Overheated

How Capitalism Broke the Planet - And How We Fight Back

By: Kate Aronoff

Narrated by: Erin Bennett

Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

This damning account of the forces that have hijacked progress on climate change shares a bold vision of what it will take, politically and economically, to face the existential threat of global warming head-on.

It has become impossible to deny that the planet is warming and that governments must act. But a new denialism is taking root in the halls of power, shaped by decades of neoliberal policies and centuries of anti-democratic thinking. Since the 1980s, Democrats and Republicans have each granted enormous concessions to industries hell bent on maintaining business as usual. What’s worse, policymakers have given oil and gas executives a seat at the table designing policies that should euthanize their business model.

This approach, journalist Kate Aronoff makes clear, will only drive the planet further into emergency. Drawing on years of reporting, Aronoff lays out an alternative vision, detailing how democratic majorities can curb polluters’ power; create millions of well-paid, union jobs; enact climate reparations; and transform the economy into a more leisurely and sustainable one. Our future will require a radical reimagining of politics - with the world at stake.

©2021 Kate Aronoff (P)2021 Bold Type Books

Critic reviews

“The business model of the fossil fuel industry, she concludes in this well-documented and necessarily provocative book, is 'incompatible with a livable future'.... An informative, urgent, and sure to be controversial argument.” (Kirkus, starred review)

“Urgent and persuasive.... [Aronoff] offers brisk yet detailed analysis of why the U.S. approach to climate change has fallen short.... Policy makers and environmental activists will find much food for thought.” (Publishers Weekly)

"Kate Aronoff is so sharp, witty and relentlessly on-target that reading her fills me with hope. Overheated is a blistering account of the many varieties of denial that have prepared the ground for climate catastrophe — and a thrilling tour of the kind of visionary politics and policies that could put the future back in our hands. Please: read this book." (Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate)

A MUST READ 🔥

Kate Aronoff delivers a blistering roadmap to the dire situation our respective counties and collective planet is in. Driven by industries and ideologies that we’ve been conditioned to accept as not only as helpful but necessary—when there was plenty of evidence to the contrary. She lays out in myriad ways that the exploitation of the planet is directly connected to the exploitation of humans and that should definitely make us all: Over-Heated! 🤬

FANTASTIC!

This is an excellent book! I've been suggesting it to everyone before even finishing it. I tend to stay away from "self help" books. This is something completely different! The one glaring flaw I did notice was that the authors seemed to only write about heteronormative monogamous relationships. Outside of that, this book is absolutely perfect.

A great book!

An exhaustive and enlightening history of that explains many of our current pathologies compellingly and in a way that is hard to refute. I would put this on the same level as Sarah Chayes' On Corruption in America - extremely thorough and well-researched, and filled with revelatory insights. The sensational-sounding title doesn't do it justice.