Rebels Against Oblivion: Fighting in the Age of Ecological Catastrophe

A gripping, immersive tour of the front lines in today’s battle for environmental justice and ecological sanity, where civil disobedients, clandestine organizers, and Indigenous resisters are taking direct action in the fight for a livable future

This year may be the hottest in our planet’s history, yet our leaders do little more than “blah blah blah,” in Greta Thunberg’s memorable words—and we, too, chatter while sitting idle. Well, not all of us.

As the natural world is increasingly disfigured, as environmental crises proliferate and we fail to meet even the most modest commitments, as our fossil-fueled society continues its mad march to the precipice, people are rising up while putting their lives on the line.

With riveting drama and righteous urgency, Rebels Against Oblivion lays bare the daring of those brave few who throw their bodies on the gears of planetary ruin. Christopher Ketcham profiles eco-saboteurs in the American Southwest, Indigenous defenders of the Amazon, and veteran activists in Europe facing years’ imprisonment for disrupting the unsustainable status quo of industrial capitalism. As Ketcham’s propulsive reporting makes clear, these seemingly small and disparate groups mark the beginning of a new ecological defense in a fight where the odds are plainly against them—a fight they may not win now but which must be won if humanity is to eke out a just and equitable future on an ecologically battered planet.

Impassioned and hard-hitting, Rebels Against Oblivion reveals the possibilities for a world of democratic resistance to environmental collapse, of surprising victories and manifold defeats, in which the question of what we can do is being confronted in real time.