Naomi Klein / On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

Berkeley Arts & Letters presents #1 international and New York Times bestselling author Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything) as she makes the case for a Green New Deal, explaining how bold climate action can be a blueprint for a just and thriving society.

Please note: This event is ticketed, and will take place at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison Street, Oakland. Tickets, including discounted book bundles, are available in advance here. Advance sales are highly recommended. Unless otherwise noted here, general admission tickets will be available at the door.

On Fire shows why Naomi Klein was described by the New Yorker as the most influential figure on the American left and why leading environmentalist Bill McKibben calls her the intellectual godmother of the Green New Deal — which just happens to be the most important idea in the world right now.

For more than a decade, the acclaimed journalist and ground-breaking thinker has documented the movement of the climate crisis from future threat to a burning emergency. She has been among the first to make the case for what is now called the Green New Deal — a vision for transforming our economies to battle climate breakdown and rampant inequality at the same time. In our era of rising seas and rising hate, she argues that only this kind of bold, roots-up action has a chance of rousing us to fight for our lives while there is still time.

These long-form essays, based on her extensive research and reporting, show Klein at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but as a spiritual and imaginative one as well. Delving into the clash between ecological time and our culture of perpetual now; the soaring history of rapid human change in the face of grave threats; rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of climate barbarism and more, this is a rousing call to transformation — and a dire warning about what awaits if we fail to act.

With dispatches from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef to the smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican waking up to the case for radical change, Klein paints a vivid picture of both social and ecological breakdown — as well as the people and movements rising to turn humanitys greatest disaster into our greatest opportunity.

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and author of the New York Times and international bestsellers The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, This Changes Everything, and No Is Not Enough. A Senior Correspondent for The Intercept, reporter for Rolling Stone, and contributor for both The Nation and The Guardian, Klein is the inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. She is co-founder of the climate justice organization The Leap. Author photo by Suzanne DeChillo for The New York Times.

*** Please note ***

– Duration of event is subject to author’s preference.
– Signing and additional details coming soon.
– This event is all ages. Accessibility is important to us! If you have special needs of any kind, please write events AT booksmith DOT com and we will do our best to accommodate you.
– If you can’t attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of On Fire, order below and put your request in the special field. If you’d like to request signed copies of any of Naomi’s other books, order here and be sure to add your request in the special