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A review by clairealex
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein
5.0
A compelling book, researched and nuanced. Able to be both starkly negative and encouraging.
The premise is that a world view change is essential in order to combat the climate change that has already begun; that world view involves visions of humanity, nature, and economics.
The first section explores how the climate crisis, which needs public solutions, hit at a time when the public arena had been eviscerated. (That evisceration is the topic of her Shock Doctrine. It helped that I had recently read it.) Klein analyzes various kinds of denial, including that of people who look away because the problem seems so huge. Interestingly, she noted that climate-change deniers on the right see the consequences of action--radical change to economic structures and capitalist values--more clearly than the liberal counterparts who tried such free market driven moves as cap and trade emissions.
The second section explores green groups that merged with big business, billionaires who offer money for green solutions while also investing in fossil fuels, and technical solutions proposed. The latter, with their few pros and many cons, can be contemplated only if one is willing to see some geographic areas and their people as expendable.
The third section surveys climate actions, indigenous peoples' rights movements and legal battles, and a change in thinking from the right to extract to the need to replenish. The chapter on dangers of chemical spills to eggs and embryos is particularly moving. Once again the limitation of impact statements based only on adults, sometimes even only on adult males, is apparent. Her concluding chapters on the history of social movements, what they accomplished and what they left unfinished provides a way to look at potential climate movements.
The topic is hard; the prose readable.
While climate movements are essential--and many issues can be pulled into this umbrella--they must include the world view change away from free market ideology. Let's hope it is a paradigm shift we, collectively, can make. In time.
The premise is that a world view change is essential in order to combat the climate change that has already begun; that world view involves visions of humanity, nature, and economics.
The first section explores how the climate crisis, which needs public solutions, hit at a time when the public arena had been eviscerated. (That evisceration is the topic of her Shock Doctrine. It helped that I had recently read it.) Klein analyzes various kinds of denial, including that of people who look away because the problem seems so huge. Interestingly, she noted that climate-change deniers on the right see the consequences of action--radical change to economic structures and capitalist values--more clearly than the liberal counterparts who tried such free market driven moves as cap and trade emissions.
The second section explores green groups that merged with big business, billionaires who offer money for green solutions while also investing in fossil fuels, and technical solutions proposed. The latter, with their few pros and many cons, can be contemplated only if one is willing to see some geographic areas and their people as expendable.
The third section surveys climate actions, indigenous peoples' rights movements and legal battles, and a change in thinking from the right to extract to the need to replenish. The chapter on dangers of chemical spills to eggs and embryos is particularly moving. Once again the limitation of impact statements based only on adults, sometimes even only on adult males, is apparent. Her concluding chapters on the history of social movements, what they accomplished and what they left unfinished provides a way to look at potential climate movements.
The topic is hard; the prose readable.
While climate movements are essential--and many issues can be pulled into this umbrella--they must include the world view change away from free market ideology. Let's hope it is a paradigm shift we, collectively, can make. In time.