This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein

we need to take a much closer look at precisely how the legacy of market fundamentalism, and the much deeper cultural narratives on which it rests, still block critical, life-saving climate action on virtually every front. The green movement’s mantra that climate is not about left and right but “right and wrong” has gotten us nowhere. The traditional political left does not hold all the answers to this crisis. But there can be no question that the contemporary political right, and the triumphant ideology it represents, is a formidable barrier to progress. As the next four chapters will show, the real reason we are failing to rise to the climate moment is because the actions required directly challenge our reigning economic paradigm (deregulated capitalism combined with public austerity), the stories on which Western cultures are founded (that we stand apart from nature and can outsmart its limits), as well as many of the activities that form our identities and define our communities (shopping, living virtually, shopping some more). They also spell extinction for the richest and most powerful industry the world has ever known—the oil and gas industry, which cannot survive in anything like its current form if we humans are to avoid our own extinction. In short, we have not responded to this challenge because we are locked in—politically, physically, and culturally. Only when we identify these chains do we have a chance of breaking free.