Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change by Vijay Prashad

Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change Reviews

• 
  Kevin

  Decolonizing Environmentalism,
  Ecologizing Decolonization…
  
  Preamble:
  --Given how abstract ecological crises/capitalism/imperialism can be on the global scale, I very much support a diversity of tactics/styles to engage the public.
  --Personally, I have been exploring in a different direction than this book; having spent the last decade on political economy (diagnosing capitalism/imperialism), I have recently been focusing on leveling up in the natural sciences of ecological crises in hopes of synthesizing the two.
  --Meanwhile, this book is a collection of essays by social science/literature writers; the hope is for their craft to crack through the concrete metropolis we have built not just in the physical world but also in our hearts and minds. There are simply too many big names featured for me to pass on:
  i) personal favourite Vijay Prashad:
  -
  The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World
  -
  Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism
  ii) leftism-for-the-wider-Western-audience extraordinaire Naomi Klein:
  -
  The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
  -
  This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
  iii) international literary icons Amitav Ghosh and Susan Abulhawa:
  -
  Sea of Poppies
  -The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
  -Mornings in Jenin
  iv) Eco-Marxist/Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster:
  -Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature
  ...I would say one missing writer who would put this collection over the top is Arundhati Roy:
  -
  The God of Small Things
  -
  My Seditious Heart: Collected Nonfiction

  Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
  
  We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
  
  [“The Pandemic Is a Portal”, collected in
  Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.]

  
  The Good:
  1) Connecting Stories:
  --A major theme is for critical writers to connect the dots in the stories they bring to life, in particular linking social colonization with ecological colonization. This deconstructive critique is often the first step to begin to see the many layers of reality; the next steps of constructive social imagination may receive less attention (with the assumption that you can reverse the critique to construct alternatives).
  --Thus, it is writer Susan Abulhawa who stood out amongst the stars in taking the next steps of healing/construction. The mention of indigenous reciprocity/responsibility with nature is further elaborated in Robin Wall Kimmerer's
  Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants; for how we can transform our economic relations, see Kate Raworth's
  Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist.
  ...The ecologist in me is numb to all the linear consumerist waste that capitalism has conjured for us to experience and normalize every moment of every day, and pines for a glimpse of moral rationality:
  Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage

  Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish caught will we realize we cannot eat money. [Cree proverb]
  
  Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children. [Native American proverb]

  --How do we heal from participating in the normalized plundering of our biosphere? This description of US military veterans showing solidarity at Standing Rock (Dakota Access Pipeline protests) hit me the hardest (for anti-war veterans, see
  War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier).
  ...While we are often reminded of our protests' "failures" to achieve revolutionary victory, what is censored is how fragile the parasitic superstructure of militarism/finance is, where a single public protest like Standing Rock would require so much additional state-violence forces. What would happen when protests are coordinated, targeting profit/rent-seeking/military supplies chokepoints?

  The arrival of veterans was also not insignificant. It signaled the possible transfer of military science and power from the ruling elite to the people, threatening a dangerous precedent. For activists, it also showed us that moral clarity does not rest with victims or specific groups, but that it is an available option to every individual, regardless of past choices.

  
  2) Ecological Imperialism:
  --The core of this book is Klein’s essay unpacking anti-imperialist Edward W. Said’s supposed de-prioritization of “tree-huggers”, with Foster and Hage directly responding to this.
  --The first step is to isolate imperialist “environmentalism” (usually in the form of “conservationism” keeping “pristine” environment for the privileged to either enjoy or pillage, dispossessing the poor). This is mirrored with “sacrifice zones” where the poor and capitalism's rampant pollution are shunted together. Hage’s “fantasies of reversal” and animal metaphors where immigrants are framed as a colonizing (projection!) hoard/infestation are striking versions of “othering”.
  --My go-to for debunking liberal “environmentalism” (from Malthus to Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” to “Limits to Growth” modeling assumptions for population) is
  Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
  --On animals and ableism:
  Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation
  --The concluding essay became Ghosh’s book The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, contextualizing “globalization” within capitalism/colonialism, challenging the notion that cosmopolitanism always brings tolerance.
  
