This Changes Everything

by Naomi Klein

  32. Doe interview, February 3, 2013.

  33. John Aglionby, Mark Odell, and James Pickford, “Tens of Thousands Without Power After Storm Hits Western Britain,” Financial Times, February 13, 2014; Tom Bawden, “St. Jude’s Day Storm: Four Dead After 99mph Winds and Night of Destruction—But at Least We Saw It Coming,” The Independent (London), October 29, 2013.

  34. Alex Marshall, “Environment Agency Cuts: Surviving the Surgeon’s Knife,” The ENDS Report, January 3, 2014; Damian Carrington, “Massive Cuts Risk England’s Ability to Deal with Floods, MPs Say,” Guardian, January 7, 2014; Damian Carrington, “Hundreds of UK Flood Defence Schemes Unbuilt Due to Budget Cuts,” Guardian, July 13, 2012.

  35. Dave Prentis, “Environment Agency Workers Are Unsung Heroes,” UNISON, January 6, 2014.

  36. EM-DAT, International Disaster Database, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (advanced searches), http://www.emdat.be/database; personal email communication with Michael Mann, March 27, 2014.

  37. “Billion-Dollar Weather/Climate Disasters,” National Climatic Data Center, http://www.ncdc .noaa.gov; “Review of Natural Catastrophes in 2011: Earthquakes Result in Record Loss Year,” Munich RE, press release, January 4, 2012.

  38. Personal interview with Amy Bach, September 18, 2012.

  39. “Climate Change: Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Adaptation in Developing Countries,” UNFCCC, 2007, pp. 18–26, 29–38; “Agriculture Needs to Become ‘Climate-Smart,’ ” Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, October 28, 2010.

  40. “World Economic and Social Survey 2011: The Great Green Technological Transformation,” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2011, pp. xxii, 174.

  41. The oil and gas sector was either the most represented or tied for the most represented sector in the top 20 of Fortune’s Global 500 rankings for 2012 and 2013: “Fortune Global 500,” CNN Money, 2013, http://money.cnn.com; “Fortune Global 500,” CNN Money, 2012, http://money .cnn.com. BLOCKED PROGRESS: James Hoggan with Richard Littlemore, Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2009); $900 BILLION: Daniel J. Weiss, “Big Oil’s Lust for Tax Loopholes,” Center for American Progress, January 31, 2011; 2011 EARNINGS: “2011 Summary Annual Report,” ExxonMobil, p. 4; 2012 EARNINGS: “2012 Summary Annual Report,” ExxonMobil, p. 4; “Exxon’s 2012 Profit of $44.9B Misses Record,” Associated Press, February 1, 2013.

  42. BP, for instance, pledged $8 billion for alternative energy in 2005. Saaed Shah, “BP Looks ‘Beyond Petroleum’ with $8bn Renewables Spend,” The Independent (London), November 29, 2005; BEYOND PETROLEUM: Terry Macalister and Eleanor Cross, “BP Rebrands on a Global Scale,” Guardian, July 24, 2000; HELIOS MARK: “BP Amoco Unveils New Global Brand to Drive Growth,” press release, July 24, 2000; BROWNE: Terry Macalister and Eleanor Cross, “BP Rebrands on a Global Scale,” Guardian, July 24, 2000; CHEVRON: “We Agree: Oil Companies Should Support Renewable Energy” (video), Chevron, YouTube, 2010; 2009 STUDY: Daniel J. Weiss and Alexandra Kougentakis, “Big Oil Misers,” Center for American Progress, March 31, 2009; EXECUTIVE PAY: James Osborne, “Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson Gets 15 Percent Raise to $40.3 Million,” Dallas Morning News, April 12, 2013.

  43. Antonia Juhasz, “Big Oil’s Lies About Alternative Energy,” Rolling Stone, June 25, 2013; Ben Elgin, “Chevron Dims the Lights on Green Power,” Bloomberg Businessweek, May 29, 2014; Ben Elgin, “Chevron Backpedals Again on Renewable Energy,” Bloomberg Businessweek, June 9, 2014

  44. Brett Martel, “Jury Finds Big Tobacco Must Pay $590 Million for Stop-Smoking Programs,” Associated Press, May 21, 2004; Bruce Alpert, “U.S. Supreme Court Keeps Louisiana’s $240 Million Smoking Cessation Program Intact,” Times-Picayune, June 27, 2011; Sheila McNulty and Ed Crooks, “BP Oil Spill Pay-outs Hit $5bn Mark,” Financial Times, August 23, 2011; Lee Howell, “Global Risks 2013,” World Economic Forum, 2013, p. 19.

  45. Marc Lee, “Building a Fair and Effective Carbon Tax to Meet BC’s Greenhouse Gas Targets,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, August 2012.

  46. U.S. Department of Defense emissions were calculated using the federal Greenhouse Gas Inventory for fiscal year 2011 (total Scope 1 emissions, excluding biogenic). “Fiscal Year 2011 Greenhouse Gas Inventory,” U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, June 14, 2013, http://energy.gov; “Greenhouse Gas 100 Polluters Index,” Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst, June 2013, http://www.peri.umass.edu.

  47. Borgar Aamaas, Jens Borken-Kleefeld, and Glen P. Peters, “The Climate Impact of Travel Behavior: A German Case Study with Illustrative Mitigation Options,” Environmental Science & Policy 33 (2013): 273, 276.

  48. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014); Gar Lipow, Solving the Climate Crisis through Social Change: Public Investment in Social Prosperity to Cool a Fevered Planet (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012), 56; Stephen W. Pacala, “Equitable Solutions to Greenhouse Warming: On the Distribution of Wealth, Emissions and Responsibility Within and Between Nations,” presentation to International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, November 2007, p. 3.

  49. “Innovative Financing at a Global and European Level,” European Parliament, resolution, March 8, 2011, http://www.europarl.europa.eu.

  50. “Revealed: Global Super-Rich Has at Least $21 Trillion Hidden in Secret Tax Havens,” Tax Justice Network, press release, July 22, 2012.

  51. “World Economic and Social Survey 2012: In Search of New Development Finance,” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2012, p. 44.

  52. Sam Perlo-Freeman, et. al., “Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2012,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, April 2013 http://sipri.org.

  53. “Mobilizing Climate Finance: A Paper Prepared at the Request of G20 Finance Ministers,” World Bank Group, October 6, 2011, p.15, http://www.imf.org.

  54. “Governments Should Phase Out Fossil Fuel Subsidies or Risk Lower Economic Growth, Delayed Investment in Clean Energy and Unnecessary Climate Change Pollution,” Oil Change International and Natural Resources Defense Council, June 2012, p. 2.

  55. For a more in-depth, U.S.-focused discussion of raising climate funds from these kinds of sources, see Lipow, Solving the Climate Crisis through Social Change, 55-61.

  56. For much more on rationing, climate change, and environmental and economic justice, see: Stan Cox, Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing (New York: The New Press, 2013). 16 PERCENT: Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 55, 58.

  57. Nicholas Timmins, “When Britain Demanded Fair Shares for All,” The Independent (London), July 27, 1995; Martin J. Manning and Clarence R. Wyatt, Encyclopedia of Media and Propaganda in Wartime America, Vol. 1 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO: 2011), 533; Terrence H. Witkowski, “The American Consumer Home Front During World War II,” Advances in Consumer Research 25 (1998).

  58. Rationing, How and Why? pamphlet, Office of Price Administration, 1942, p. 3.

  59. Donald Thomas, The Enemy Within: Hucksters, Racketeers, Deserters and Civilians During the Second World War (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 29; Hugh Rockoff, Drastic Measures: A History of Wage and Price Controls in the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 166–67.

  60. Jimmy Carter, “Crisis of Confidence” speech (transcript), American Experience, PBS.

  61. “The Pursuit of Progress” (video), Richard Heffner’s Open Mind, PBS, February 10, 1991.

  62. Eleanor Taylor, “British Social Attitudes 28,” Chapter 6, Environment, NatCen Social Research, p. 104.

  63. Will Dahlgreen, “Broad Support for 50P Tax,” YouGov, January 28, 2014; “Nine in Ten Canadians Support Taxing the Rich ‘More’ (88%) and a Potential ‘Millionaire’s Tax’ (89%),” Ipsos, May 30, 2013; An
thony Leiserowitz et al., “Public Support for Climate and Energy Policies in November 2013,” Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, November 2013; “Voter Attitudes Toward Pricing Carbon and a Clean Energy Refund” (memo), Public Opinion Strategies, April 21, 2010.

  64. “Americans Support Limits on CO2,” Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, April 2014.

  CHAPTER 4: PLANNING AND BANNING

  1. John Berger, Keeping a Rendezvous (New York: Pantheon, 1991), 156.

  2. James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 178.

  3. “The Second McCain-Obama Presidential Debate” (transcript), Commission on Presidential Debates, October 7, 2008.

  4. Sam Gindin, “The Auto Crisis: Placing Our Own Alternative on the Table,” Bullet/Socialist Project, E-Bulletin No. 200, April 9, 2009.

  5. Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva and Nick Galasso, “Working for the Few,” Oxfam, January 20, 2014, p. 2; FOOTNOTE: Jason Walsh, “European Workers Rebel as G-20 Looms,” Christian Science Monitor, April 1, 2009; Rupert Hall, “Swansea Factory Workers Start Production at Former Remploy Site,” Wales Online, October 14, 2013; Alejandra Cancino, “Former Republic Windows and Doors Workers Learn to Be Owners,” Chicago Tribune, November 6, 2013.

  6. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the net loss in manufacturing jobs between January 2008 and January 2014 was 114,500; “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics Survey (National),” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://data.bls.gov.

  7. Michael Grunwald, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 10–11, 163–168; “Expert Reaction to Two New Nature Papers on Climate,” Science Media Centre, December 4, 2011.

  8. Roger Lowenstein, “The Nixon Shock,” Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, August 4, 2011; Bruce Bartlett, “Keynes and Keynesianism,” New York Times, May 14, 2013.

  9. The 3.7 million jobs estimate comes from the Apollo Alliance Project, which merged with the BlueGreen Alliance in 2011. “Make It in America: The Apollo Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan,” Apollo Alliance, October 2010; Smart Growth America, “Recent Lessons from the Stimulus: Transportation Funding and Job Creation,” February 2011, p. 2.

  10. “Working Towards Sustainable Development: Opportunities for Decent Work and Social Inclusion in a Green Economy,” International Labour Organization, May 2012.

  11. “More Bang for Our Buck,” BlueGreen Canada, November 2012; Jonathan Neale, “Our Jobs, Our Planet: Transport Workers and Climate Change,” A report originally written for the European Transport Workers Federation, October 2011, p. 49; “About,” One Million Climate Jobs, http://www.climatejobs.org.

  12. Will Dahlgreen, “Nationalise Energy and Rail Companies, Say Public,” YouGov, November 4, 2013.

  13. “2011 Wind Technologies Market Report,” U.S. Department of Energy, August 2012, p. iii; Matthew L. Wald, “New Energy Struggles on Its Way to Markets,” New York Times, December 27, 2013.

  14. Personal interview with Ben Parfitt, September 21, 2013.

  15. Michelle Kinman and Antonia Juhasz, ed., “The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report,” True Cost of Chevron Network, May 2011, pp. 12, 18, 22, 43; Patrick Radden Keefe, “Reversal of Fortune,” The New Yorker, January 9, 2012; Pierre Thomas et al., “B.P.’s Dismal Safety Record,” ABC News, May 27, 2010; Alan Levin, “Oil Companies Fought Stricter Regulation,” USA Today, May 20, 2010; Chip Cummins et al., “Five Who Laid Groundwork for Historic Spike in Oil Market,” Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2005.

  16. Seth Klein, “Moving Towards Climate Justice: Overcoming Barriers to Change,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, April 2012.

  17. Lucia Kassai, “Brazil to Boost Oil Exports as Output Triples, IEA Says,” Bloomberg, November 12, 2013; Jeffrey Jones, “Statoil, PTTEP Deal to Test Tighter Oil Sands Rules,” Globe and Mail, January 30, 2014; “PetroChina Buys Entire Alberta Oilsands Project,” Canadian Press, January 3, 2012.

  18. David Bollier, Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2014).

  19. Personal interview with Hans Thie, economic policy advisor, German Bundestag (Left Party), March 20, 2014; “Solarstrombranche (Photovoltaik),” Statistische Zahlen der deutschen, BSW Solar, April 2014, p. 1; “Status Des Windenergieausbasus An Land In Deutschland,” Deutsche WindGuard, 2013, p. 1; “Flyer: Renewably Employed!” Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, August 2013.

  20. Hans Thie, “The Controversial Energy Turnaround in Germany: Successes, Contradictions, Perspectives,” Vienna Theses, July 2013.

  21. “Danish Key Figures,” Facts and Figures, Danish Energy Agency, 2010, http://www.ens.dk/en; personal email communication with Carsten Vittrup, strategic energy consultant, Energinet.dk, March 20, 2014.

  22. Russ Christianson, “Danish Wind Co-ops Can Show Us the Way,” Wind-Works, August 3, 2005.

  23. Personal interview with Dimitra Spatharidou, May 20, 2013.

  24. Andrea Stone, “Family Farmers Hold Keys to Agriculture in a Warming World,” National Geographic, May 2, 2014.

  25. Calogero Carletto, Sara Savastano, and Alberto Zezza, “Fact or Artifact: The Impact of Measurement Errors on the Farm Size–Productivity Relationship,” Journal of Development Economics 103 (2013): 254-261; “Typhoon Haiyan Exposes the Reality of Climate Injustice,” La Via Campesina, press release, December 4, 2013; Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Brooklyn: Melville House, 2012), 6-7.

  26. De Schutter’s analysis has been echoed by mainstream development bodies including the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), both of which have issued reports in recent years that have held up small-scale agroecological farming, particularly when land is controlled by women, as key solutions to both the climate crisis and to persistent poverty. See: “Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before It Is Too Late,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2013; “Agriculture at a Crossroads: Synthesis Report,” International Assessment of Agriculture Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, 2009. “LARGE SEGMENT”: “Eco-Farming Can Double Food Production in 10 Years, Says New UN Report,” United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, press release, March 8, 2011.

  27. Verena Seufert, Navin Ramankutty, and Jonathan A. Foley, “Comparing the Yields of Organic and Conventional Agriculture,” Nature 485 (2012): 229-232; “Eco-Farming Can Double Food Production in 10 Years, Says New UN Report,” United Nations.

  28. Personal email communication with Raj Patel, June 6, 2014.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Thie interview, March 20, 2014; “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Slightly Again in 2013, by 1.2 Percent,” German Federal Environment Agency (UBA), press release, March 10, 2014.

  31. Thie interview, March 20, 2014; Helen Pidd, “Germany to Shut All Nuclear Reactors,” Guardian, May 30, 2011; Peter Friederici, “WW II-Era Law Keeps Germany Hooked on ‘Brown Coal’ Despite Renewables Shift,” InsideClimate News, October 1, 2013.

  32. Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi, “A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables,” Scientific American, November 2009, pp. 58-59; Mark Z. Jacobson, “Nuclear Power Is Too Risky,” CNN, February 22, 2010; Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO, episode 188, June 11, 2010.

  33. Net electricity generation from nuclear was 11.9% of the world total in 2011, the most recent year with complete data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. “International Energy Statistics,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.gov.

  34. Sven Teske, “Energy Revolution: A Sustainable EU 2
7 Energy Outlook,” Greenpeace International and the European Renewable Energy Council, 2012, p. 11.

  35. Thie interview, March 20, 2014; Andreas Rinke, “Merkel Signals Support for Plan to Lift Carbon Prices,” Reuters, October 16, 2013.

  36. Personal email communication with Tadzio Mueller, March 14, 2014.

  37. “Development of Baseline Data and Analysis of Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Petroleum-Based Fuels,” U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, DOE/NETL-2009/1346, 2008, p. 13.

  38. Bill McKibben, “Join Us in Civil Disobedience to Stop the Keystone XL Tar-Sands Pipeline,” Grist, June 23, 2011.

  39. James Hansen, “Game Over for the Climate,” New York Times, May 9, 2012.

  40. Barack Obama, “Barack Obama’s Remarks in St. Paul” speech, St. Paul, Minnesota, New York Times, June 3, 2008.

  41. “Remarks by the President on Climate Change,” speech, Washington, D.C., June 25, 2013, White House Office of the Press Secretary.

  42. Jackie Calmes and Michael D. Shear, “Interview with President Obama,” New York Times, July 27, 2013.

  43. “Presidential Memorandum—Power Sector Carbon Pollution Standards,” White House Office of the Press Secretary, June 25, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov; Mark Hertsgaard, “A Top Obama Aide Says History Won’t Applaud the President’s Climate Policy,” Harper’s, June 2, 2014.

  44. Keynote Address (video), 6th International Conference on Climate Change, The Heartland Institute, June 30, 2011.

  45. Robert W. Howarth, Renee Santoro, and Anthony Ingraffea, “Methane and the Greenhouse-Gas Footprint of Natural Gas from Shale Formations,” Climatic Change 106 (2011): 679–90.

  46. Ibid., 681-85, 687; Gunnar Myhre et al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing,” in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. T. F. Stocker et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 714.

  47. Ibid.; personal interview with Robert Howarth, April 10, 2014.