On Fire (pocket Penguin)

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 justice at its centre. Her books have defined our era. On Fire gathers for the first time more than a decade of her impassioned writing from the frontline of climate change, and pairs it with new material on the staggeringly high stakes of what we choose to do next. These essays, reports and lectures show 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 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, from 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 energy of a rising political movement demanding change now.