As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial#A Graphic Novel [Paperback]

Derrick Jensen (Author), Stephanie McMillan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 6, 2007

Two of America's most talented activists team up to deliver a bold and hilarious satire of modern environmental policy in this fully illustrated graphic novel. The U.S. government gives robot machines from space permission to eat the earth in exchange for bricks of gold. A one-eyed bunny rescues his friends from a corporate animal-testing laboratory. And two little girls figure out the secret to saving the world from both of its enemies (and it isn't by using energy-efficient light bulbs or biodiesel fuel). As the World Burns will inspire you to do whatever it takes to stop ecocide before it’s too late.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up–This simply drawn graphic satire is largely message-driven, but the message is still entertaining and thought-provoking. As the lighthearted lead character shares what governments, corporations, and activists tell individual Americans to do to save the Earth, her cynical counterpart exposes the futility of these simple solutions. The truth is, even if each and every one of us switched to compact fluorescent bulbs and became vegetarians it would only be a drop in the bucket compared to the damage corporate and government policies are doing to the world environment. The story that binds these notions together is an upcoming alien invasion and a renegade bunny trying to end animal experimentation. The characters are crudely drawn with bare sets, but this style works in a tale in which the words are carrying so much weight. (The politicians have sharper teeth than the bears.) This book doesn't offer up any real answers to what is clearly portrayed as a frightening state of affairs–it includes an animal uprising. However, it will inflame teens' passion about the environment and possibly open more eyes.–Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD
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Review

"McMillan's expressive style, pared down to the basics and intensified over the years, allows for instant communication of thoughtful rage. . . a fast-moving page-turner."–The Comics Journal

"In As the World Burns the large scope and indictment of every facet of society is, to say the least, thought-provoking."–Cleveland Free Times

"Readers exasperated with, or just plain tired of, simplistic guides offering purportedly quick and easy ways to resolve global warming and other momentous concerns of the day will delight in this razor-sharp critique packaged as a cute-kid-and-funny-animal cartoon... Jensen and McMillan roll critical thinking and well-structured graphic-novel storytelling into a compelling whole."–Booklist

"A compelling message and an expressive artwork."–The Sylvanian

"As the product of the creative marriage of activist philosopher Derrick Jensen and political cartoonist Stephanie McMillan, As the World Burns displays trademark qualities of both professions:the big ideas and calculated statistics of Jensen's and the witticism and quirky characterization of McMillan's."–World Literature Today

"A sharply worded satire that delivers a litany of reasons why our culture's alienation from the wild is literally paving the way to global destruction."–North Coast Journal

"Jensen takes the complexity of anti-civilization philosophy and distills it down to one important message. If we can't stop destroying everything, soon we’ll have destroyed everything."–Slingshot

"In As The World Burns, satire bites through the sharp vampire-pointed teeth of McMillan's corporate overlords...initially, the graphic novel's underlying message may seem heavy-handed and preachy, but the writing is so acutely entertaining that the message doesn't feel force-fed...Plus, the drawings are so darn cute."–Broward/Palm Beach New Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press (November 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583227776
• ISBN-13: 978-1583227770
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #248,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Derrick Jensen is the prize-winning author of A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Listening to the Land, Strangely Like War, Welcome to the Machine, and Walking on Water. He was one of two finalists for the 2003 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, which cited The Culture of Make Believe as "a passionate and provocative meditation on the nexus of racism, genocide, environmental destruction and corporate malfeasance, where civilization meets its discontents." He is an environmental activist and lives on the coast of northern California.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bunny Terror Alert, January 11, 2008

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial#A Graphic Novel (Paperback)

