Naomi Klein is a journalist and author who has written for a number of publications about environmentalism, globalization, the wars in Iraq, and the impact of unrestrained neoliberal economics. She has also written several books on the anti-corporate movement (and in addition to print, has made documentary films on the subject with her husband, Avi Lewis). Her critiques of free market fundamentalism earned her the £50,000 (about $76,000) Warwick Prize for Writing and a place on the New York Times bestseller list.
In this interview, Klein tells the Bulletin’s Dan Drollette about her latest non-fiction book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, published by Simon & Schuster in 2014. The book takes no prisoners, pointing at weak government efforts to address climate change; environmental groups that have compromised with industry on too many issues; what she considers to be pie-in-the-sky “techno-fixes” such as carbon sequestering; conservatives who consistently deny climate change is even happening; and corporations that Klein thinks are seeking to earn a profit by scuttling efforts to deal with the crisis. (...)
BAS: One of the shocking things to read in your book was that all these trade agreements essentially say that free trade trumps everything else, including environmental concerns. Economic growth always comes first; climate second.
Klein: And we’re seeing a flurry of these new trade deals, with the United States and China, and with Europe and the United States, to name just a few of the larger partnerships. There is this fundamental contradiction between what governments are negotiating in trade summits and what they’re negotiating at climate summits. There’s seemingly very little desire to reconcile the two.
It’s like they’re on these two parallel tracks and don’t communicate with each other.
Twenty years ago the trade lawyers could plead ignorance and say that they weren’t really up on climate change. But that’s not true anymore. It’s really a willful compartmentalization, because it’s hard to reconcile that kind of trade with a radical carbon reduction agenda.
BAS: The book laid out a case for the large environmental groups—“Big Green”—being in bed with Big Oil. The Environmental Defense Fund came off particularly badly.
Klein: Even the Sierra Club had a really ugly chapter, in which they were taking many millions from a natural gas company which had a very clear financial interest in shutting down coal plants because it was creating a market for them.
And frankly I think the same is true for Michael Bloomberg—who continues to be a major funder for the Sierra Club—because Bloomberg as a businessman is massively invested in natural gas. He has a dedicated fund for his $33 billion worth of wealth that specializes in oil and gas. And he continues to be a vocal advocate in favor of fracking in New York State.
What do I take away from this? I love the Sierra Club, I have friends who work there, they do fantastic work. But I frankly don’t see a huge difference between the conflict of interest with Michael Bloomberg and some of the other conflicts of interest I mentioned in the book.
That said, I think the Sierra Club has definitely gotten on the right side of the fracking fight. Unlike the Environmental Defense Fund, which continues to try to broker these so-called “best practices” for fracking at a time when the people affected by fracking are being very clear that they want outright bans.
What’s interesting is what has been happening in places like New York State, where local green organizations have been challenging the relevancy of some of these Big Green groups that started that whole “split the difference” middle ground approach—and Big Green is to the right of Cuomo, which is not a place where you want to be. There’s been the emergence of a harder-core, grass-roots movement that I call ‘Blockadia’—and because it is growing, and so strong, and resonating with so many people, these new movements are winning huge victories, like the ban on fracking in New York State. And the grassroots is making these Big Green groups irrelevant. (...)
BAS: In the book, you rebutted the claim by some environmentalists that the fight against climate change would bring us all together. You cited examples in which some people found a way to profiteer off of this—such as a private security firm to patrol your expensively engineered, stormproof home and protect your possessions when the next flood arrive—with the net result that wedges were driven between everyone.
Klein: This is where I come to climate from. My previous book, The Shock Doctrine, was all about this. It was about the rise of “disaster capitalism” after wars. When I started writing it, the book was about military and economic crises and how they are used to push further privatization—and how these situations offer moments for intense profiteering. Because that’s what was happening in Iraq after invasion.
And as I was writing it, I was starting to see how the same sort of thing was cropping up in the aftermath of natural disasters like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina: privatized aid, privatized security infrastructure, privatized military, and so on. I felt like I was catching a glimpse of the future when I was doing the field reporting.
And I think that’s why I feel so passionately about the fact that climate change is not just about things getting hotter, it’s about things getting meaner and much more divided. We saw this during Hurricane Katrina—and to a lesser extent, during Hurricane Sandy—where there was such a huge gap between how that storm was experienced by people of means and people who were in public housing. It’s very cruel the way this plays out.
But that’s not the worst of it. The worst is when the developers come in and say, “Well, let’s just bulldoze the public housing and have condos instead.” Or, “Let’s use this as an opportunity to privatize the school system,” which is what happened in New Orleans.
This is what our current economic system is built to do, and it does it. And I’ve spent a lot of time documenting that.
