This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein

If we were staring down the barrel of an imminent and unavoidable climate emergency, the kinds of monstrous calculations implicit in geoengineering—sacrifice part of Latin America in order to save all of China, or save the remaining glaciers and land ice to prevent catastrophic global sea level rise but risk endangering India’s food source—might be unavoidable. But even if we acquire enough information to make those kinds of calculations (and it’s hard to imagine how we could), we notably are not at that point. We have options, ones that would greatly decrease the chances of ever confronting those impossible choices, choices that indeed deserve to be described as genocidal. To fail to exercise those options—which is exactly what we are collectively doing—knowing full well that eventually the failure could force government to rationalize “risking” turning whole nations, even subcontinents, into sacrifice zones, is a decision our children may judge as humanity’s single most immoral act.