This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein

The mantra of the early ecologists was “everything is connected”—every tree a part of an intricate web of life. The mantra of the corporate-partnered conservationists, in sharp contrast, may as well be “everything is disconnected,” since they have successfully constructed a new economy in which the tree is not a tree but rather a carbon sink used by people thousands of miles away to appease our consciences and maintain our levels of economic growth. But the biggest problem with this approach is that carbon markets have failed even on their own terms, as markets. In Europe, the problems began with the decision to entice companies and countries to join the market by handing out a huge number of cheap carbon permits. When the economic crisis hit a few years later, it caused production and consumption to contract and emissions to drop on their own.