KLEIN: This Changes Everything:

[Oscar]

KLEIN: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate

[ https://org2.salsalabs.com/o/6694/t/173 ... m_KEY=2887 ]

Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything is "the best book about climate change in a very long time - in large part because it's about much more," says Bill McKibben. "It sets the most important crisis in human history in the context of our other ongoing traumas, reminding us just how much the powers-that-be depend on the power of coal, gas and oil. And that in turn should give us hope, because it means the fight for a just world is the same as the fight for a livable one." - Bill McKibben

[Oscar]

Naomi Klein on Cause of Climate Crisis: "Capitalism Is Stupid"

[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2636 ... -is-stupid ]

Wednesday, 24 September 2014 09:46

By Sarah Jaffe, Truthout | Interview/News Analysis

QUOTE: "The problem is, capitalism is stupid ... in that it doesn't actually think."

Naomi Klein is out to change hearts and minds around climate change.

Her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate out now from Simon & Schuster, is a broad challenge to those who want a livable planet: We need to come up with a livable economic system too. Deeply researched and personally reported, Klein's third book takes us from the tar sands in Alberta ("Earth, skinned alive") to the oil-soaked waters of the Gulf of Mexico ("a miscarriage"), from climate denier conferences to a meeting of would-be geoengineers, as she traces the path of destruction that capitalism and a mindset she terms "extractivism" - that is perhaps even older - have left on the Earth.

At one point, Klein concedes, it might have been possible to stop the climate crisis with a few regulations here, a carbon tax there. But we're too far gone for that, and nothing but a full-on change in how humans relate to the Earth and to each other will save us now.

The good news is that Klein has written an immensely hopeful book, a book about people who believe they can make change and who are doing it in the face of a political and economic system that would seem to doom them to failure. She doesn't define what comes after capitalism, leaving that to the social movements she describes being born all over the world, but sketches its broad outlines, letting us know what this new climate justice movement is against - but also what it is for - and making a case for a broad redistributive justice movement that would include already-existing movements for racial justice, feminism and decolonization.

Truthout's Sarah Jaffe caught up with Klein on the eve of the People's Climate March and of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York [ http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/ ] to talk about why liberalism is not enough, why billionaires can't save us, and what we need to do to save ourselves.

MORE:

[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2636 ... -is-stupid ]

[Oscar]

An Open Letter to Naomi Klein

[ http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/17/naomi-kl ... ery-thing/ ]

Ted Glick | November 17, 2014 10:00 am | See Comment below . . .

Dear Naomi,

I’ve just read, twice actually, your great new book This Changes Everything. [ http://ecowatch.com/2014/09/15/naomi-kl ... -fracking/ ] It’s very valuable and a must-read for people who appreciate both the seriousness of the climate crisis and the importance of progressive, justice-based social change. [ http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/ ] You have clearly worked long, hard and well to put together a comprehensive narrative about the climate issue, its connections to other issues, the state of the movement and the state of the climate denier opposition, http://ecowatch.com/?s=climate+denier ] [ the necessity of up-from-below initiatives and alternatives, the importance of solidarity with and support for Indigenous peoples fighting energy corporations, and more.

I particularly appreciated your raising up and focus on what you called “blockadia;” clearly, without civil disobedience and a growing number of people willing to engage in it, the already-long-odds against human society and all life forms on Earth will only get longer. And, though I was not surprised, it was really good to read your takedown of fracking all throughout the book [ http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/fracking-2/ ] and your critique of the corporate-funded environmental groups that continue to support it. Their doing so despite all the evidence of how dangerous fracking is both for the climate and for people experiencing fracking wells, gas infrastructure and the planned export terminals is outrageous.

So why am I writing you in this “open letter” way?

MORE:

[ http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/17/naomi-kl ... ery-thing/ ]

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COMMENT: paulroden • 6 days ago

They said we could not become independent from the British Empire in 1776, they said we couldn't allow women to vote in 1920, they said we could not have voting rights and Civil Rights for people of color in the 1960's, they said we couldn't stop nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the 1970's and 1980's and they said we couldn't elect once let alone twice an African-American as President of the US. You simply don't understand the power of social movements. Look at what happened in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011? Look at what the Occupy Wall Street Movement did on a global basis? We are moving out of what the late David Dillinger called the "Edison and Marconi" age of nonviolent action. We are now moving into what George Lakey calls nonviolent revolution. What if Wall Street had a trading day and no one came? What if no one showed up to work for the multinational corporations? What if no one bought goods and services from the big corporations? And what if no one paid taxes to the Federal Government? The 1% and the oligarchically control government can not function with out our consent and our money. I suggest you visit the Global Nonviolent Action Database at http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.e... or read Dr. Gene Sharp's "The Politics of Nonviolent Action or read George Lakey;s "Strategy for a Living Revolution." "The revolution will not be televised." the late Gil Scott Heron wrote and sang. On the contrary, it will be "Tweeted", video streamed and blogged by the people and not the mainstream media, because they won't allow it, because it undermines their control and power. If we really want to stop climate change, we can't wait for the "invisible hand of the free market" to act. It never has and never will.