Abstract
This book offers insights into the similarities and differences between climate change and the Covid19 pandemic, arguing that a significant cause of the former and the primary cause of the latter is the destruction of biodiversity as a consequence of capitalism’s colonisation of the world. Covid-19 and planetary heating have distinct spatio-temporal effects, however, and have elicited different types of government response: vigorous and immediate in the case of the former; dilatory and ineffectual for the latter. The argument of the book hinges on these distinct responses, which are addressed through an historical analogy, suggesting that the decisive and immediate response to the pandemic is comparable to 20th century wartime measures. Nevertheless, such measures are insufficient if they only deal with effects. Any serious attempt at mitigation or adaptation will have to attack the causes of climate change, a strategy for which the Bolshevik policy of war communism provides a partial model.
Recommended Citation
Chris Goldie
(2021)
"Book Review: Andreas Malm. Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century. Verso (2020),"
The Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development: Vol. 6:
Iss.
1, Article 5.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/agsjournal/vol6/iss1/5