Reviews

We also need to reframe what is possible. What is or is not radical is often based on what is currently believed to be within the realms of possibility. How is it that we already have so many solutions to the climate crisis that don't compromise human rights and justice, but the only solutions being seriously considered are the ones that do?

This is going in my "best books I read this year" pile. It was informational, easy to read, well-written, de-guilting, and very empowering. I understand better what the fuss about the fossil fuel industry is and the book explained complex ideas in plain language. I don't have enough information overall to agree with all the measures and proposals of the book, and I sometimes got tired of the 'all our problems are due to capitalism' spiel, but the book generally explained which aspects of other systems of oppression connected to environmental destruction with concrete current examples instead of relying on saying 'this is bad because it's capitalist'. In one word, I think this book was: inspiring. I am recommending it to friends.

I read this book because I am taking a climate ethics course, but when I asked the teacher why most of the authors we were reading was a man he said "I'm so sorry I really tried but there aren't that many women/people of color writing about this". I was a bit skeptical and found this book at the bookstore... which absolutely confirmed that this professor was having a blindspot. The book was informative for me about the writings from men and women of color on environmentalism and how much of an intersectional approach to environmentalism is needed. I also love the term 'global majority' (to talk about the fact that people of color are 85% of the Earth population) – I think it reframed the issue as much less of a 'minority' problem than a 'majority' problem.

After reading this book, I was intrigued by the ideas about the politics of coalition building so I read What white people can do next by Emma Dabiri, which was cited (and I enjoyed). I also picked up Intersectional environmentalism by Leah Thomas, which I'm liking for coining the term (very helpful!) but is not as engaging to read as this one/is redundant to this one.

On who is responsible

The idea that a collective humanity is responsible for this crisis is simply false

Spoiler

- We are not collectively to blame for climate change, so drop all that guilt. The climate is not degrading because you didn't recycle. The biggest polluters are a restricted amount of company, governments, and very rich people. Individualisation of responsibility is one of the big strategies pursued by fossil fuel companies PR – BP literally invented the idea of individual carbon footprint to distract from political action and lock everyone into guilt and paralysis.
- We have lots of evidence that the fossil fuel industry companies are insanely shameless and engaged in active deceit and government lobbying
- Governments are not guilty of merely inaction, but of collusion: they give tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry, give out licenses, and vote for policies in the interest of the fossil fuel industry.

Race, capitalism and solidarity

This need to reduce our consumption of energy has been understood as climate activists asking all of us – even those who are currently struggling with barely enough – to make huge sacrifices and try to live with less. This is a mischaracterisation. The need to 'live with less' is true only for the richest in the population who are currently overcoysuming, rather than the majority of the population who are already struggling to survive with what they have. (...) We are led to this conclusion because many of us are tricked into believing that we are already living in a world with insufficient resources to go around, when in actuality the resources that do exist are simply being hoarded by the wealthy.

Spoiler

- Measures of racial justice have everything to do with climate justice. Countries like Pakistan or Jamaica have been left poor because of colonial exploitation. And the majority of emissions have been caused by Western countries, but are fucking over developing countries the most. Debt cancellation and reparative economic measures are thus a matter of climate justice, because countries have been deprived of the means to cope with global warming better because of colonial exploitation. Moreover, fossil fuel companies are neo-colonial companies – they exploit the land at the expense of local communities to bring wealth in North countries, which continues past colonial exploitation.
- Both worker and land exploitation has to do with lack of regulation of companies to make more financial profit at the top of the company. While we often present shutting down fossil fuel companies as detrimental to jobs, work in the fossil fuel industry is actually shit and they are also guilty of treating their employees like crap. Degradation of environment also degrades local community health, and particularly communities of colours which are more often exposed to companies dumping their waste next to them. Better sustainable energy also means lower energy prices. So instead of presenting environmental measures as inherently implying losing jobs and irrelevant to other social justice issues, we build a strong movement by bringing more attention to the ground for coalition between labor movements and environmental movements.
- White people: you are not part of the upper class. Race was created to divide poorer people among each other and prevent solidarity and coalition between them. But this is a skam and you'll never get that wealthy. So recognize it's fucked for you just like it's fucked for people of color, that your whiteness won't protect you from climate collapse, and that your interests as a worker are closer to the global majority's interests than that of the 1% (Here, Loach draws on Emma Dabiri's book What white people can do next).t

Greenwashing

As a collective, we do things we sometimes don't even realize we're doing. If enough of us think, whether actively or passively, that a company isn't that bad, is even good, or worse, necessary, then we bestow upon them a social licence. It's a pass that means that governments will continue to subsidise these companies – subsidies that amount to a ridicudlous eleven million dollars per minute, globally, for the fossil fuel indutry alone.

Spoiler

- Greenwashing is trying to present a company as more climate-friendly than it actually is. Fossil fuel companies are very busy trying to be associated with the art, museums and climate events, because if they are perceived as 'not that bad' they can keep their social licence. Keeping a social licence means that governments can keep subsidising them without causing public outrage.
- This is why climate activists are busy trying to kick them out of cultural institutions. If fossil fuel companies lose their social licence, associating with them will become shameful and they can be regulated better and lose their destructive power.

Engaging in activism and hope

To have active hope, we need to be able to envisage what it is we are running towards, as well as what we are running away from. We have to imagine that this new world will look like. We have to imagine something so exciting that we cannot help but do all we can to get there.

If you're worried that it's too late to do anything about climate change and we should all jus give up, I have great news of you: that day is not coming in your lifetime. As long as you have breath in your body, there will be work to do.

Spoiler

- Movements need a variety of people with complimentary skills. Not just people screaming behind a megaphone, but people filling in spreadsheets, writing, cooking and making tea. People from different walks of life with different skillsets. So whoever you are you probably have a skillset that an organisation could use and it doesn't have to be flashy.
- Being perceived as radical isn't bad. First, because radical = gets to the root of the problem and hopes to transform it. Second, because asking for what we really want moves the Overton window in the right direction and makes the middle ground sound more acceptable. Starting a negotiation at the middle ground makes you end up at the quarter ground. Third, because with a half assed vision of justice, how can we have the motivation to fight? We need a vision of justice so compelling, so beautiful that it feels worth fighting for. All social movements that achieved rights we now take for granted once seemed like lunatics to others. In order not to put off people, we need to use plain language and get people where they are instead of jargon.
- The best fuel for activism is realising that previous social movements fought for us. That our ancestors fought for us to have better lives. That people have fought for things before, and it worked. Transformations that people would have deemed absolutely unimaginable: they happened. We need to continue their tradition.