dying Great Barrier Reef to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico—and somehow manages to strike a hopeful note as she calls for a radical commitment to the Green New Deal, the kind of collective mobilization that saved us from the brink in WWII, and might be our only hope now.” —Literary Hub

“Expansive and far-ranging, [On Fire] captures the urgency of the fight against climate change.” —Stylist
PRAISE FOR NAOMI KLEIN AND HER PREVIOUS BOOKS:

“One of the most powerful voices in the climate movement.” —Leonardo DiCaprio
 
“The greatest theorist of climate change.” —Amitav Ghosh
 
“Naomi Klein is the intellectual godmother of the Green New Deal—which just happens to be the most important idea in the world right now.” —Bill McKibben

No Is Not Enough remains the vociferous advocacy for grassroots, popular political movements that can meaningfully push back against Donald Trump, and the governing political-economic logic of neo-liberalism. . . . [Klein] is shrewd and savvy enough to understand that Trump is a product of a system. . . . Without lapsing into corny cheeriness or the puffed-up cant of centrist political cliché (‘Love Trumps Hate!’), Naomi Klein holds out a cautious hope for the despairing age: an honest, prescriptive belief that people can unite in their opposition to Trumpism to build a better world.” —The Globe and Mail 

This Changes Everything is the basic text of the modern era, the book you must buy, read, re-read, study, treasure and pass on. Climate change is happening and we have to slow it down and prepare ourselves for the convulsion to come.” —Toronto Star

Other titles by Naomi Klein

The Architecture of Modern Empire

Conversations with David Barsamian

by (author) Arundhati Roy & David Barsamian
foreword by Naomi Klein

Doppelganger

A Trip into the Mirror World

by (author) Naomi Klein

How to Change Everything

The Young Human's Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other

by (author) Naomi Klein & Rebecca Stefoff

Enjeux et défis du développement international

Acteurs et champs d'action. Édition nouvelle et actualisée

edited by Pierre Beaudet, Dominique Caouette, Paul Haslam & Abdelhamid Benhmade
contributions by Éric Allina, Albert Ze, Alejandro Marreros Lobato, Alexa Conradi, Amélie Nguyen, Arnaud Zacharie, Aurélie Arnaud, Carmen Diaz, Cédric Jourde, Charmain Levy, Christophe Aguiton, David Sogge, Déo Niyonkuru, Diane Alalouf-Hall, Dominique Plihon, Emilio Taddei, Éric Toussaint, Étienne Hainzelin, Flora Pidoux, Florent Song-Naba, Francine Mestrum, François Audet, François Polet, Francoise Montambeault, Geneviève Talbot, Ghislaine Raymond, Gilbert Rist, Gustave Massiah, Hélène Pellerin, Jean-François Rousseau, Jean-Philippe Leblond, Leo Panitch, Jean-Philippe Thérien, Jonathan Durand-Folco, Katina Binette, Lauchlan T. Munro, Laurence Hamel-Charest, Leila Celis, Lucie Lamarche, Luis Klein Juan, Maïka Sondarjee, Mamadou Barry, Mamadou Ndoye, Manon Boulianne, Marie Brodeur-Gelinas, Marie-Éve Bertrand, Marie-Pierre Bousquet, Marie-Pierre Leroux, Maristella Svampa, Mathieu Perron-Dufour, Matthieu Boussichas, Michel Husson, Michel Warschawski, Moussa Dembélé Dembélé Demba, Mylène Gaulard, Nailya Okda, Naomi Klein, Nora Nagels, Pascale Dufour, Philippe Fournier, Philippe Régnier, Pierre Beaucage, Pierre Jasmin, Raphaël Canet, Rino Levesque, Robert David, Roromme Chantal, Ryoa Chung, Samantha McGavin, Sanni Yaya, Sarah Charland-Faucher, Sophie Brière, Stéphanie Maltais, Stephen Brown, Sylvie Paquerot, Thomas Chiasson-Lebel, Thomas Collombat, Walden Bello & Yves-Marie Abraham

The Battle For Paradise

Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists

by (author) Naomi Klein

La Batalla Por el Paraiso

Puerto Rico y el Capitalismo Del Desastre

by (author) Naomi Klein

The Reconciliation Manifesto

Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy

by (author) Arthur Manuel & Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson
preface by Naomi Klein

No Is Not Enough

Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need

by (author) Naomi Klein

No Is Not Enough

Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need

by (author) Naomi Klein

This Changes Everything

Capitalism vs. the Climate

by (author) Naomi Klein