This Changes Everything

“The Disastrous Merger of Big Business and Big Green” (Pages 191-201)

Klein begins this chapter with the story of the endangered Attwater prairie chickens on the coast of Texas. Oil and gas developments put their habitat at risk. Concerns were raised, and an area of land owned by Mobil back in 1965 was donated to the Texas National Conservancy to protect these birds from extinction. Perversely, the nature conservancy itself began extracting fossil fuels on the preserve in 1999. The story provoked controversy, but extraction continued. In 2012, the last of the chickens disappeared from the reserve: “Under the stewardship of one of the biggest environmental nongovernmental organizations in the world […] an endangered species has been completely wiped out from one of its last remaining breeding grounds” (195).

For Klein, this is an illustration of the environmental movement's failure to effectively battle the economic interests behind soaring emission levels: “Large parts of the movement aren’t actually fighting [fossil fuel] interests—they have merged with them” (195). Klein points to other large green groups with strong ties to the fossil fuel sector: Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the Conservation Fund have all received money from Shell and BP. The WWF has a long relationship with Shell. This goes beyond mere donations into business partnerships in some cases. Some of the large green groups (Klein cites Nature Conservancy) invest in the fossil fuel industry, and some have senior figures from fossil fuel companies on their boards of directors (198).

Further, some of the large green groups have entangled their fates with the corporations at the heart of the climate crisis. Klein points out these choices are made by leadership and do not represent the wishes or values of the millions of grassroots members. She also points to green groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace that have never ventured into close ties with fossil fuel companies. These groups, unsurprisingly, are the ones who have been prepared to take on the big coal and oil firms (197).

Klein points to the widespread role of donations from wealthy and powerful sources, be it the states, corporations, or private philanthropy in public interest work. The question is how this funding shapes the research undertaken and the policies advanced (198). Klein explains how fossil fuel money has influenced the environmental movement and the decisions of the big corporate-affiliated green groups. Several of these groups have pursued responses to climate change that don’t directly challenge or are even beneficial to the largest carbon emitters on the planet, including carbon offsetting (where emission quotas are traded) and advocating for natural gas and fracking. These market-based climate solutions, supported by the big green groups, have helped the fossil fuel sector by complicating the issue, drowning it in technical jargon, and making it seem like we’re all doing something to help, while also making it seem like the simpler solution of a straight shift from fossil fuels to renewables isn’t possible.

With emissions up by about 57% since the first UN climate convention was signed in 1992, Klein argues that “the failure of this polite strategy is beyond debate” (200). The big green groups don’t blame the fossil fuel corporations that help fund them. Indeed, executive members of large fossil fuel companies are still welcomed to climate summits as if they were part of the solution, not part of the problem. The approach has always been to work with them rather than take them on.

“The Golden Age of Environmental Law” (Pages 201-204)

Klein reflects on what she calls the golden age of the movement. At the end of the 1960s, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were founded. These groups were direct and confrontational and won victories at a time when governments intervening in economies were accepted across the political spectrum. In the US, 23 federal environmental acts became law in the ‘70s, tackling pollution and making the polluters pay the price. Similar advances were seen in Canada and the EU.

Klein notes a shift from activism to environmental lobbying as the green movement developed more of an insider status: “in rapid fashion what had been a rabble of hippies became a movement of lawyers, lobbyists and UN summit hoppers” (203). However, in the 1980s, the era of support for environmentalism across the political spectrum ended. Neoliberalism changed the political landscape, and environmentalists found themselves outside of the mainstream, struggling to meaningfully influence change, as they have been ever since.

“Extreme 1980s Makeover” (Pages 204-207)

Klein explains how the major green groups responded to the changing political climate and the rise of free-market ideology. They wanted to maintain their “insider” status and wealthy donors, so they adopted a pro-corporate, non-confrontational approach, partnering up with the polluting companies.

A key motivating factor was the arrival of new green groups in the ’80s that were set up along these conservative, pro-corporate lines. The Conservation Fund and Conservation International were established, leading to more competition for donations and support, so many other big green groups followed suit.

