Klein Climate 2-Pack
Includes:
Transitioning to Climate Justice
Climate change, you’ve heard of that. But climate justice? The Global Justice Ecology Project describes it: “Climate justice is the understanding that we will not be able to stop climate change if we don’t change the neo-liberal, corporate-based economy which stops us from achieving sustainable societies. The historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with the industrialized countries of the Global North. The production and consumption habits of countries like the United States continue to threaten the survival of humanity and biodiversity globally. It is imperative that the North urgently shifts to a low carbon economy.”
This event was presented by the Lannan Foundation.
The Radical Leap
Political organizers are aware of “wedge issues” that divide us and “web issues” that bring us together. What could be more unifying than saving the planet? The Earth is heating up. Polar ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. April was the 12th consecutive hottest month on record. The December 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, doesn’t rise to the challenge. Clearly, it is going to take mobilization from below to radically change the fossilized attitudes of the fossil fuel industry and the politicians that they bankroll. Broad coalitions of diverse groups seek to do just that. Climate activism engages a new intersectional politics. From Pope Francis to the Dalai Lama, workers and trade unionists, indigenous peoples, and many others are speaking with one voice on the issue like never before.
Speaker
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, the founding co-director of UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice, and an Honorary Professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers University. She is a columnist for The Guardian. Her articles appear in leading publications around the world. The New York Times says, “She is that nearly extinct breed of activist: one who never stops questioning orthodoxies and interrogating her own beliefs.” She is the award-winning author of such bestsellers as This Changes Everything, No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, No Is Not Enough, and On Fire. Her latest book is Doppelganger.
Carolyn Jackson –
I just heard the first of these two talks today on Alternative Radio while driving across Southern Utah’s Aneth Oil Field on the Navajo Reservation. At 5 p.m. the temperature was in the low 100s. Most, but not all, of the pumps were still.
Naomi Klein may be one of the sanest people on Earth. She lays out our planet’s predicament without a touch of hysteria, but after you listen to her for a while, you know she is correct. We need to change, and change radically. If we manage to survive, our existence will be greatly diminished by fossil fuels. I thought of the Navajo, who depend on oil and coal for revenue. How much poorer can they get?
The speech Klein gave in Boulder, CO, gave me hope that people are thinking not only about keeping fossil fuels in the ground but how to transition to alternative energy sources without rewarding those, led by Exxon Mobil, brought us here through their dishonesty. She ties up the corporate, political, scientific and social justice aspects of climate change by proposing (in concert with others) a great leap. There are ways, she assures us, to engage those excluded by our corporatist economy—not only Native Americans but teachers, medical workers and social workers to name a few—to build a saner future.
If you’ve read her books (Disaster Capitalism, especially), you’ll find her speech just as well thought out and, I think, more hopeful. I look forward to the second part.