Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear. Naomi Klein More Quotes by Naomi Klein More Quotes From Naomi Klein So we are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate. But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of collective denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us. Naomi Klein fateour-worldchoices In pragmatic terms, our challenge is less to save the earth from ourselves and more to save ourselves from an earth that, if pushed too far, has ample power to rock, burn, and shake us off completely. Naomi Klein rocksearthchallenges Our 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 Klein naturewarscience We are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality, because we're not getting those things from our communities or from each other. Naomi Klein brandscommunityspiritual Most of you didn't think that helping people share books would be a subversive act...Yet the fact is that you have chosen a profession that has become radical. Naomi Klein bookpeoplethinking It is always easier to deny reality than to allow our worldview to be shattered, a fact that was as true of die-hard Stalinists at the height of the purges as it is of libertarian climate change deniers today. Naomi Klein todayrealityfacts It (the Chinese move to embrace capitalism in 1989) is a mirror of the corporatist state first pioneered in Chile under Pinochet: a revolving door between corporate and political elites who combine their power to eliminate workers as an organized political force. The creation of today's market society was not the result of a sequence of spontaneous events but rather of state interference and violence. Naomi Klein mirrorsdoorsmoving Despite different cultures, middle-class youth all over the world seem to live their lives as if in a parallel universe. They get up in the morning, put on their Levi's and Nikes, grab their caps and backpacks, and Sony personal CD players and head for school. Naomi Klein nikemorningschool When Nike says, just do it, that's a message of empowerment. Why aren't the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration? Naomi Klein nikevoiceinspiration Anybody who claims that they know where this whole thing is all going is just lying. Naomi Klein wholeclaimslying The world now has a new kind of hero, one who listens more than speaks, who preaches in riddles not in certainties, a leader who doesn't show his face, who says his mask is really a mirror. And in the Zapatistas, we have not one dream of a revolution, but a dreaming revolution. Naomi Klein mirrorsherodream The creation of today's market society was not the result of a sequence of spontaneous events but rather of state interference and violence. Naomi Klein eventsviolencetoday Indeed the three policy pillars of the neoliberal age-privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending-are each incompatible with many of the actions we must take to bring our emissions to safe levels. Naomi Klein incomecuttingage But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of collective denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us. Naomi Klein denialclearneeds Africa is poor because its investors and its creditors are unspeakably rich. Naomi Klein creditorsrichpoor Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves. Naomi Klein interestviolenceway Real climate solutions are ones that steer these interventions to systematically disperse and devolve power and control to the community level, whether through community-controlled renewable energy, local organic agriculture or transit systems genuinely accountable to their users. Naomi Klein agriculturecommunityreal If enough of us stop looking away and decide that climate change is a crisis worthy of Marshall Plan levels of response, then it will become one. Naomi Klein climatelevelsdecision What we have been living for three decades is frontier capitalism, with the frontier constantly shifting location from crisis to crisis, moving on as soon as the law catches up. Naomi Klein threelawmoving Either greed belongs in a war zone, or it doesn't. You can't unleash it in the name of sparking an economic boom and then be shocked when Halliburton overcharges for everything from towels to gas, when Parsons' sub, sub, sub-contractor builds a police academy where the pipes drip raw sewage on the heads of army cadets and where Blackwater investigates itself and finds it acted honorably. That's just corporations doing what they do and Iraq is a privatized war zone so that's what you get. Build a frontier, you get cowboys and robber barons. Naomi Klein cowboyarmywar