  The Missing:
  --What makes Marx such a compelling researcher is his synthesis (“dialectical materialism”) of (1) social sciences (esp. social relations) with (2) physical sciences (material world, ex. agricultural chemistry: Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital.
  --Indeed, such concepts were not so divided and siloed during Marx’s time (Adam Smith was a “moral philosopher”; Newton was a “natural philosopher” and Master of the Royal Mint, as well as losing his fortune speculating in the South Sea Bubble).
  ...Social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein made synthesizing the modern silos a key component of
  World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction.
  ...On the science side, medical doctor/epidemiologist Ben Goldacre (
  Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks) refers to C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures in describing the growing divide between sciences and humanities.
  --Thus, I have many questions on the material conditions of ecological crises and its solutions. I really appreciate talented researches like:
  -Jason Hickel:
  Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
  -Utsa Patnaik, on Global South agriculture:
  The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
  -Max Ajl, on a Green New Deal respecting the Global South:
  A People’s Green New Deal
  -Ashley Dawson, on energy Commons:
  People's Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons
  ...but I cannot help thinking these are all social scientists grappling with the mountain of physical science literature.
  --For an updated collection of introductory essays (including on the physical sciences), see:
  The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions
  
  --Examples of messy ecological questions involving disputes over material conditions:
  1) Klein’s support for the Green New Deal (
  On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal) seems based on Stanford technocrat Mark Z. Jacobson’s research (100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything).
  ...While the social standpoint alone is enough for me to get excited about (radical) Green New Deals (i.e. investing in social ecological needs rather than letting the wealthy speculate into oblivion), I have to remain critical of technocracy. In my initial explorations of Jacobson, I cannot help being wary of how he describes his use of stats/modeling/assumptions, as I am currently sorting through the “Limits to Growth” systems engineer modeling (
  Thinking in Systems: A Primer).
  ...Even worse, I’m still unpacking Anderson’s disputes with opposition such as science writer Vaclav Smil (
  How the World Really Works: A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present and Future), who happens to the favourite author of Bill Gates (
  How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need).
  ...Smil strikes a chord with my skepticism of technocratic innovations with his Precautionary principle “conservatism” (this is my description, as I've not yet heard Smil spell this out. I find this approach useful to consider; of course, the term “conservatism” has been butchered as real-world conservatives prioritize conserving status quo power). However, Smil also has red flags (I can most easily detect in political economy: pro-market, questionable takes on money/debt etc.); is there a hint of a “merchant of doubt” role to the green transition (
  Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming)?
  
  2) Robert Pollin’s “green growth” Green New Deal vs. Hickel’s “degrowth”, which I unpack here:
  The Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet
• 
  Anushree

  That climate change activism is interconnected with all other left activisms is not a very novel thing to know. At least I know this for folks in my circle. But at times, it's very encouraging to read things that validate and build on your worldview, give you a more robust vocabulary to review your own understanding, and study specific cases that broaden your mind. This slim book of essays by various writers serves this very purpose for me. The book rests on the philosophy of Edward Said, Palestinian-American political activist and literary critic. Various writers from different geographical and socio-political regions flesh it out further from their respective contexts.
  
  Marginalized will always be the first to bear the consequences of the changing climate, a phenomenon for which theirs will be the least contribution. I found the book hopeful in its despair. The call to action is clearly to visualize and work towards a society radically different than the one we are living in, and to stop acting like idealism is a bad thing. #climatechange #booksaboutclimatechange #leftwordbooks #essays #climatechangeessays
• 
  Marcy

  This is a terrific little collection of essays about the climate crisis by a wonderful set of authors. For people who want to understand environmental racism and how it rears its ugly little head around the world, this is a great place to begin. From Vijay Prashad's introduction to Naomi Klein's groundbreaking "Let Them Drown," the book traces "sacrifice zones" and "sacrificial people" around the globe to understand the relationship between disposable people and disposable pockets of the earth. From Palestine to Malaysia to the United States, this book demonstrates why intersectional politics must weave together all these threads in order to change these interlocking systems of oppression.
• 
  Tarun Gidwani

  Read it if only for essays by Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh and Rafia Zakaria.
• 
  Leif

  Good reading but not particularly informative on its subject if you are familiar with the writers already. Best as a primer or an introduction, I think - and with a great editorial selection of writers, I have to say.
• 
  Sushrut

  Someone with knowledge of world affairs and politics would find it very important read. I, an amateur climate change learner, find it boring. I could only relate with Shalini Singh as her story was about Indian problems.