Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis

Extreme-right antidemocratic governments around the world are prioritizing profits over citizens, stoking catastrophic wildfires, and accelerating global climate change. Using fire as a symbolic and literal thread connecting different places around the world, Eve Darian-Smith contends that these wildfires are closely linked through capitalism, colonialism, industrialization, and resource extraction, and challenges readers to confront the interlocking powers that are ensuring our future ecological collapse.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 230 pages
Publication date: 22 March 2022
Publisher: Stanford University Press

Recent years have witnessed devastating wildfires raging across remote Brazilian rainforests, densely populated California coastlines, and major cities in Australia. While these fires bring immediate devastation and loss of life, they also shed light on the interconnected trends of authoritarian politics, climate crises, and their global consequences. In her book, Global Burning, Eve Darian-Smith explores the role of fire as a symbolic and literal thread connecting different places around the world, offering a deeper understanding of these parallel phenomena.

Darian-Smith delves into each of these three catastrophic wildfires, identifying key similarities in their circumstances. She argues that as political leaders and big business collaborate in pursuit of profits and power, anti-environmentalism has become a crucial tool enabling the rise of extreme right governments and energizing their populist supporters. These governments often deny climate science, reject environmental protection laws, and foster exclusionary worldviews that exacerbate climate injustice.

The fires in Australia, Brazil, and the United States demand acknowledgment of the global systems of inequality that undergird them, connecting the political erosion of liberal democracy with the corrosion of the environment. Darian-Smith argues that these wildfires are closely linked through capitalism, colonialism, industrialization, and resource extraction. By thinking through wildfires as environmental and political phenomena, Global Burning challenges readers to confront the interlocking powers that are ensuring our collective future.

The book highlights the urgent need for global cooperation and action to address the intertwined challenges of authoritarianism, climate change, and inequality. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing the interconnectedness of these issues and working towards a more sustainable and equitable world. Global Burning offers a thought-provoking analysis and a call to action that will resonate with readers interested in understanding the complex dynamics shaping our world today.

Dimension: 216 x 140 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781503631083