The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet

his book was written and published just before the last U.S. election, when Donald J Trump was still president. This is a book which is meant for readers who are on the conventional “right” in the political sphere. The “right” I refer to are Neoliberals and the “right” the author is referring to are the people who use deflection and misinformation to push through their agenda. The issue of the carbon tax comes up quite often in the book. The carbon tax is opposed by both “Conservative” Republicans and left leaning Democrats but not by the legacy Republicans and the right leaning Democrats “mainstream” elected to office. The carbon tax in my opinion is a Neoliberal policy. It affects the richest to the poorest in our society, because you are paying a fee to pollute. It may seem fair on paper but in reality lower middle income and low income people in North America tend to live further away from job opportunities due to very rigid zoning policies. On top of that public transportation is not reliable. (There are scheduled bus services but they tend to serve people who work 9-5 downtown). So if you were a Barista at a coffee store downtown or worked as a cashier at a suburban mall you may have no choice but to drive to the closest Park and Ride or to work. You will most likely not be able to afford an electric car and/ or accommodation near your place of employment and therefore be adversely affected. To be clear. I am supportive of the carbon tax. But I am also supportive of structural change which would involve clean electric public transportation, bike lanes and medium density neighbourhoods. All of these should be in tandem in order to solve the impending climate crisis. I agree strongly with the author when it comes to misinformation, disinformation, deflection, denialism and fatalism when it comes to oil and gas friendly publications such as the Daily Caller, Fox news and the Australian. The author has spent a lot of time and energy trying to educate us on how the oil and gas industry is pitting well meaning people against each other, creating a “fragmented” green wall. They do that through institutes like CATO and Heartland, to name a few. I thought that the “Crying Indian” ads (mentioned in the first few chapters in the book) from the 1970’s were interesting. It talked about littering and how we should keep America beautiful. But it did not talk about the companies which created the mess of microwavable dinners, disposable plates cutlery and other disposables. It seemed to squarely blamed the consumer for the problem. A few of the biggest takeaways from the book is to shift the focus from individual action to collective action and identify the deflectors. In Canada for example it would be the CAPP and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who would indirectly fund the #freedom movement. The other takeaway is identifying front organisations who have attractive names but are funded by the oil and gas industry.