This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: CAPITALISM VS. THE CLIMATE By Naomi Klein*Naomi Klein is a public intellectual with a passion for investigating issues affecting the public interest. She is an astute observer of how political and economic power are exercised in fashioning public policy. Klein devoted five years to research, reflection, and writing on climate change and the fossil fuel industry-to understand these phenomena, those who downplay their adverse effects (or doubt that climate change is "man-made"), and those struggling to avoid their adverse effects on their local environs and the future of humanity. Klein concludes that what is required to avoid or mitigate the worst effects of climate change directly clashes with our prevailing capitalist, globalized, freetrade paradigms-ironically agreeing with many "climate deniers." Her most startling conclusion is that if humanity acts effectively to address climate change and establish a sustainable "steady-state" economy-which it must to survive- the oil and gas industry is doomed. The unanswered question is whether the end of that industry will leave us in a dystopian or utopian future. That question will be answered, Klein believes, and the future unalterably determined, in the next two or three years.1I. WHY DAVID MUST FIGHT GOLIATH...Klein also concludes that the source of environmental degradation, with climate change perhaps its most devastating effect, is not Western Civilization's political and economic structures, but something far deeper: its philosophic worldview. She calls this worldview the "extractive" attitude toward nature, and cites Francis Bacon, 17th-century scientist and philosopher, and Scottish engineer, James Watts, as two of the earliest proponents of this now prevalent view.2This book does not describe the potential disasters humanity faces from climate change; Klein assumes that most of her readers are familiar with the credible assessments of the outcomes most scientists anticipate. Klein does not assert that the supply of fossil fuels will be depleted in the near term, and force a quick transition to renewable energy and ultra-energy efficiency. Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling may enable us to continue exploiting fossil fuels for the indefinite future.But Klein believes we are living in the last decade when the worst effects of global warming might still be averted. A major concern of climate scientists is whether global warming can be held to 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit), which many believe we could adapt to adequately. However, a 2011 study by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and a 2012 report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers show that existing trends (business as usual) put the world on track for a 4° to 6°C increase, which virtually no one thinks civilization could survive.3 Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist, says, "If there is not a major international agreement on climate change by 2017, the chance of limiting the temperature rise to 2°C will be closed altogether."4Klein notes that the world took unprecedented steps to avert a financial collapse and world-wide depression in 2008 and 2009. And there are no lack of feasible strategies for a rapid transition to non-carbon energy resources. So what, she asks, "is really preventing us from putting out the fire that is threatening to burn down our collective house?"5We have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because these things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis. "We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe-and would benefit the vast majority-are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets."6"The three policy pillars of this new era . . . are privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and lower corporate taxation, paid for with cuts to public spending. …