On Fire

On Fire

Adult nonfiction IT
As I write this it is the day before Christmas. New Years will
follow close behind. Whatever other resolutions you make (or decide
not to make) there is one I would like each and every one of you to
take on: read something way out of your comfort zone, something
downright scary, something that makes the fantasies of Maine's
horrormeister, Stephen King, seem like Sesame Street fare, something
that will make you as angry as a wet hornet and unwilling to be
sedated...something that reflects the realities of our globe as we
enter the 1920s. In fact please read more than We need to
incorporate these books' inconvenient truths into our thinking and do
something about them. So beginning with this review books that qualify
will have a designation of IT in the genre/audience line beneath the
title.
"It has been over three decades since governments and scientists
started officially meeting to discuss the need to lower greenhouse gas
emissions to avoid the dangers of climate breakdown. In the
intervening years, we have heard countless appeals for action that
involve 'the children,' 'the grandchildren,' and 'generations to
come.' We were told that we owed it to them to move swiftly and
embrace change. We were warned that we were failing in our most
sacred duty to protect them. It was predicted that they would judge
us harshly if we failed to act on their behalf."
So what went wrong? Naomi Klein, quoted above, devotes her On
Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal to answering this
question. Following her introduction fittingly titled "We Are The
Wildfire" the text consists of her powerful essays and speeches penned
and delivered over the past decade. In them she not only tackles the
burning issues of this age, but describes their intersectional
connection.
One chapter that really broke my heart was There's Nothing
Natural About Puerto Rico's Disaster. It opens with these words.
"When you systematically starve and neglect the very bones of a
society, rendering it dysfunctional on a good day, that society has
absolutely no capacity to weather a true crisis." It blows the
"natural disaster" and "act of God" explanations for the death and
disaster out of the water. The stage for devastation was set well
before Hurricane Maria took shape. An externally imposed and enforced
austerity program had shredded all the systems that need to be in
place for effective crisis response: health care, communication,
education, transportation, and even electricity and water.
"This is the deadly cocktail--not just a storm, but a storm
supercharged by climate change slamming headlong into a society
deliberately weakened by a decade of unrelenting austerity layered on
top of centuries of colonial extraction, with relief efforts that make
no attempt to disguise the fact that the lives of the poor exist
within our global system at a sharp discount."
Capitalism vs. The Climate (2011) opens with "There is simply no
way to square a belief system that vilifies collective action and
venerates total market freedom with a problem that demands collective
action on an unprecedented scale and a dramatic reining in of the
market forces that created and are deepening the crisis." Readers get
a revealing look at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International
Conference on Climate Change. Don't let the name fool you. This is a
gang of deniers who believe that claims of the phenomenon are veiled
attempts to steal Americans' freedom. These are people for whom
denial is a core facet of their identity, people who benefit from the
status quo and know that they personally have a lot to lose from the
lowering of global emmisions. These are powerful people who
Republicans champion and Democrats attempt to appease. With
progressives engaged in climate change and economic justice
effectively siloed from one another,
"The right, meanwhile, has a free hand to exploit the global
economic crisis that began in 2008 to cast climate action as a recipe
for economic Armegeddon, a surefire way to spike household costs and
to block new, much-needed jobs drilling for oil and laying new
pipelines. With virtually no loud voices offering a competing vision
of how a new economic paradigm could provide a way out of both the
economic and ecological crises, this fearmongering has had a ready
audience."
It will probably not come as much of a surprise that my favorite
chapters are the ones at the end that describe the Green New Deal, the
work that will be needed to achieve it, and the benefits that will
accrue to the great majority of us if we summon up the will and commit
ourselves to the necessary work to make it happen. And I love the
words with which Klein ends the book:
"But more than thirty years later, as surely as the glaciers are
melting and the ice sheets are breaking apart, that 'free-market'
ideology is dissolving too. In its place, 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."
Amen to that!
I would give On Fire and all other Klein's finely researched,
truth telling books (recall we checked out No Is Not Enough) a IT!
On a purrrsonal note, I'm getting to know my new fur baby. Tobago is
a gorgeous year old feline. She's almost all black with a white bib
and luminescent golden eyes. She has the slender muscular build of a
panther. I call her my little psnther. She loves me, frequently
approaching me for attention and purring when I pet her. She gets
spooked by stuff like loud noises and fast movement. She spooked me
last night when she got into a small space I couldn't get her out of.
She seems happier now that I've restricted her to one room with safe
spaces under the bed and in the closet to retreat to. I won't be
doing much research this vaca. My main priority will be bonding with
Tobago.
My manager, Anna, is big on animal adoption. When she heard that the
Waterville Humane Society had 92 felines in need of homes she wanted
to help. So she took me on a road trip. When Tobago woke up from a
nap and saw me she did everything in her catly power to get my
attention. Why me? I have no clue. There were other people in the
room.
Great big shout outs go out to Anna, the fine folks at Waterville
Humane Society, and you, my readers who celebrate Christmas.
jules hathaway



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