Environmentalism
In recent years Klein’s attention has turned to environmentalism, with particular focus on climate change, about which she is currently writing a book. According to her website, the book and a new film will be about "how the climate crisis can spur economic and political transformation." She sits on the board of directors of campaign group 350.org and is taking part in their 'Do the Math' tour, encouraging a divestment movement.
She has encouraged the Occupy movement to join forces with the environmental movement, saying the financial crisis and the climate crisis have the same root – unrestrained corporate greed. She gave a speech to Occupy Wall Street where she described the world as ‘upside down’, where we act as if ‘there is no end to what is actually finite—fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions’, and as if there are ‘limits to what is actually bountiful—the financial resources to build the kind of society we need.
She has been a particularly vocal critic of the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, describing it in a TED talk as a form of ‘terrestrial skinning’. On September 2, 2011, she attended the demonstration against the Keystone XL pipeline outside the White House and was arrested. Klein celebrated Obama’s decision to postpone a decision on the Keystone pipeline until 2013 pending an environmental review as a victory for the environmental movement.
She attended the Copenhagen Climate Summit of 2009. She put the blame for the failure of Copenhagen on Barack Obama, and described her own country, Canada, as a ‘climate criminal’. She presented the Angry Mermaid Award (a satirical award designed to recognise the corporations who have best sabotaged the climate negotiations) to Monsanto.
Writing in the wake of Hurricane Sandy she warned that the climate crisis constitutes a massive opportunity for disaster capitalists and corporations seeking to profit from crisis. But equally, the climate crisis 'can be a historic moment to usher in the next great wave of progressive change', or a so-called 'People's Shock'.
Read more about this topic: Naomi Klein