On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal
Written by Naomi Klein
Narrated by Rebecca Lowman
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
An instant bestseller, On Fire shows Klein at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but also as a spiritual and imaginative one. 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.
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.
“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, climate activist
"If I were a rich man, I’d buy 245 million copies of Naomi Klein’s 'On Fire' and hand-deliver them to every eligible voter in America…Klein is a skilled writer." —Jeff Goodell, The New York Times
Editor's Note
Editor’s pick…
Naomi Klein’s “On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal” is, as you might’ve guessed, a polemic against the direly inadequate global response to the climate crisis. As talk of the Green New Deal becomes de rigueur in the Democratic debates and Greta Thunberg’s Climate Strike expands from schools to offices across the world, it seems as though a sea change is finally afoot.
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and author of the New York Times and international bestsellers The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, This Changes Everything, and No Is Not Enough. A Senior Correspondent for The Intercept, reporter for Rolling Stone, and contributor for both The Nation and The Guardian, Klein is the inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. She is cofounder of the climate justice organization The Leap.
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Reviews for On Fire
109 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very well thought out, relevant, and interesting set of essays. I wish there had been more cohesive/repeated plot elements. I also hope that we get a green new deal soon!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not a book about the green new deal as such. A collection of Klein’s essays and lectures, and 3 chapters plus an informative epilogue on the green new deal.
A lot of this book points out the rather obvious climate events, and politics of recent years and narrates them. Anyone interested in climate change and that has been following such events closely will be bored by this book. It doesn’t talk much about the green new deal itself, it’s already fairly obvious why we need one.
One of Klein’s weakest books. Probably helpful for younger readers that may not know as much about recent history on the topic. Overall disappointing. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing and inspiring work. A must-read for anyone who wants to hone their voice and gather arguments for an all-encompassing movement for people and planet. I read during the coronavirus crisis, and was reminded of the increasing urgency for the policy and movement proposals that Klein so eloquently demands.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Give us the Green New Deal NOW!!!! And by now I mean ten years ago!!!!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was hoping for more specificity on actual policy proposals instead of a more impassioned plea for any action on the climate crisis, but instead this is yet another of many books in the vein of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, but without the poetic prose. Even though there’s a thousand other books with content nearly identical, I don’t think the world can produce enough calls to action on climate change, so for that it’s still worth reading.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Timely reading for a worrying subject. Great job: joining the dots
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Author expresses the urgency, supported by fact and offers approaches and examples
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Although I had heard good things about Naomi Klein I have not read any of her books although I'm sure I've read some of her articles published in various periodicals. So I did not know that she was married to Avi Lewis, son of "the indomitable Stephen Lewis" and grandson of David Lewis. With those impressive in-laws I suppose she had no choice but to become a cogent and passionate writer which shows in this book on climate change and the Green New Deal.She introduces the book by talking about Greta Thunberg and the School Strike for Climate that Greta inspired. Virtually every climate change activist has been awestruck by Greta even if then President Trump wasn't so impressed with the "very happy young girl". In fact, the title of this book was inspired by Thunberg's speech to the World Economic Summit in Davos where she said "I want you to act as if your house is on fire, because it is."The book includes a number of articles Klein wrote between 2010 and 2019 dealing with topics such as the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from BP's Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig, how capitalism fuels climate change, massive forest fires, and bleaching of coral reefs. Her articles are not just an account of everything that has gone wrong in the world; the subtitle of this book is "The Burning Case for a Green New Deal" so she devotes a lot of the book to how a Green New Deal would work and she uses the historical lesson of FDR's New Deal that brought the US out of the Great Depression. She sold me on it. I just wish every politician in the world was required to read this book and maybe they would move faster to achieve the goals most of them have signed on to.Obviously this book was published before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in full force which is sort of a shame because how governments have thrown money and resources at responding to the pandemic is just the sort of response we need to combat climate change. And then just this past weekend there was an article in The Guardian about Klein's newest book How to Change Everything geared to the YA market. It concluded with these words:What the pandemic has changed, says Klein, is our understanding of how to respond to an emergency. When youth movements called for climate change to be treated as an emergency, governments responded with fine words but little urgency. “The big difference post-Covid is we now know what it means to treat an emergency like an emergency. We’ve all seen our governments do it. They can change things dramatically overnight. And that’s not something those of us born after the second world war had experienced. Our expectations and our ability to differentiate between just talk and actual change is heightened. And the pressure is going to be even greater on political leaders.”Exactly!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The thing that I admire most about Naomi Klein is that she writes incredibly clearly. One may agree, or disagree with her beliefs, but one is never in doubt as to what they are.She puts the case for social change to be an essential part of the Green New Deal and, I get it, at last. This book should be on everybody's read list - even better, were it to be on their 'I have read' list.