MixedJewish Currents...despite its subtitle, the new collection ends up being less a coherent argument for or against any particular slate of green policies, and more of a historical overview of the last decade, one that charts how far the environmental left has come ... even as the broader left has caught up to Klein, reaching consensus on the basic outlines of a Green New Deal, the \'how\' remains fuzzy ... Klein, in this collection, still leaves us short on the details of exactly what shape this will take: How can federal agencies empower communities to retool their energy infrastructure? ... How do we forge international coalitions to ensure decarbonization takes place on a global scale? These are central, burning questions in the formulation of a Green New Deal, to which Klein proposes no robust answer. Instead, Klein frequently gets bogged down in the culture wars around the climate crisis. Even as she repeatedly acknowledges the deeply material roots of this crisis, her writing is preoccupied by a nearly spiritualistic anti-consumerism, geared toward convincing her reader that a cultural shift will help solve climate change ... despite the padding, there’s much here that’s worthwhile ... It’s...where the personal and the political intersect, that Klein’s writing is most moving. Her strident calls to action, written in ardent, rousing prose, make her a joy to read. Taken together, what the pieces collected in On Fire reveal most clearly is that we’re in uncharted territory.
