This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
“What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.”
“Slavery wasn’t a crisis for British and American elites until abolitionism turned it into one. Racial discrimination wasn’t a crisis until the civil rights movement turned it into one. Sex discrimination wasn’t a crisis until feminism turned it into one. Apartheid wasn’t a crisis until the anti-apartheid movement turned it into one. In the very same way, if enough of us stop looking away and decide that climate change is a crisis worthy of Marshall Plan levels of response, then it will become one, and the political class will have to respond, both by making resources available and by bending the free market rules that have proven so pliable when elite interests are in peril.”
Why do we continue to “look away” from climate change, unable to acknowledge it as the crisis it truly is? Because the ideology and system of capitalism and its proponents—more specifically free-market fundamentalism aka neoliberalism—have systematically overpowered or silenced effective response. Its core policies of privatization, corporate deregulation, and lower corporate taxation are directly opposed to the policies needed to lower fossil fuel combustion. Addressing the climate crisis will call for tremendous economic and social change, not the false solutions offered by those same “disaster capitalists” (see her book The Shock Doctrine for more on this) who exploit social, economic, and now environmental upheavals to make themselves richer, or by geoengineers who assume the world is our resource to be used and manipulated without reciprocal stewardship or consequences. Importantly, though this crisis is urgent and disastrous, it’s also exciting and inspiring: this is a chance to create a society and economy that’s more equitable and compassionate, and the climate justice movement has already won several battles that are paving the way there. A book that will change the way you think about the reasons behind climate change and effective action going forward. (Also a documentary!)