A powerful challenge to a way of thinking that has turned sustainability into a virtue-signaling lifestyle.
The “greener than thou” class is more part of the problem than part of the solution, according to two environmental writers.
Kolinjivadi and Vansintjan are deeply committed to the issue of climate change. They are co-editors of the website Uneven Earth, and much of the material in their book is drawn from it. They are particularly angry at the way that sustainability has been co-opted by an affluent elite, who believe that fighting climate change is about buying expensive “natural” foods and products and showing them off. As it turns out, the authors say, many of this elite’s favorite purchases actually have a large carbon footprint, although it is not immediately visible to them. Instead, the carbon costs are passed down the line to other people. These elites usually draw their wealth from the tech, finance, and real estate sectors, and they care little about the environmental impact of their occupations, say Kolinjivadi and Vansintjan. The authors highlight what they see as hypocrisy and selfishness, although they save their sharpest barbs for carbon offsets, which they see as financial chicanery designed to hide, rather than solve, problems. The authors explore a number of community projects that focus on grassroots solutions, and though they are admirable, it is hard to see how they can add up to a global answer. Moreover, Kolinjivadi and Vansintjan lose track of their argument when they cite the necessity of economic “degrowth.” This is a pity, because Kolinjivadi and Vansintjan otherwise have many interesting things to say, even if they are better at identifying villains than developing alternatives.
A powerful challenge to a way of thinking that has turned sustainability into a virtue-signaling lifestyle.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781620977439
Page Count: 240
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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