Over the holidays I found time to read Naomi Klein's latest book "This Changes Everything" - it's a radical rallying call to stem the march of capitalism in destroying our environment. A most important book that I recommend you try to find the time to read.
What caught my interest and gave hope for a lowering in global emissions and the emergence of humane sustainable social-economic global policies was what she stated as urgent and necessary action - "... only mass social movements can save us now. Because we know where the current system, left unchecked, is headed. ... that we want to do these radical things democratically and without a bloodbath, so violent, vanguardist revolutions don't have much to offer in the way of roadmaps."
The author goes on to cite examples of mass civil and social change movements across the world - but notes few if any ever achieved substantial economic change. However, in the search for historical precedents and finding the exception's to this she give us the movements for - "... the abolition of slavery and for the Third World independence from colonial powers. Both of these transformative movements forced ruling elites to relinquish practices that were still extraordinarily profitable, much as fossil fuel extraction is today. The movement for the abolition of slavery in particular shows us that a transition as large as the one confronting us today has happened before - and indeed it is remembered as one of the greatest moments in human history. The economic impacts of slavery abolition in the mid-nineteenth century have some striking parallels with the impacts of radical emission reduction, as several historians and commentators have observed." The journalist and broadcaster Chris Hayes pointed out .. "the climate justice movement is demanding that an existing set of political and economic interests be forced to say goodbye to trillions of dollars of wealth" and concluded that "it is impossible to point to any precedent other than abolition".
Personally, for me as a Liverpudlian citing the abolition of slavery struck a note, as it was my hometown and the Quaker movement in particular that were at the vanguard in abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire. I hope that an outcome from holding the Green Party's conference in Liverpool this March will be the nation recognising the pressing need to energise and mobilise a mass movement surge against the vested money and economic interests of the Westminster establishment, global corporations, banks and climate change denying politicians!
In conclusion, I leave you with this thought "So climate change does not need some new shiny movement that will magically succeed where others failed. Rather, as the furthest-reaching crisis created by the extractivist worldview, and one that puts humanity on a firm and unyielding deadline, climate change can be the force - the grand push - that will bring together all of these still living (social justice) movements. A rushing river fed by countless streams, gathering collective force to finally reach the sea."
