<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/17/overlooking-the-obvious-with-naomi-klein/>
counterpunch.org Overlooking the Obvious With Naomi Klein by Craig Collins Oct. 17, 2019 First off, I want to congratulate Naomi Klein on her inspiring book. This Changes Everything has helped her readers better understand the germination of a broad based, multi-dimensional climate movement from the ground up and its potential to galvanize and revitalize the Left. Also, she’s shown the courage to name the source of the problem—capitalism—when so many activists shrink from mentioning the “c” word. In addition, her focus on the fossil fuel industry as the strategic target of the movement clearly highlights the importance of isolating one of the most malignant sectors of industrial capitalism. But despite her insightful and inspirational treatment of the climate movement’s potential to change everything, I believe Klein over-states her case and overlooks crucial features of the dangerously dysfunctional system we’re up against. By putting climate change on a pedestal, she limits our understanding of how to break capitalism’s death grip over our lives and our future. For instance, Klein ignores the deep connection between climate chaos, militarism, and war. While she spends an entire chapter explaining why Virgin Airlines owner, Richard Branson, and other Green billionaires won’t save us, she devotes three meager sentences to the most violent, wasteful, petroleum-burning institution on Earth—the US military.[1] Klein shares this blind spot with the United Nations’ official climate forum. The UNFCCC excludes most of the military sector’s fuel consumption and emissions from national greenhouse gas inventories.[2] This exemption was the product of intense lobbying by the United States during the Kyoto negotiations in the mid-1990s. Ever since, the military establishment’s carbon “bootprint” has been officially ignored.[3] Klein’s book lost an important opportunity to expose this insidious cover-up. The Pentagon is not only the largest institutional burner of fossil fuels on the planet; it is also the top arms exporter and military spender.[4] America’s global military empire guards Big Oil’s refineries, pipelines, and supertankers. It props up the most reactionary petro-tyrannies; devours enormous quantities of oil to fuel its war machine; and spews more dangerous toxins into the environment than any corporate polluter.[5] The military, weapons producers, and the petroleum industry have a long history of corrupt collaboration. This odious relationship stands out in bold relief in the Middle East where Washington arms the region’s repressive regimes with the latest weaponry and imposes a phalanx of bases where American soldiers, mercenaries, and drones are deployed to guard the pumps, refineries, and supply lines of Exxon-Mobil, BP, and Chevron.[6] <CLIP> Full at <http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/17/overlooking-the-obvious-with-naomi-klein/> _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
