Climate activist calls Trump, other ‘strongmen’ leaders ‘true planetary arsonists determined to torch the planet with glee’

In a "NowThis" video on Twitter, author and journalist Naomi Klein raged against President Donald Trump and other "strongmen-style politicians" calling them "planetary arsonists determined to torch the planet with glee."

Klein, who is also currently the chair of Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University, recently published a book titled, "On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal" where she draws sweeping comparisons between climate chaos and the political chaos that leaders like Trump supposedly ignite.

In the video, which serves as a brief summary of the arguments in her book, Klein argues that the world presently has two fires raging: "The fires of climate destruction" and "the political fires, the fires of hate" — and that somehow these fires are related.

"It's not a coincidence that these strongmen figures are coming to power all over the world because they're tapping into feelings of profound unease," Klein argues. "But these men are also tapping into our moment of ecological insecurity."

Klein lists leaders like Trump, Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, and Australia's Scott Morrison as examples of the so-called "planetary arsonists."

These men's one true skill, Klein says, "is making other people's fear work for them." By stirring up division, these leaders are then free to get on with their real business of plundering the environment.

Their method is a circular firestorm, argues Klein, who says the leaders cause environmental fires, which directly intensify armed conflicts, which lead to migration, which in turn is used by them to fuel fires of hate — are you dizzy, yet?

But, "there is a third fire and it is also blazing," she says, alluding to youth climate strikers like Greta Thunburg. "It is our fire."

Thunberg, 16, has recently garnered international attention for her defiant, impassioned activism for climate change, and like Thunburg, Klein weaves climate issues with societal issues.

In an op-ed last Friday, Thunberg argued that if humanity is to adequately address climate change, we must overhaul everything, including "colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression."