Climate activism isn't just about fitting solar panels, it’s about a "vision for the next economy".
That’s the view of Naomi Klein, who spoke to Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio 1 about her new book On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. He asked her straight away about how much time she thinks is left to prevent irreversible climate change. Klein said the news is not good.
"We are already in the era of climate disruption; we’re not talking about preventing it," she says. "We are talking about doing everything possible to prevent truly catastrophic outcomes. We need targets to de-carbonise by 2030. We’re on a tight deadline, I’m not going to lie to you."
Beyond all of the climate facts and figures; the expanding targets and the shrinking deadlines, Naomi Klein had some suggestions which don’t often figure in the climate policy narrative. She argues that expanding services like those for children with special needs and the elderly can be an integral part of the battle. Klein says it’s not just about reducing damaging activities, it’s about expanding the less damaging ones, areas of the economy that are already low-carbon activities: "We shouldn’t just think of a green job as putting up a solar panel or a wind turbine - it doesn’t burn a lot of carbon to provide services to a child on the autism spectrum or to take care of the elderly."
The activist and writer has very little time for what she sees as the lack of leadership internationally when it comes to taking tough decisions: "At the governmental level, we see in country after country the approach of: 'What’s the least we can do and still get maximum credit?’"
She had some positive words about Ireland as an example of a country that has taken some concrete steps: "The climate movement in Ireland is really strong, and there have been significant victories, banning fracking, pushing fossil fuel divestment, declaring a climate emergency."
Even in the face of Klein’s frustration with what she sees as the lack of climate leadership, she remains hopeful that the battle to save the planet provides an ideal opportunity to redress what she sees as some great historical injustices: "We have an opportunity to right wrongs between our countries, and make sure that poor countries that are on the front lines of climate disruption have the resources that they need to deal with the impacts of climate change and also to leapfrog to clean energy over fossil fuels."
The title of Klein’s book contains the word ‘fire’, not only to reference global warming and the recent fires in the Brazilian rain forest, but because she thinks the environmental movement itself has found a new driving force: "The climate movement is on fire. We see that with the student strike movement that Greta kick-started with her lonely stand outside of the Swedish parliament and just a few weeks ago, we had seven million people joining that climate strike around the world."
Individual changes will be necessary, she says, particularly on the part of consumers:
"Shopping didn’t used to be the primary pastime for our culture; there used to be other ways that we derived value, more sustainable and lasting ways to derive well-being; time in community, time with friends and family."
On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal by Naomi Klein is published by Simon and Schuster. Listen back to more from Today With Sean O'Rourke here.
