our planetary system are now at war
The sheer scope and earth-shattering import of climate change make most of us want to pull the duvet over our heads. Klein plunged right into the vexed questions of ever-expanding growth and a shrinkingly habitable planet with customary determination and refused to buckle under the weight of the elephant in the environmental room: the looming end of life as we know it.
She brought back the more-or-less optimistic message that “there is still time to avoid catastrophic warming.” The bad news? It can’t be done under the current rules of capitalism, based on endlessly escalating consumption, profits and energy production to make it all possible. In her own words, “our economic system and our planetary system are now at war.”
Not a happy prospect. Most climate change deniers have migrated from their arm chairs in the Flat Earth Society to the comfort zone of sophisticated technological fixes that could, would or should mitigate the worst effects of the sizzling future without the need for any radical changes in the present.
Klein committed five years of her life — she’s now 44 — to documenting how post-meltdown austerity and the counterintuitive campaigns of powerful interests have managed to push back the environmental movement, the spuriousness of their “magical thinking” cures, and the hopeful signs that all of the people can’t be fooled all of the time.
The tumbling oil price, she says, has boosted the thirst for sustainable solutions, even in Canada’s oil patch. “People are so ready for this new conversation, one that puts social justice at the centre. This is the moment to get them into the room to talk.”
Nevertheless the book didn’t come easily, Klein admits. “A lot of it was really depressing, and climate science isn’t fun to write about. It’s really bureaucratic — like death for writing.”