We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, August 8, 2014

Naomi Klein: 'Our Economic Model Is at War with Life on Earth'

Click here to access article by Jon Queally from Common Dreams.

The author introduces us to a very important new book by the well-known Canadian activist entitled 'This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate'. In it Klein develops a thesis that she recently expressed so well to a union audience:
The case I want to make to you is that climate change—when its full economic and moral implications are understood—is the most powerful weapon progressives have ever had in the fight for equality and social justice. 
But first, we have to stop running away from the climate crisis, stop leaving it to the environmentalist, and look at it. Let ourselves absorb the fact that the industrial revolution that led to our society’s prosperity is now destabilizing the natural systems on which all of life depends.
Climate change...[is] not an 'issue' for you to add to the list of things to worry about it. It is a civilizational wake up call.
In a video trailer introducing the new book, Klein quotes a scientist delivering a talk to a meeting of the Geophysics Union entitled "Is the Earth Fucked?":