What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice

With an apocalyptic tone, journalist and climate activist Stephenson introduces the work of fellow activists, environmental scholars, and frontline community organizers in this substantial volume on the climate justice movement. Stephenson considers climate change “the most fundamental and urgent threat humanity has ever faced,” and faults “the fossil-fuel industry and those who do its bidding” as they “deceive the public, and willfully obstruct any serious response to the climate catastrophe.” When Stephenson shifts the focus to comrades in the fight, the conversation gets more interesting. Among the leaders and foot soldiers Stephenson presents are Tim DeChristopher, a climate activist in Salt Lake City jailed for disrupting a Bureau of Land Management auction of oil and gas drilling leases; longtime environmentalist Wendell Berry, whose 1979 essay “The Gift of Good Land” makes “a Biblical argument for ecological and agricultural responsibility”; and Beverly Wright, a New Orleans native who helped document “the deep structural and environmental racism” many African Americans experience in communities along the Mississippi River. There is plenty of harsh language, which may turn off some audiences, but others will be glad to see Stephenson promoting the work and commitment of an array of activists engaged in what is often a thankless battle. [em](Oct.) [/em]