This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change

Naomi Klein makes a compelling argument for the complete reorganization for human society as we know it in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change. After reading this book, I am left speechless and a little afraid about what the next 50 years of our lives will look like. The vision that has inspired this apprehension in me most strongly is Klein’s comparison of the dissolution of our reliance on fossil fuels to the abolition of slavery.

First, do we have (or can we build) the social inertia to over the reigning political, social, and economic ideologies of our times? We are an individualistic society focused on expanded our personal gain through competition. To fight against the impending doom that will ultimately come as a result of climate change, we must turn into a society that values cooperation, reciprocity, and the good of entire groups of people, not individuals.

For the changes that Klein calls for, in the very least we need 1) a congress and a judicial system that is supportive (and imaginative) to push for the necessary changes, 2) a society of people who are willing to abandon their dearly held beliefs, and 3) industry innovation to change from the use of an infrastructure present on almost every place on the globe. Maybe all three are not absolutely needed, but at least two of three would be.

I’m left with a pit in my stomach with the full knowledge that they system as we know it is not sustainable, but I’m left wondering what kind of effort will be needed to push us into the transition of the next stage? Will blood be spilled in wars as was necessary in the Civil War? Will inequality of disadvantaged groups remain as freed slaves were forced into indentured servitude? It doesn’t seem like the answers to these questions are obvious or easy, but we must start pushing for them to be asked because the alternative is not so bright.