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Naomi KleinA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“Overcoming the Ideological Block to the Next Economy” (Pages 96-103)
Klein discusses the importance of the public sector in providing the infrastructure needed for a mass shift to renewable energy. She discusses the case of Germany’s second city, Hamburg, whose public voted in 2013 for the renationalization of energy providers. Klein says the key driving force here was green thinking; people wanted to be part of a speedy transition to renewable energy and saw that having energy as a public resource, not run for profit, was crucial to that.
Germany has helmed the world’s most rapid shift to wind and solar energy. In 2013, 25% of Germany’s electricity supply came from renewables as compared with only 4% in the US. Germany has set ambitious targets, aiming for 55-69% renewable energy by 2035.
Klein describes this as a rejection and reversal of the neoliberal politics of the ’90s and a turn against privatization; the desire for renewable energy can be most quickly and efficiently provided on a mass scale by nationalization. She points to a similar example, in Boulder, Colorado. She also points to Austria and Norway, where public-run utilities are linked to some of the highest proportions of renewable energy uptake. This suggests “a clear and compelling relationship between public ownership and the ability of communities to get off dirty energy” (99).
Klein argues for a mixed approach and points out that the private sector has a part to play: Nationalization in itself doesn’t translate to greener energy provisions. However, while private companies may offer some green options at a premium and green enterprises may have taken steps forward on wind and solar power, the bottom line is that private companies are driven not by the social or environmental good but by the need for short-term profit. They are accountable to their shareholders, not to the public.
Klein states that “[i]t’s easy to mistake a thriving private market in green energy for a credible climate action plan” (100), especially when there’s so little time left. Klein argues that private sector investment levels in green energy remain significantly below where they need to be to enact a major shift. Introducing large-scale green infrastructure requires a steady and stable stream of investment.
Klein says that from a technical perspective, it is possible to rapidly switch the energy system toward 100% renewable—wind, water, and solar—by as early as 2030. She lists studies showing this, saying that “The biggest obstacles are social and political” (102) and what’s needed is the will to change and a “profound ideological shift (102).
“Rebuilding and Reinventing the Public Sphere” (Pages 103-110)
Pointing to the lack of state resources to help the most vulnerable people, Klein recalls meeting with Nastaran Mohit during the relief operation after Superstorm Sandy in New York City. The two met in a hard-hit neighborhood near Queens, New York. When the state and big aid agencies were “largely missing in action” (103), Mohit organized a group of volunteers who called themselves “Occupy Sandy” to distribute supplies and medicine and set up recovery hubs in the poorest areas. Mohit describes the healthcare crisis they encountered and explains how they set up a makeshift hospital, calling on volunteer nurses and doctors in the area. Many residents said that until Occupy arrived, no one had knocked on their doors to offer help.
This is similar to what happened to poor residents in New Orleans when the city flooded in 2005: The most vulnerable were left to fend for themselves. Klein notes how pharmacies sent back vital prescriptions without insurance information and how according to a 2009 Harvard study, as many as 45,000 people die annually in the US because they lack health insurance. She points out that crises like these expose the failures of the current system. Natural disasters combined with a lack of public infrastructure and health care create a human catastrophe (105). They expose the huge risk of deepening inequality, as the poor are always hardest hit. They also show how tighter-knit communities are better able to cooperate and support each other.
Austerity is starving the public sphere at a time when it needs help most—in this case, austerity amplifies the harms of climate change. She points to floods in the UK in 2013-14, which were made far worse by government cuts to the environmental agency that was responsible for protecting the public from floods. Recorded disasters around the world have risen from 660 in the ’70s to 3322 in the 2000s. Climate change isn’t the only factor, but as climate scientist Michael Mann argues, “there’s no question that climate change has increased the frequency of certain types of extreme weather events” (107). At the same time, governments have been “steadily chipping away at the health and resilience of the public sphere (108).
The cost of coping with the fallout of these disasters is astronomical, and rising emergency expenditures are being offset with cuts to everyday public spending, which makes people even more vulnerable. There are many debates to be had on how to best respond to climate change, but “there is no scenario in which we can avoid wartime levels of spending in the public sector” (108).
