Page 48 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

CHAPTER 3

An Interview with Naomi Klein:

Capitalism Versus the Climate

Naomi Klein and Christopher Wright

In her latest book, This Changes Everything (2014), Canadian writer and
activist Naomi Klein argues that unrestrained capitalism is at the root of the
climate crisis and that the global response to climate change has, thus far,
been shaped by wealth and power.

Christopher Wright: Naomi Klein, your book, This Changes Everything
has proven hugely popular in tackling the vexed issue of climate
change. Unlike a lot of the existing debate on the topic, you’re quite
explicit that climate change is not so much an environmental issue but
one that derives fundamentally from our economic system of neolib-
eral capitalism. What particular events led you to this realisation?
NK: Well I guess the key event for me was Hurricane Katrina ten years ago.
At the time I was working on my previous book on The Shock Doctrine and
that book begins and ends with Hurricane Katrina. I reported quite
extensively on the storm and its aftermath as an example of what I call
disaster capitalism. The disaster in New Orleans was really about a collision
between climate change (between heavy weather linked to climate change)

N. Klein
Toronto, Canada
C. Wright (&)
The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: christopher.wright@sydney.edu.au

© The Author(s) 2017 31
B. Brevini and G. Murdock (eds.), Carbon Capitalism and Communication,
Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57876-7_3