We can't leave everything to the free market. In fact, climate change is, I would argue, the greatest single free-market failure. This is what happens when you don't regulate corporations and you allow them to treat the atmosphere as an open sewer.
Naomi KleinOur problem is that the climate crisis hatched in our laps at a moment in history when political and social conditions were uniquely hostile to a problem of this nature and magnitude-that moment being the tail end of the go-go '80s, the blastoff point for the crusade to spread deregulated capitalism around the world. Climate change is a collective problem demanding collective action the likes of which humanity has never actually accomplished. Yet it entered mainstream consciousness in the midst of an ideological war being waged on the very idea of the collective sphere.
Naomi KleinSo the need for another economic model is urgent, and if the climate justice movement can show that responding to climate change is the best chance for a more just economic system.
Naomi KleinWe are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality, because we're not getting those things from our communities or from each other.
Naomi KleinWe can save ourselves, but only if we let go of the myth of dominance and mastery and learn to work with nature.
Naomi KleinWe have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism. ... We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe - and would benefit the vast majority - are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.
Naomi Klein