Klein looks at key areas where public money should be directed. Much would be on emission-reducing projects, as discussed in the previous chapter: smart grids, light rail, easily accessible mass transport, and infrastructure. All these are items that the private sector is ill-suited to deliver because there isn’t sufficient profit incentive. Public money also needs to help prepare for the coming weather crises: more firefighters, more storm barriers, and non-profit disaster insurance programs. The choice, Klein states, is either this or a “disaster capitalism free-for-all” (109).
She points out that these vital services are most needed in parts of the developing world, “countries like the Philippines, Kenya and Bangladesh that are already facing some of the most severe climate impacts” (109). Provisions for things like emergency shelters, sea walls, and early warning systems are needed, and Klein argues that “these countries should be receiving direct compensation from the countries and companies most responsible for warming the planet” (110).
“The Polluter Pays” (Pages 110-119)
Klein looks at how the large-scale public investment described above could be funded. She quotes a UN survey estimating that overcoming world poverty and averting climate catastrophe would cost around $1.9 trillion a year for the next 40 years. Half of this funding or more would need to go to the developing world. This is at a time when public sector spending has been drastically cut. Klein argues “the only rational way forward is to fully embrace the principle already well established in Western law: the polluter pays” (111).
Fossil fuel companies remain some of the most profitable companies in history: ExxonMobil made $45 billion in profit in 2012. As yet, they’ve not had to pay for the environmental cost of their work. Klein points out that while oil companies like BP and Chevron make gestures toward being more environmentally minded and advertise themselves as investing some of their profits in renewable energy, the levels of investment were initially only around 4% of their profits, and more recently that figure has dwindled to little over 1% (111). Instead, they favor investing in environmentally damaging forms of deeper fossil fuel extraction.
Klein argues that “[i]t’s high time for the industry to at least split the bill for the climate crisis” (112). She discusses progressive tax policies and regulations that could be used to quickly draw funds from the major polluters and direct them into the public infrastructure needed to tackle climate change. She quotes Canadian economist Marc Lee, who states: “It is possible to have a progressive carbon tax system that reduces inequality as it raises the price of emitting greenhouse gases” (112). Governments could negotiate higher royalty rates on oil, gas, and coal extraction, with revenues going to fund the post-fossil fuel future. Klein points out that these companies will resist, so robust penalties and an effective global agreement would be required.
Arms companies, car companies, and the shipping and airline industries must also pay their share. Pointing to the link between wealth and carbon emissions, Klein argues the most affluent segment of society must pay their share, too. This reaches beyond the super-rich to the middle classes of the developed (and developing world), who must also make sacrifices to cut emissions and fund public infrastructure.
Klein lists various options to jointly build public funds and cut emissions:
Collectively, these measures could raise $2 trillion annually, but they would require major nations to coordinate responses “so that corporations had nowhere to hide” (115).
Citing the example of the way the UK and US introduced rationing in the Second World War, Klein argues that success depends entirely on “perceptions of fairness” (115) and belief in the cause. The campaigns at the time stressed this with mottoes like “Fair Shares for all” (115) along with penalties for companies that broke rationing laws.
Klein next reflects on President Carter’s 1979 address, asking the American people to make collective sacrifices. She concludes that people will be prepared to do this, but only if they believe it is done fairly. People, she argues, have had it with a culture of “lopsided sacrifice” in which individuals pay high prices for green choices while large corporations freely pollute (118).
Klein adds that it will be difficult to convince world governments to implement these kinds of climate mechanisms. She argues this is because governments are unprepared to take on the wealthiest and most powerful people and corporations. What’s required is a mass movement that can create a political leadership committed to “bold long term planning” and taking on the “corporate class” and its neoliberal ideology (119).
