This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate
Naomi Klein
[Allen Lane]
Climate change, as Naomi Klein points out in the opening pages of This Changes Everything, is an issue we’re not comfortable thinking about, at least for any extended period of time. She lists the various ways in which we avert our eyes from the terrifying facts, assuring ourselves that scientific ingenuity will come up with a response, or that we’re ‘doing our bit’ by shopping at farmers’ markets and using disposable nappies. But Klein contends that continuing with ‘business as usual’ is no longer an option if we are to avoid apocalypse; that the status quo of free-market capitalism cannot contain a solution to the threats posed by global warming, because it is inherently part of the problem. It is her belief that the environmental campaigners who claim that small, incremental policy and lifestyle changes will suffice are not only mistaken, but actually doing more damage than the ever-shrinking number of climate change deniers. What she calls for is a complete overhaul.
It is obvious that the ‘unlimited growth’ ideology of deregulated capitalism is unsustainable on a planet of limited resources. The message of This Changes Everything is that climate change is not an ‘issue’ like healthcare or taxes, but a ‘civilizational wake-up call’, a message ‘spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions.’ Klein posits this as a unique opportunity to reinvent a system that has consistently failed society’s most vulnerable and increasingly squeezed all but the most powerful. She describes, too, examples of communities who are, in the absence of decisive action from their democratically elected leaders, mobilising and working together. It’s easy to feel paralysed and powerless in the face of such an overwhelming threat. Klein’s book treads the line between outrage, fury and hope. It’s shocking, terrifying, and ultimately inspiring. As she puts it: ‘This is one of those moments when the barriers between who’s a regular person and who’s an activist needs to break down.’ Everyone needs to read this book.
Words: Liza Cox
