Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Putting together the pieces of the climate-change puzzle, Klein (public intellectual and investigative journalist) argues that civilization is, literally, at the point of no return vis-à-vis the climate--and that the threat is existential. Klein explains the basic science of the climate change crisis and pins responsibility for it on a fuel-extraction industry that, driven by a grow-or-die imperative, pursues carbon reserves via ever dirtier methods of extraction--and has no economic incentive to stop. Though the situation is dire, an element of hope and optimism runs through this book. Klein provides a road map to climate stabilization and sustainability. She argues that the path forward requires populist action at the local level, and she gives numerous examples of what such action and policies look like. Though some might read here a left-leaning political message, in fact habitability of the planet and survival of the species are post-political issues. Klein leans away from market-oriented solutions. Since climate change is a by-product of a market failure--overuse of a basic resource, the planet--solutions must come from outside the market (regulation, taxation, combinations of the two). Klein's suggestions are appropriate, reasonable, and well researched. Everyone aspiring to understand climate change should read this book, which could be the most important work of the 21st century. Summing Up: Essential. All readers. --Kevin J. Murphy, Oakland University

Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Klein (The Shock Doctrine) here presents a timely summary of the alarming state of the world's climate and her no-nonsense view of the drastic, challenging work that must be done before life on Earth is threatened. Klein reminds listeners that the time for less-extreme measures has long passed. As she explains, the impact of capitalism, human greed, and selfishness, and the ever-increasing addiction to profit and growth continue to dig humanity deeper and deeper into possible climatological oblivion. She is adamant that what will save the world is a radical transformation of the current economic system and the application of entrepreneurial enthusiasm to break the worldwide dependence on carbon sources of energy. She also explains how a new process of rebuilding and reinventing the collective, the communal, the commons, and the civil might, after many decades of attack and neglect, begin a new era of natural worldwide climate cycles that would no longer be caused by human folly. Ellen Archer's steady, solid reading helps connect listeners with this densely packed work. VERDICT This important contribution to the rapidly growing climate change genre is highly recommended for all collections.-Dale Farris, Groves, TX (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A best-selling anti-globalization activist and author argues that surviving the climate emergency will require radical changes in how we live.The time for marginal fixes has expired, writes Klein (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, 2007, etc.). We will not be saved by toothless international agreements, spurious political bargains, outlandish geoengineering environmental groups in bed with corporations or magical thinking of any kindand surely not by deregulating the capitalist system responsible for the crisis. Carbon emissions continue to rise, and greenhouse gases dangerously accumulate as the fossil fuel industry ramps up devastating extraction. In part, Klein's narrative is a personal story about her own awakening to and increasing engagement with the climate issue. But this always-interesting polemic is built mostly on her interviews with experts, environmentalists and activists and her colorful on-site reporting from various international meetings and conferences and particularly from worldwide pockets of resistance to corporate bullying. "Blockadia," she calls these places, where communities have risen to oppose open-pit mining, fracking and pipelines. In them she finds hope for a grass-roots rebellion, a kind of "People's Shock" where push back against the aggressive energy industry can be a catalyst for advancing a range of policies dear to the progressive agenda. Klein has no time for deniers of man-made global warming, but she credits right-wing ideologues with better understanding the high stakes, the vast scope of the changes necessary to meet the climate challenge. This awareness accounts for their vigorous opposition to the activists' docket and for the movement's consequent loss of momentum for the past decade. The author's journalism won't slow down the fossil fuel companies, but it surely holds out hope for activists looking to avert a disaster, for a widespread people's movement that, if it happens, "changes everything." A sharp analysis that is bound to be widely discussed, with all the usual suspects, depending on their politics, lining up to cheer or excoriate Klein. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

*Starred Review* Journalist Klein is a resolute investigator into the dark side of unchecked capitalism. The author of two previous international best-sellers, including The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007), she has, of late, devoted her exceptional research and reportorial skills to the subject overarching everything else: climate change and the viability of life itself. The result is an enormous, complex, compelling, and, by turns, distressing and rallying analysis of the dysfunctional symbiotic relationships between free-market capitalism, the fossil fuels industry, and global warming.Klein follows the dark money behind the propaganda of climate-change denial, the effort to dismantle the federal government to curtail corporate regulation, and the justification for the feverish pursuit of the riskiest forms of carbon-emission-producing energy from tar sands extraction to deep-water drilling, fracking, and mountaintop-removal coal mining. Klein also explains why we feel locked in--politically, physically, and culturally to business as usual and unable to make the profound changes needed to avert climate-change disasters. We have it backwards, Klein attests. We certainly can reform our economy; what can't be changed is our utter dependency on nature's processes.Klein circles the planet, chronicling the social and environmental decimation wrought by 30 years of free-market capitalism and corporate greed, noting a close correlation between low wages and high emissions, and reports on courageous citizens mobilizing to protect local forests, rivers, and farmland, in spite of being confronted by heavily militarized police forces. Klein exposes the failures of the Big Green environmental organizations, the dangers of growing corporate political power, and the pressing need for action as we face escalating catastrophic storms and droughts. Within this mammoth mosaic of assiduously collected facts and bold analysis, Klein addresses every aspect of the causes and threats of climate change and the paradox of why we behave as though we value the mythical free-market more than real life itself.This comprehensive, sure-to-be controversial inquiry, one of the most thorough, eloquent, and enlightening books yet on this urgent and overwhelming subject alongside works by Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Diane Ackerman provides the evidence and the reasoning we need to help us shift to a worldview based on regeneration and renewal rather than domination and depletion. --Seaman, Donna Copyright 2014 Booklist