by David Wilk, originally published 01 September 2017, on http://www.writerscast.com/jeremy-brecher-against-doom-a-climate-insurgency-manual/
Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual – Jeremy Brecher – PM Press – Paperback – 978-1-62963-385-5 – $12.95 – 128 pages – April 2017 – ebook versions available at lower prices.
For years leading up to the 2016 election, when Americans alarmingly voted (somehow) for a president who maintains the bizarre fiction that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese, we have been heavily propagandized and brainwashed by inaccurate and misleading information about climate science supplied by corporate financed sources. Only half of us believe that climate change is caused by human activities, something that scientists overwhelmingly recognize is true, based on actual data.
Still, millions of our fellow citizens do understand the danger to human life and our natural environment by human caused climate change. So many of us are searching for ways to make a real impact on the future through concrete actions. The scale and scope of what we face, and the impediments we face daily to rational thought and action are daunting and sometimes overwhelming.
We need tools – both to understand what is happening in our world, and to help us act positively to make change and to oppose those who seek to diminish and undermine our efforts.
Jeremy Brecher is a long time organizer and thinker about social change. He has been involved in environmental issues for almost thirty years. He puts much of what he has learned into Against Doom, this short but powerful book that I can recommend to any and all of us who want to join the global movement for change. What he calls “climate insurgency” is a strategy for using people power to realize our common interest in protecting the climate. It uses mass, global, nonviolent action to challenge the legitimacy of public and corporate officials who are perpetrating climate destruction. This may be our best hope for saving the planet and human civilization, while at the same time helping change that civilization for the better.
Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual provides guidance in how we can put this strategy into action and succeed. It’s an essential read now. Listen to my optimistic conversation with Jeremy and go buy this book!
Jeremy Brecher is the author of more than a dozen books on labor and social movements, including Save the Humans? Common Preservation in Action and the now-classic labor history Strike!, recently published in a revised fortieth anniversary edition by PM Press. He has been writing about climate protection since 1988, most recently in his book Climate Insurgency: A Strategy for Survival (2015). Jeremy is a cofounder of the Labor Network for Sustainability and lives in rural northwest Connecticut. Jeremy was arrested in the early White House sit-ins against the Keystone XL pipeline.
There are many organizations and websites working on climate change insurgency efforts. Visit Jeremy’s own site for a good introduction or go here for a list of reputable climate change nonprofit organizations you can work with.