(When)
posing climate change as the battle between capitalism and the
planet…..the battle is already underway, but right now capitalism is
winning hands down. It wins every time the need for economic growth is used as
the excuse for putting off climate action yet again, or for breaking emission
reduction commitments already made.
It wins when Greeks are told that their only path out of
economic crisis is to open up their beautiful seas high-risk oil and gas
drilling.
It wins when Canadians are told our only hope fo
not ending up like Greece is to allow our boreal forests to be flayed so we can
access the semisolid bitumen from Alberta tar sands.
It wins when a park in Istanbul is slotted for demolition to
make way for yet another shopping mall.
It wins when parents in Beijing are told that
sending their wheezing kids to school in pollution masks decorated to look like
cute cartoon characters is an acceptable price to pay for economic progress.
It wins every time we accept that we have only bad choices
available to us: austerity or extraction, poisoning or poverty.
This weeks Green Thought comes from Canadian author, journalist and social activist
Naomi Kleins 2014 book ‘This Changes
Everything : Capitalism vs The
Climate’. I felt that it would be
unrealistic to send out the whole book [This
Changes Everything] as a Green Thought,
but it would be a very good idea to do so. I thoroughly recommend that everyone
reads this excellent book. JG
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