Title: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
Writer: Naomi Klein
Year of publication: 2014
Review: Naomi Klein’s book is a blend of politics, psychology, economics, science, and activism which she finds playing an essential role in tackling the climate crisis. She takes the view that the climate question has not been addressed adequately in the past decades because there would be a need for an overarching change in our socio-economic system to do so. However, such a change would conflict with the powers of giant corporations and elites that are responsible for the largest shares in pollution. Klein unpacks how the current system, namely neoliberalism, brought about the privatisation and globalisation of almost everything with the aim of “capturing and radically shrinking the public sphere.” She holds that neoliberalism is the main “cause” of the unaddressed climate crisis as it mainly focuses on market efficiency and treats individuals as consumers while promoting the rise of giant corporations through trade agreements adverse for the environment. She, however, sees social movements as (part of) the solution which can gain enough momentum to initiate a systematic change. Cautiously optimistic and truly enlightening, Rostra’s choice.
It is to be underlined that Rostra was not incentivized to promote this book in any way, and this suggestion is not necessarily representative of the opinions of the Rostra team, but only of the editor of this article.