FIRE AND OIL: Rising to the Challenge of a More Flammable World

Humans, aided by the fossil fuel industry (the “fire industry”), have altered the chemistry of our planet and its atmosphere in profound, life-changing ways. As a result, we are now, in real time, crossing a threshold into a new climate regime marked by previously unimagined extremes and whipsawing instability. How we conceptualize and respond to this unprecedented challenge is of immediate and paramount importance, not just to our psyches and our souls, but to the future of everyone on Earth.

John Vaillant is an author and freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and the Guardian, among others. His first book, The Golden Spruce (Knopf, 2005), was a bestseller and won several awards, including the Governor General's and Writers’ Trust awards for non-fiction. His second nonfiction book, The Tiger (Knopf, 2010), was a bestseller and has been published in 16 languages. In 2015, he published his first work of fiction, The Jaguar's Children (Knopf), which was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC and Kirkus Fiction Prizes. His latest book, Fire Weather (Knopf, 2023), is a #1 national bestseller; it has won the Baillie Gifford Prize (UK), the most prestigious nonfiction prize in the English-speaking world. Fire Weather was also a finalist for the National Book Award (US), and the Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize (Canada). It has been named one of the ten best books of 2023 by The New York Times, among many other prominent publications.