| THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING Capitalism Vs. the Climate Naomi Klein New York: Simon & Schuster, August 2015 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-4516-9739-1 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-4516-9739-2 | 564pp. | SC | $16.99 | |
Naomi Klein, a Canadian, writes here of the battle between two views of the world. These might be labeled the European and American world-views — if the labeler was working from a sense of history. The history would be that of Europe's colonial period, when its ships went forth to explore and conquer the New World (as it was then known.) In that New World were aboriginal tribes who, while far from being the noble savages of Rousseauvian myth, did live lightly on the lands they occupied. They were no match for the European invaders, and were quickly overwhelmed. Most survive today on suffrance, as second-class citizens.
Today, by contrast, it is more accurate to portray the American world-view as expansionist, whereas the European world-view more closely resembles that once held by the New World aborigines. True, American expansionism today is more about commerce than outright conquest. But, for many of the indigenous peoples living in what Naomi Klein calls "sacrifice zones,"1 there is little practical difference. Death by the slow poison of polluted air and water is as final as death by bombs — and in some cases the pollution may harm future generations as well.
I do greatly oversimplify the description of America; it is far less rapacious than many other governments — Nigeria's, for example, which along with multinational oil companies profits immensely from the hundreds of billions of barrels of petroleum extracted from its Niger Delta, where half the population lives without electricity or running water and where pollution is rampant.2 America is largely restrained by its egalitarian traditions; but those traditions have been under steady (though stealthy) assault for several decades. Today in America the commercial elites are quick to protest what they label "wealth redistribution" and "socialism" — by which they mean moderate increases in the tax paid by the wealthy and a wider social safety net for those in need. Meanwhile, redistribution of the nation's wealth continues in the other direction: upward into their hands. Few of them complain about this.3
Naomi Klein's book is long and complex, but her thesis is short and clear. It can be summed up in three questions:
Those who are not afraid to think of alternatives have long since recognized the dilemma inherent in these questions. Their minds do not reject unpleasant possibilities out of hand; nor do they blithely assume some unspecified technology will come along in the nick of time to save the day.
The situation is this: We cannot much longer continue living the way we have been living. We have it in our hands to make the changes that will avoid, or at least reduce, the problems that loom on the horizon. The energy technologies exist: they are wind power, solar power, tidal power, geothermal power, hydropower.4 The political policies exist: they include revoking subsidies for mature, profitable industries (oil) and making them pay the full costs of their activities (controlling pollution.) The financial model exists: it consists in foregoing the drive for endless increases in revenue and profit. This model operates in many family businesses; they grow until they have all the business they can handle comfortably, and then settle into a steady size.
But while Naomi Klein is concerned about this ongoing concentration of wealth and power at the top of society in America and other industrialized nations, her main thrust in writing this book is the expanding extraction and consumption of fossil fuels. Not only does this threaten the livelihoods, and often the very lives, of people in those sacrifice zones, but it adds to the atmosphere's burden of carbon dioxide: the principal "greenhouse gas."
No one with a high-school education or better has any excuse to "misunderestimate" the long-term threat posed by this growing burden of greenhouse gases, a threat which falls under the rubric of "climate change." But because it is a long-term threat, our infamously crisis-reactive species can be persuaded to ignore it, and to go along with efforts to delay timely actions against it. Let me say again that I am not suggesting a crash program here. Neither is Naomi Klein. No one is. But the longer we delay, the more likely we are to need a crash program — and the less likely it is that a crash program will turn out well.
"Climate change has never received the crisis treatment from our leaders, despite the fact that it carries the risk of destroying lives on a vastly greater scale than collapsed banks or collapsed buildings. The cuts to our greenhouse gas emissions that scientists tell us are necessary in order to greatly reduce the risk of catastrophe are treated as nothing more than gentle suggestions, actions that can be put off pretty much indefinitely. Clearly, what gets declared a crisis is an expression of power and priorities as much as hard facts. But we need not be spectators in all this: politicians aren't the only ones with the power to declare a crisis. Mass movements of regular people can declare one too." – Page 6 |
Naomi Klein delivers in this book an effective warning against the folly of the many and the greed of the few. She also documents a burgeoning series of protest movements against that folly and greed — which movements she labels with the collective term "Blockadia." Her book is a long book, full of well-researched information about specific incidents of recent history, and thus not an easy read. It is nevertheless worth reading. With its extensive set of endnotes and an excellent index, it also has great value as a reference for activists to use in citing such incidents as the pillaging of the Niger Delta or the train wreck at Lac-Mégantic. I wish it had a bibliography, but that is a minor shortcoming. I give it top marks and rate it a keeper.
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