Overheated
How Capitalism Broke the Planet--And How We Fight Back
-
-
5.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $16.99
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
This damning account of the forces that have hijacked progress on climate change shares a bold vision of what it will take, politically and economically, to face the existential threat of global warming head-on.
In the past few years, it has become impossible (for most) to deny the effects of climate change and that the planet is warming, and to acknowledge that we must act. But a new kind of denialism is taking root in the halls of power, shaped by a quarter-century of neoliberal policies, that threatens to doom us before we've grasped the full extent of the crisis.
As Kate Aronoff argues, since the 1980s and 1990s, economists, pro-business Democrats and Republicans in the US, and global organizations like the UN and the World Economic Forum have all made concessions to the oil and gas industry that they have no intention of reversing. What's more, they believe that climate change can be solved through the market, capitalism can be a force for good, and all of us, corporations included, are fighting the good fight together.
These assumptions, Aronoff makes abundantly clear, will not save the planet. Drawing on years of reporting and rigorous economic analysis, Aronoff lays out a robust vision for what will, detailing how to constrain the fossil fuel industry; transform the economy into a sustainable, democratic one; mobilize political support; create effective public-private partnerships; enact climate reparations; and adapt to inevitable warming in a way that is just and equitable.
Our future, Overheated makes clear, will require a radical reimagining of our politics and our economies, but if done right, it will save the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aronoff (co-editor, We Own the Future), a staff writer at the New Republic, delivers an urgent and persuasive study of the links between neoliberal economics and climate change. According to Aronoff, every presidential administration since Ronald Reagan's has prioritized market-based solutions to environmental issues, and has sought the fossil fuel industry's input on its own regulation. The result, Aronoff argues, has been little to no progress on an existential threat to humankind. She critiques the notion that carbon taxes alone can curb greenhouse gas emissions to the degree necessary, and details how Waxman-Markey, a 2009 bill that would have established a cap-and-trade program in the U.S., was undermined by poor messaging from the Obama administration and handouts to fossil fuel companies and Wall Street. Aronoff also sketches the history of the New Deal to argue that the Green New Deal can restore the economy after the Covid-19 pandemic and help Democrats build an electoral coalition to "bat off challenges from the right," and examines grassroots campaigns to "reassert democratic control" over publicly owned energy utilities. Though Aronoff covers familiar ground, she does so from a fresh angle, and offers brisk yet detailed analysis of why the U.S. approach to climate change has fallen short. Policy makers and environmental activists will find much food for thought.
