by Xander Dunlap
Pluto Press
3/20/2024, paperback
SKU: 9780745348827
Learning lessons from those on the front lines of capitalist environmental destruction
This System is Killing Us is an insider look at the catastrophic effects that energy infrastructure and mining are having on communities and our planet. Xander Dunlap spent a decade living and working with Indigenous activists and land defenders across the world to uncover evidence of the repression people have faced in the wake of untamed capitalist growth.
By centring the struggles of people whose lives are being systematically destroyed, Dunlap reveals gaps within the current official debates around climate change. This includes reviewing feuds between socialist modernism and degrowth. While changing public policy could play a constructive role in remediating climate catastrophe, by understanding the successes and failures of those "on the front lines", it becomes clear that ecologically decentralized self-organization could be the only way out of this environmental nightmare.
Reviews:
"Dunlap is one of the foremost researchers on the unfolding relationship between ecocide, colonialism, extractivism, and green capitalism. ... An important book." - Peter Gelderloos, author of The Solutions are Already Here
"Vital for understanding the forces driving violence against land and water defenders around the world." - Alleen Brown, investigative journalist
"A passionate account of the harms of green capitalism." - Professor Anna Feigenbaum, author of Tear Gas
"One of the most compelling, demystifying, and provocative calls to action in the face of the violent collapse of modernity. A must-read." - Dr. Carlos Tornel, author of Gustavo Esteva
About the Author:
Xander Dunlap is a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston University, USA, and a visiting research fellow in the Global Development Studies Department, University of Helsinki, Finland. Their work has critically examined police-military transformations, market-based conservation, wind energy development and extractive projects more generally in Latin America, Europe and the United States. They have written numerous books, most recently Enforcing Ecocide: Power, Policing and Planetary Militarization. They are a long-time participant in anti-police, squatting and environmental movements.