We can count on that pattern continuing, unless there is a plan for a progressive response to the climate crisis.
by Dan Drollette Jr, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists | Read more:
Image: Anya Chibis For The Guardian
In this interview, Klein tells the Bulletin’s Dan Drollette about her latest non-fiction book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, published by Simon & Schuster in 2014. The book takes no prisoners, pointing at weak government efforts to address climate change; environmental groups that have compromised with industry on too many issues; what she considers to be pie-in-the-sky “techno-fixes” such as carbon sequestering; conservatives who consistently deny climate change is even happening; and corporations that Klein thinks are seeking to earn a profit by scuttling efforts to deal with the crisis. (...)BAS: One of the shocking things to read in your book was that all these trade agreements essentially say that free trade trumps everything else, including environmental concerns. Economic growth always comes first; climate second.
Klein: And we’re seeing a flurry of these new trade deals, with the United States and China, and with Europe and the United States, to name just a few of the larger partnerships. There is this fundamental contradiction between what governments are negotiating in trade summits and what they’re negotiating at climate summits. There’s seemingly very little desire to reconcile the two.
It’s like they’re on these two parallel tracks and don’t communicate with each other.
Twenty years ago the trade lawyers could plead ignorance and say that they weren’t really up on climate change. But that’s not true anymore. It’s really a willful compartmentalization, because it’s hard to reconcile that kind of trade with a radical carbon reduction agenda.
BAS: The book laid out a case for the large environmental groups—“Big Green”—being in bed with Big Oil. The Environmental Defense Fund came off particularly badly.
Klein: Even the Sierra Club had a really ugly chapter, in which they were taking many millions from a natural gas company which had a very clear financial interest in shutting down coal plants because it was creating a market for them.
And frankly I think the same is true for Michael Bloomberg—who continues to be a major funder for the Sierra Club—because Bloomberg as a businessman is massively invested in natural gas. He has a dedicated fund for his $33 billion worth of wealth that specializes in oil and gas. And he continues to be a vocal advocate in favor of fracking in New York State.
What do I take away from this? I love the Sierra Club, I have friends who work there, they do fantastic work. But I frankly don’t see a huge difference between the conflict of interest with Michael Bloomberg and some of the other conflicts of interest I mentioned in the book.
That said, I think the Sierra Club has definitely gotten on the right side of the fracking fight. Unlike the Environmental Defense Fund, which continues to try to broker these so-called “best practices” for fracking at a time when the people affected by fracking are being very clear that they want outright bans.
What’s interesting is what has been happening in places like New York State, where local green organizations have been challenging the relevancy of some of these Big Green groups that started that whole “split the difference” middle ground approach—and Big Green is to the right of Cuomo, which is not a place where you want to be. There’s been the emergence of a harder-core, grass-roots movement that I call ‘Blockadia’—and because it is growing, and so strong, and resonating with so many people, these new movements are winning huge victories, like the ban on fracking in New York State. And the grassroots is making these Big Green groups irrelevant. (...)
BAS: In the book, you rebutted the claim by some environmentalists that the fight against climate change would bring us all together. You cited examples in which some people found a way to profiteer off of this—such as a private security firm to patrol your expensively engineered, stormproof home and protect your possessions when the next flood arrive—with the net result that wedges were driven between everyone.
Klein: This is where I come to climate from. My previous book, The Shock Doctrine, was all about this. It was about the rise of “disaster capitalism” after wars. When I started writing it, the book was about military and economic crises and how they are used to push further privatization—and how these situations offer moments for intense profiteering. Because that’s what was happening in Iraq after invasion.
And as I was writing it, I was starting to see how the same sort of thing was cropping up in the aftermath of natural disasters like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina: privatized aid, privatized security infrastructure, privatized military, and so on. I felt like I was catching a glimpse of the future when I was doing the field reporting.
And I think that’s why I feel so passionately about the fact that climate change is not just about things getting hotter, it’s about things getting meaner and much more divided. We saw this during Hurricane Katrina—and to a lesser extent, during Hurricane Sandy—where there was such a huge gap between how that storm was experienced by people of means and people who were in public housing. It’s very cruel the way this plays out.
But that’s not the worst of it. The worst is when the developers come in and say, “Well, let’s just bulldoze the public housing and have condos instead.” Or, “Let’s use this as an opportunity to privatize the school system,” which is what happened in New Orleans.
This is what our current economic system is built to do, and it does it. And I’ve spent a lot of time documenting that.
We can count on that pattern continuing, unless there is a plan for a progressive response to the climate crisis.
by Dan Drollette Jr, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists | Read more:
Image: Anya Chibis For The Guardian
