Naomi Klein has written the book of the modern era

[applegrove]

Last edited Mon Sep 29, 2014, 02:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Naomi Klein has written the book of the modern era

Heather Mallick at the Toronto Star

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/09/28/naomi_klein_has_written_the_book_of_the_modern_era_mallick.html

"SNIP....................

The planet is headed for a climate catastrophe, and soon. Make that now. Your reaction will be either a quick calculation as to whether you’ll be able to die in time to skip the whole thing, or an appalled realization that your children are in for pain and your grandchildren for a terrible fate.


But your starter task should be reading Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Meticulously researched and briskly rational in tone, her just-published book is one of the basic texts of the modern era, by which I mean since the Scotsman James Watt invented the coal-fired steam engine in 1776. Hasn’t perdition come quickly on its wee cloven hooves?


Until then power came from water wheels. With Watt’s device, owners could build factories near the urban poor, hire cheaply, cut prices and stabilize production that used to depend on the whims of weather. Ironically it’s weather that will finish us off now. Capitalism is magical until it isn’t. Skip ahead 240 years and here we are, basically doomed by its profit formula.


Klein’s book is an essential purchase in that it tells you precisely what you need to know to discuss the climate dilemma intelligently: it covers historical context, environmental science, fossil fuel finance, our current version of capitalism, political history, climate change denial, environmentalism’s failures, suggested quack-scientific remedies that will “block” the sun, green energy and how people are working locally to blockade carbon extraction because nothing else is being done. It is factual rather than emotive.



........................SNIP"

[Grey]

1. K&R

[KJG52]

2. Naomi Klein

Produces books of stunning clarity and scope, uprooting the false premises and giving us well documented facts, that we promptly ignore because:both sides and freedumb trumps reality at every turn, after all this is "The Greatest Country on Earth- with the best economic and political system in history!!!!" Anyone questioning that, can be immediately exiled to Russia or thrown into a military prison, as the terrorist they obviously are...

[calimary]

3. And ironically, the Scotsman James Watt's namesake, lo these many years later,

was reagan's infernal choice for Interior Secretary. Also named james watt. Also proved to be potentially toxic to the longterm health of Planet Earth.

[Enthusiast]

5. +1

I'm sure we won't have to worry about climate change because James feels Jesus will be coming back any day now.

And there is this.

In 1995, Watt was indicted on 25 counts of felony perjury and obstruction of justice by a federal grand jury, accused of making false statements before the grand jury investigating influence peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which he had lobbied in the 1980s.[25] On January 2, 1996, Watt pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor of withholding documents from the grand jury. On March 12, 1996, he was sentenced to five years' probation, and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 and perform 500 hours of community service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt

[calimary]

6. First class jerk.

Would be leading the climate deniers OR would go EXTREMELY in the other direction: we should actually embrace climate change. Helping it along would be even better. After all, I watched as he gave testimony before some Senate or House committee, during which, shockingly, he stated "...but when the last tree is felled, Jesus will come back!" Incredibly, he was stone cold sober and wide-eyed about this. You could tell he believed this with much feverishness. About dropped my jaw to the floor - maybe that's the reason why I haven't been able to shut up about this ever since.

[Enthusiast]

8. I like him about as well as you do.

[greyl]

4. Her book's title is "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate"

Article title is annoying; makes it seem like Naomi's book is called Mallick.

Buy it, read it, lend it: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate at Amazon.

[Bigmack]

7. bought it, reading it now, impressed, as always, by Naomi nt