Book log

This Changes Everything: Capitalism VS

the Climate
by: Naomi Klein
A. What is the main idea or underlying
value in the text?

That the government needs to step it up if

they are going to help the environment.

B) What is the authors purpose or

perspective?

the authors perspective is that the

government contradicts itself. They support
environment and dont support at the same
time. They do something to help reduce
carbon and yet look the other way for a
company releasing excess carbon.

C) What does Living in this kind of cognitive

dissonance is simply part of being alive in this
jarring moment in history, when a crisis we
have been studiously ignoring is hitting us in
the face- and yet we are doubling down on
the stuff that is causing the crisis in the first
place. pg 3 mean?

This means that most people are ignoring the

problem that is causing numerous issues.
This issues are harming us in many ways and
as a society we only keep doing and doing it
more often the actions that further the harm.

D) What might be a good title for this It is a

Liberals Can Be Just As Bad
painful irony that while the right is forever
casting climate change as a left-wing plot,
most leftists and liberals are still advertising
their eyes, having yet to grasp that climate
science has handed them the most powerful
argument against unfettered capitalism since
William Blake's dark Satanic Mills blackened
Englands skies (which, incidentally, was the
beginning of climate change). pg 157 portion
of the text?
E) Why is And with policy makers still locked
in the vice grip of austerity logic, these rising
emergency expenditures are being offset with
cuts to everyday public spending, which will
make societies even more vulnerable during
the next disaster- a classic vicious cycle. the
most important paragraph from page 108

Government budget cuts decrease spending

in unnecessary fields public spending for
environmental projects. Doing so makes
societies more valuable to extreme weather
events. Cuts in public spending such as
levees and bridges can increase the chance
of flooding.

F) Is there something in the text that is

unclear to you?

On page 259 it talks about the Pinatubo

Option, if the government wants to go for it,
even if it treats only a few symptoms of the
underlying problem, symptoms need to be
treated before you get better. Something is

better than nothing.

G) Has anything in the text changed your way
of thinking?

It has, reading how corporations sabotage

each other, and complain about each other
for simple use of clean energy.

H) How do the ideas in the text relate to

seniors who are about to graduate?

The ideas in the text can relate to graduating

seniors by

I) What does Yet rather than compete for

the best, most effective supporters for green
energy, the biggest emitters in the world are
rushing to the WTO to knock down each
other's windmills. pg 65 mean to you
personally?

To me it means that international

governments are not fighting for change but
for whos on top.

J) Why is this The problem is that by

adopting this model of financing, even the
very best green projects are being made
ineffective as climate responses because for
every ton of carbon dioxide the developers
keep out of the atmosphere, a corporation in
the industrialized world is able to pump a ton
into the air, using offsets to claim the pollution
has been neutralized. One step forward, one
step back. pg 223 material important?

This material is important because it is how

the process works. Whatever steps people
take to reduce their carbon footprint or help in
someway there is always some corporation
that is counter acting the good and getting
away with it.

K) Is it right that Climate activities are under

no illusion that shutting down coal plants,
blocking tar sands pipeline, and passing
fracking bans will be enough to lower
emissions as rapidly and deeply as science
demands. pg 353 do you agree with the
author?

Its kind of sad that activists understand that

cutting emissions that much wont do much
good.