[This book situates the climate crisis in a socioeconomic context,
showing, writes reviewer Chen, how events like big wildfires are
"important signifiers of an unfolding global calamity that urges the
public to challenge the status quo."]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

GLOBAL BURNING: RISING ANTIDEMOCRACY AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS  
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Sibo Chen
July 27, 2022
LSE Review of Books
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_ This book situates the climate crisis in a socioeconomic context,
showing, writes reviewer Chen, how events like big wildfires are
"important signifiers of an unfolding global calamity that urges the
public to challenge the status quo." _

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_Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis_
Eve Darian-Smith
Stanford University Press. 2022
ISBN: 9781503631083

In recent years, catastrophic wildfires, as evidenced by viral video
clips depicting burning forests, billowing smoke and evacuees, have
sparked growing public concern around the globe. What are the causes
and consequences of this environmental crisis and what can be done to
prevent it? These are the main subjects addressed in Eve
Darian-Smith’s _Global Burning_
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wildfires to the broader economic, social and political issues
underlying climate change. Through theoretically grounded reflections
on the intersections of wildfire, climate change and capitalism,
Darian-Smith emphasises how out-of-control wildfires have become
important signifiers of an unfolding global calamity that urges the
public to challenge the status quo.

The book’s theoretical framework is outlined in Chapter One, ‘Fire
as Omen’, which also introduces the cases examined in the following
chapters — namely, the wildfires in California, Australia and
Brazil. Wildfires are particularly violent and terrifying threats to
people because of their immediate danger, which contrasts sharply with
the ‘slow violence’ of many other environmental disasters. The
devastating impacts of wildfires ‘underscore people’s
vulnerabilities and total dependence on others for water, shelter, and
the basics of survival’ (3).

Although wildfires appear to burn without discrimination, they impact
low-income, marginalised and racialised communities far more than
others. Accordingly, Darian-Smith argues that wildfires, like the
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, need to be studied from the perspective of
systemic injustice. This leads to the following chapters’ critical
inquiry into ecologically destructive industries and their political
allies (mostly ultranationalist, antidemocratic and male leaders) and
how their policies are responsible for the upswing in catastrophic
wildfires.

Chapter Two, ‘Fire as Profit’, elaborates the connection between
climate change and capitalism’s exploitation and extraction of
natural resources. This chapter’s central argument is that the
economic system is increasingly seizing control of the political
system in accordance with the prevailing neoliberal logic of late
capitalism. As a result, there is an intensifying shift of power from
democratically-based state institutions to corporations. To
substantiate this argument, Darian-Smith discusses the cases of PG&E
(an investor-owned public utility company) in California
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the mining industry in Australia and the agribusiness industry in
Brazil, linking their reckless pursuit of profit to massive wildfire
devastation. These cases collectively underscore ‘the violence,
callousness, greed, shortsightedness, and deliberate ignorance in
denying climate science by those involved in extractive capitalism’
(66).

Chapter Three, ‘Fire as Weapon’, discusses the rise of
‘free-market authoritarianism’, which, as evidenced by the
prevalence of right-wing populist leaders, demonstrates how neoliberal
capitalism and antidemocratic practices go hand in hand. The analysis
centres on three common features shared by free-market authoritarian
governments worldwide: namely, ultranationalism; international
isolationism; and anti-environmentalism.

Given the book’s analytical focus on wildfires, Darian-Smith pays
special attention to anti-environmentalism, a direct consequence of
the convergence of free-market authoritarianism, extractive capitalism
and extreme-right political actors. Empirically, this chapter focuses
primarily on the United States under the Donald Trump administration.
By deregulating environmental protections and politicising climate
change, Trump’s presidency exemplifies how the global drift toward
antidemocracy paves the way for extractive capitalism to continue,
ignoring climate science consensus and global environmental injustice.

Further details of what has been brought about by the increasing
collaboration between extractive corporations and authoritarian
leaders are discussed in Chapter Four, ‘Fire as Death’. This
chapter considers violent environmental racism as both a tool and
consequence of free-market authoritarianism. What distinguishes
contemporary environmental racism from earlier historical periods is
the extensive use of military force by far-right leaders against their
own citizens to secure land grabs and defend the toxic practices of
extractive industries. As evidence, Darian-Smith discusses the plight
of Indigenous peoples in Australia and Brazil as well as the danger
posed by wildfires to racialised immigrants in California. These cases
are ‘indicators of deep structural injustices that impose the
heaviest toll on those least able to bear the burden’ (122).

Chapter Five, ‘Fire as Disruption’, concludes by reflecting on the
proliferation of environmental movements in response to the
destruction caused by wildfires. Darian-Smith argues that resolving
catastrophic wildfires requires us to not only think about fires
(their causes, effects and solutions), but also think with and through
fires. This demands that we adopt alternative conceptual frameworks
that deconstruct the human/nature divide and ‘move beyond framing
environmental crises in ways that speak to bankers, financiers, CEOs,
and their authoritarian political partners’ (133).

_Global Burning_ offers a timely examination of the economic, social
and political roots of wildfires. It is thought-provoking, especially
considering how ubiquitous extreme weather events
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have become. Even though the book’s key messages can be found
elsewhere (for example, in _Ending Fossil Fuels_
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by Holly Jean Buck and _Planet on Fire_
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by Mathew Lawrence and Laurie Laybourn-Langton), the concept of
‘thinking through fire’ is of critical importance because it
highlights how the status quo of global capitalism is economically and
socially unsustainable. While some may criticise the absence of policy
prescriptions or strategies for wildfire prevention in the book, I
believe this highlights the inconvenient reality of climate change
mitigation: there will be no magic solution until the world
collectively embraces a fundamental rethinking of human-nature
relations and life beyond capitalism.

Dr Sibo Chen is an Assistant Professor at Ryerson University's School
of Professional Communication. His research areas of interest include
energy-society relations, environmental communication, critical
discourse analysis, communication and identity, and instructional
communication.

* Climate Change
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* economics
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* Authoritarianism
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* anti-environmentalism
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* capitalism
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