Review: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

Estimates of the number of tons of carbon that we can safely burn before we have to stop range from 250 gigtons of Carbon to 500 gigatons of carbon (the conservative answer that Klein quotes). The number of gigatons that we know about. The number of gigatons that we as a civilization have the power to burn in our lifetime? 2,000 gigatons.

Those are the kind of numbers that Klein brings up in the first half of This Changes Everything. These are terrifying numbers. They are inexorable numbers. We all know that we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the earth many times over... but we don't use nukes. We have enough carbon to destroy a hundred thousand ecosystems many (4-8) times overs.... and we're using them. We're increasing our use of them.

Klein points out that there is a time window- approximately ten years from 2017- that we have to dramatically curb our carbon pollution. To do this would require putting wind and solar up en masse and shutting down fossil fuel systems at the same time. She rightly points out that there is no "magic" technology. The nuclear systems that I love as much as the next engineer, simply can't be made as quickly and safely as we'll need them. She estimates that in the West we'd have to cut back our "consumption" to the same levels as in the 70s.

lol.

Another big takeaway: our carbon footprint in America and Europe cannot be counted by looking at just the carbon spewed out to power our air conditioners or released from our cars. It includes the Chinese soot that is used to make our goods, but ends up killing the elderly or young. That carbon energy is ultimately used to make Walmart competitive.

How are we to face this tidal wave of carbon and heat? Not geoengineering. If we realize too late that the islands are sinking and that the crops are on fire and the poor are dying of thirst, then we can't "geoengineer" because the results of that will be people dying of hunger! Not cap and trade or market systems- the European system doesn't work! Not carbon sequestration- it's literally impossible and anybody that thinks it would scale is an idiot.

No. How are we to face this tidal wave of carbon and heat? Cowboys and Indians... oh, and Hippies. That's Klein's answer to the climate crisis. The cowboys and Indians will unite the rural lands where pipes carry poison and the ground is broken, and they'll repel the capitalist scum while city-hippies will make urban-farms and begin shopping local. Oh, and divestment caused the gas bust.

If I sound a little irreverent it is because it is patently absurd. She herself has given us the task: reduce potential missions by 400%. If you think that bottom-up populism is going do that... well, maybe you've been hanging around too many tar sands. You need massive carbon taxes, massive subsidizes for fuels. You need the kind of direction and purpose that historically only a Democratic President and Congress have ever delivered for the American people.

And that's not happening. That's really the kicker. Klein, being Canadian (and worst, a Western Canadian) couldn't have predicted the rise of populist racism in the United States and Europe. She's too far removed from it. But here we are, on the edge of 2017, when "the Energy Agency (IEA) warns that if we do not get our emissions under control by a rather terrifying 2017, our fossil fuel economy will “lock-in” extremely dangerous warming" and the primary issue of the day is the fact that America is split between the racists and the not-racists. Oh, and "the youth aren't excited" about the not-racist candidate.

Despite what the reviews in the New York Times will tell you, this is not an optimistic book, and you shouldn't be optimistic.