Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) it says. Climate & Capitalism has received review copies of some of these books, but we do not receive any payment for reviews or for reader purchases.
Ferris Jabr
BECOMING EARTH
How Our Planet Came to Life
Penguin Random House
Life and the Earth have coevolved for billions of years, transforming a lump of orbiting rock into a unique cosmic oasis. Life doesn’t just adapt to its environment, it changes and remakes the world, and reshapes itself in the process. Even if you are not convinced by Jabr’s version of Gaia theory (is Earth alive?) this is a valuable account of the complex interactions that have created our planet and its inhabitants.
Jisung Park
SLOW BURN
The Hidden Costs of a Warming World
Princeton University Press
Much writing focuses on the future results of global heating. Park focuses less on the possibility of mass climate extinction, and more on the everyday implications of climate change here and now. Climate change silently accumulates a thousand tiny conflagrations, increasing health risks for billions of people, reducing productivity and amplifying inequality in a host of ways.
Rob Jackson
INTO THE CLEAR BLUE SKY
The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere
Simon & Schuster
Jackson, chair of the Global Carbon Project, argues that we must not only slash emissions, but also repair the damage by removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Restoring the atmosphere means reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the air to pre-industrial levels to heal the harm we have done. The question is how, and how long will it take?
Jordan B. Kinder
PETROTURFING
Refining Canadian Oil through Social Media
University of Minnesota Press
Since the early 2010s, an increasingly influential network of pro-oil groups, organizations, and campaigns has harnessed social media undermine resistance to the fossil fuel industry. Kinder exposes the deep divide between Canada’s environmentally progressive reputation and the actual actions of its governments and corporate polluters.
M.V. Ramana
NUCLEAR IS NOT THE SOLUTION
The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change
Verso
The climate crisis has propelled nuclear energy back into fashion. Its proponents argue that the technology only needs perfection and deployment. Ramana replies that such thinking is both naïve but dangerous. In addition to exposing nuclear power’s high costs and technical limitations, he unmasks the powerful groups that are greenwashing a spectacularly dirty industry.
Corey Ross
LIQUID EMPIRE
Water and Power in the Colonial World
Princeton University Press
Ross tells the story of how the waters of the colonial world shaped the history of imperialism, and how the imperial past still haunts us today. An important historical perspective on the crises engulfing the world’s waters, particularly in the Global South, where billions of people face water shortages, floods, and the depletion of sea life.
Julie Guthman
THE PROBLEM WITH SOLUTIONS
Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food
University of California Press
A concise and feisty takedown of the all-style, no-substance tech ventures that fail to solve our food crises. Guthman digs into the impoverished and ill-informed solutions for food and agriculture currently being promoted by Silicon Valley technocrats. She urges us to stop trying to fix our broken food system through finite capitalistic solutions and technological moonshots that do next to nothing to actualize a more just and sustainable system.
Douglas Greene
THE NEW REFORMISM AND THE REVIVAL OF KARL KAUTSKY
The Renegade’s Revenge
Routledge
Socialists have long ignored Karl Kautsky’s ideas, accepting Lenin’s description of him as a renegade opponent of working class revolution. Recently, scholars including Lars Lih, Eric Blanc, and Mike Mcnair have sought to rehabilitate him, arguing that 21st century left has much to learn from him. Greene argues that, far from being a model for revolutionaries, Kautsky played a key role in the rightward degeneration of the Second International, and that “there is good reason for rejecting neo-Kautskyianism in toto.”