In this chapter, Klein discusses the role of the public sector in tackling climate change and the kinds of distributive policies that would be required to generate large-scale public funding for The Transition to Green Energy. She argues that it’s only through the public sector (i.e., the services and facilities provided by the state) and massive public investment that society can quickly and effectively implement policies and build the infrastructure required to avoid catastrophic climate change. Private business has a role to play, but for Klein, the private sector will not be the driving force of the kind of societal shift that’s required. She points to the relatively slow shift away from fossil fuels in the past 20 years to illustrate her point. She also points to the way huge cuts in public services around the world have left the poorest people vulnerable in the face of a growing number of climate-related disasters.
What’s required, Klein argues, is a reversal of the trend of privatization of public resources that’s been ongoing since the 1980s and an invigoration and expansion of the public sector. Again, Klein identifies the main obstacle in dealing with climate change not as technological or even financial but rather political: the money is there; it’s just in the wrong hands. This leads back to her central thesis: Society must challenge and think outside of the current system of Neoliberalism and Free Market Capitalism. The reason Klein gives for revitalizing the public sector is that private business is fundamentally driven by profit and answerable to its shareholders and their interests, not to the public and the general good. While the measures required to protect society and avert climate change benefit everyone in the long run, there is no guarantee that they will be profitable in the short- or medium-term. They would require a vast amount of investment and have little immediate financial return. There has been private investment in the green sector and private firms developing and selling renewable energy, but according to Klein, this is not anywhere close to the scale required to shift society away from fossil fuels to the extent required.
Another factor has to do with planning and organization. The kinds of infrastructure that need to be built—mass public transport systems, green energy grids, disaster protection—involve complex integration that is more effective when it is centrally planned and run rather than being left to groups of competing firms. Another point is that to be effective, these things need to be cheap and easy to access for everyone, which again runs against profit motives. It can be argued that certain things are so vital to the public interest that they should be run directly by the public and in the public interest. Existing examples of this are national defense or the NHS in the UK, but the argument could be extended to things like energy and transport. Arguably, the private sector is less efficient when it comes to managing large-scale provisions like health, transport, energy, and disaster protection. Private competition and consumer choice make less sense in these fields than having an affordable centralized system that works for all. These sectors are often considered “natural monopolies.” Because of the high infrastructural costs involved, these markets are only open to a few very large businesses, and the competition and consumer-choice principles that make private markets effective in other circumstances are very limited here.
Against Klein’s position, liberals or “green capitalists” could argue that consumer choice involves a kind of accountability, and if consumers start to see the need for green options, then the business world will respond to that growing market. In reply, Klein might point again to the issue of urgency: Society hasn’t seen this happen quickly enough, and now more wholesale change is required. Conservatives often argue that public-run services are destined to be bureaucratic and inefficient as they lack the driving force of the profit motive. Green capitalists might argue that green businesses could be quicker at rolling out change. To this, Klein might reply that with the kind of infrastructure needed here, coordination, cooperation, and long-term planning are the key, not private incentives. Klein’s approach is not to advocate for wholesale nationalization but rather to focus on areas where nationalization would be effective. She adopts a “mixed economy” approach, whereby public and private sectors both have roles to play in the “great transition,” but the government is needed to intervene in key sectors and provide the right kind of incentives and disincentives.
In terms of policies to raise revenues that could be directed into green public infrastructure and services, Klein presents a compelling list of options that target the major polluters. These policies deal jointly with global inequality and climate change, but a key question is how to get governments around the world to adopt such measures, especially as these things would need to be adopted multilaterally if they were going to have a real impact. It would take something like the network of trade agreements and the WTO to establish a global consensus. This would be fought tooth and nail by big business.
Klein also notes that the middle classes of the developed and developing world will have to make sacrifices. If everyone understands that this is the only way to save the planet and human life in the long term, then perhaps it could work, but there’s still a huge argument to win, especially since many lower-class people see relatively few repercussions for wealthy people and corporations that waste resources and pollute. Klein argues that policies must be applied fairly to motivate cooperation. This is also why the climate denial movement has proven so effective: It has muddied the waters and given people a way to avoid having to ask themselves tough questions about their contributions to climate change.
By Naomi Klein