I'm Susie Weizmann and this is Jackaman Radio. Energy specialist and author Simon Perrani joins us in conversation about his new book

Burning Up, a global history of fossil fuel consumption that addresses the burning, pun intended, question of the day,

impending climate catastrophe.

Simon's book traces the inexorable increase in oil, gas, and coal use since the mid-20th century,

and shows how consumption growth accelerated

since the discovery of global warming in the 1980s.

He argues that fuels are mainly consumed through technological systems, which are in turn

embedded in social, economic, and political systems, and that the transition away from fossil fuels

will mean the transformation of all of these.

We then turn to the L.A. teachers strike and speak to Arlene Inoue, Secretary of the United Teachers

of Los Angeles, or UTLA, and co-chair of the negotiations team on the state of play in the bargaining

process and ask her to lay out how important this strike is for public education, indeed

for the public. UTLA is demanding that LAUSD negotiate a fair agreement that addresses class size,

funding for nurses, counselors, and librarians a halt to further privatization through charterization and teacher pay, or face

teachers on the picket lines.

After the spectacular Red State Teacher strikes of last year, the L.A.S.D. strike has enormous

potential in practical and inspirational terms for labor and community as a whole.

All this, when Jacobin Radio returns in just a moment. Welcome to Jacobin Radio. I'm Susie Wiseman and very pleased to have Simon Perrani with us.

He's a senior visiting research fellow at Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and also the author of

the Russian Revolution and Retreat and Change in Putin's Russia. But Simon's here

today because he has a brand new book and it's called

Burning Up a global history of fossil fuel consumption published by Pluto and it

...