The anarcho-primitive activist and post-civilization philosopher Derrick Jensen really knows how to make an impact. Readers who agree with his general philosophy need not agree with every single one of his positions, though you can't deny that he's very effective at advancing them with deft use of persuasion and polemics. This tongue-in-cheek graphic novel came as a bit of a surprise, because I assumed that the "stay in denial" portion of the title would be directed at anti-environmentalists. On the contrary, the book is actually directed at environmentalists who have fallen for popular rhetoric about how their individual actions (recycling, buying new light bulbs, driving a hybrid, etc.) may actually make a major difference in the health of the planet. I don't totally agree with Jensen's disdain for personal virtue, but it's hard to deny that casual environmentalism detracts attention from the true causes of the world's problems. The status quo in business, economics, and politics is the real problem, and to save the planet we might just need a revolutionary structural overhaul of modern civilization. While this fictional story is simplistic and a bit forced, and comes nowhere near the intelligence and emotion of Jensen's other works, as an entertaining graphic novel the message is quite compelling. The low-key but expressive artwork of political cartoonist Stephanie McMillan surely adds to the effect. Perhaps this type of quick-hitting storytelling, rather than lengthy technical and philosophical screeds, will inspire caring folks to take real action. [~doomsdayer520~]

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Stop insisting on your growth economy, on acquiring more and more until you consume the entire planet.", February 17, 2008

By 

Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial#A Graphic Novel (Paperback)

Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan's As the World Burns is a revolutionary graphic novel decrying the failure of the green movement. We have become a self-congratulatory society of "green" consumers, recyclers, yogi mediators, and letter-writers. Utilizing pigtailed girls, a one-eyed eco-revolutionary bunny, and a wise bird, the authors expose the fallacies of patting ourselves on the back as we continue down an unsustainable consumption path headed straight for world destruction. Some quick math performed by Kranti (a character from McMillan's Minimum Security cartoon) reveals that even if everyone (100% of the US population) changed our light bulbs, recycled half our total waste, cut our driving in half, installed low-flow showerheads, and adjusted our thermostats by two degrees, the end results would be a ONE-TIME 21% reduction in carbon emissions, which given our current rate of growth, would be offset in 10 years.

The real culprits in our ecocide? Corporations and the government they have in their pockets. And what are they doing? Running marketing campaigns and releasing movies to convince individual consumers to take the blame. In As the World Burns, a former-politician-turned-activist conspires with corporations to distract individuals from the systemic predicament, knowing full well that green consumers will pay more to feel good about themselves.

As the World Burns is much more than sharp dialogue about the futility of eco-friendly consumerism. Aliens have also arrived on the planet, intent on eating up all Earth's resources, and expecting to have to fight the planet's current residents. To their surprise, the Bible-thumping Dad-worshipping President gladly gives away the planet in exchange for bars of gold, which the aliens know is absolutely useless, not even giving the humans a buzz, but they go gaga for it. The plot thickens even farther as a pill-pushing therapist tries to medicate away our heroine's societal discontent, the one-eyed Bunnista starts his own campaign to free tortured animals, and the government locks bunnies and any suspected bunny sympathizers in terrorist detention centers.

The authors of As the World Burns argue that modern industrial society is inherently unsustainable, requiring a no-compromise stance from activists who truly want to change the direction of the global population. In the novel, a raccoon advises, "Stop insisting on your growth economy, on acquiring more and more until you consume the entire planet." We can no longer ignore the natural world, but as the wise bird educates us, humans lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years and could learn to again if we were willing.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Someone had to say it, November 19, 2007

By 

Howard M. Switzer "greenman" (Linden, Tennessee) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial#A Graphic Novel (Paperback)

Another excellent work from Derrick Jensen. The so-called green movement is being co-opted by the very mega corporations who are doing the destroying of the planet. They make the big decisions, they rig the elections, they own the mass media and public mind control technologies, they control the economy, the money and they will not stop. Al Gore described part of the problem and told us what we can do, but Derrick does the math. If every man woman and child did them all, and they never would, it only adds up to 21% of the carbon that the US spews. The rest comes from the mega industries and their carbon spew increases about 2% per year so that savings won't last long. Buying green products will not save the planet. We need to find a way for people to understand that they are being bamboozled so they can step into their own power. For those who will say this book is short on solutions I say that is because there really isn't going to be any solution until a lot of people quit believing all the green-wash hype. How we get everyone talking to one another and getting out of our mass denial, so we can do something effective, is the project that we need to focus on. Derrick has described what we are denying, now we have work to do. We see the enemy and it is us, ...but mostly its them.