There was division in the green movement as the more radical, grassroots elements criticized the pro-corporate approach. Earth First was formed, pursuing more radical direct action to defend the environment. On Earth Day in 1990, there was a demonstration in New York that made an “explicit critique of the corporate infiltration of the green movement” (206).

“Climate Policy and the Price of Surrender” (Pages 207-211)

Klein further explores key turning points for the environmental movement in the ’80s and ’90s that consolidated its mainstream, pro-corporate position.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which was originally a radical group with the logo “Sue the Bastards,” moved to a much more conservative position under the leadership of Fred Krupp. Claiming to be part of a new generation of pragmatists that see beyond the adversarial environmentalism of the '70s, Krupp took the EDF to a more conservative position, partnering with some of the biggest polluters, notably Walmart, McDonalds, and Fed-Ex, and pursuing market solutions to environmental problems rather than advocating for harsher environmentally focused legislation.

In the ‘80s, the EDF pushed for the first cap-and-trade approach to the problem of acid rain (sulfur dioxide emissions), which means rather than setting limits for polluters, individual companies could buy or sell their emissions quotas. The EDF attracted big business sponsorships, and its annual budget swelled considerably. However, Klein argues the consequence of their approach is that they legitimized the actions of the large polluters and reinforced the idea that we can deal with climate change without inconveniencing big business.

Klein says the ’90s were key in consolidating the conservative outlook and strategy of the environmental movement, certainly for the big green groups. They remained—and still remain—committed to a “low friction” model of change and partnering with the big polluters rather than challenging them. Rather than putting the issue of climate change in broad political terms and arguing that we need to change the way our economy works and our high-consumption lifestyle, they present it as a “narrow technical problem with no end of profitable solutions within the market system” (210).

“Shopping our Way Out” (Pages 211-213)

Klein next reflects on the movement in the early 2000s. There was a rise in the public profile of the climate change issue around the time of Al Gore’s 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth, and a range of celebrity-focused campaigns and a push toward green consumer options. However, “all the energy seemed to be coming from the very top tier of society” (211). There was no wider public movement to get behind what we were being told was such a crucial issue.

People were asked to exercise consumer power, switch to greener products, turn off their lights, recycle, and “voluntarily green the minutiae of their lives” (213), but in the face of the scale of the problem, this seemed to be lacking. There seemed to be a disjunction between the severity of the problem and the domestic scale of the solutions being offered.

The big green groups were not asking for similar sacrifices from the large corporations that were doing and benefiting from the bulk of the polluting. Instead of arguing for strict caps on emissions, the green groups developed complex financial mechanisms to allow these corporations to keep emitting and campaigned to expand the market for natural gas.

“Fracking and the Burning Bridge” (Pages 213-218)

In the ‘90s, the gas industry was first presented as a bridge to clean energy. At the time, the idea made more sense as renewable technologies were less developed than they are now, and the methods used for extracting natural gas were less damaging to the environment. Now that’s changed.

Klein argues that a full transition to renewables is possible and gas isn’t needed as a bridge; she points to the danger of fracking and argues that far from being a bridge, it’s become a competitor and obstacle to the transition to renewable energy. Quoting Mark Z. Jacobson, Klein argues that we can rely on the existing energy infrastructure while we transition to renewable energy, and we don’t need to extract more fossil fuels as a bridge.

She critiques the responses of the EDF and Nature Conservancy, which have both thrown their weight behind fracking and invested in research projects with major fossil fuel companies to prove its value as an environmental option. The funding for these studies has come from groups with significant investments in natural gas, and they have the effect of making it unclear exactly how environmentally dangerous fracking is.

“Trading in Pollution” (Pages 218-229)

Klein explains and critiques the practice of carbon trading that became the dominant approach to lowering emissions in the ‘90s. The implicit assumption behind the Kyoto Protocol was that the wealthy, polluting countries would take measures to cap their emissions, setting regulations and taxes on polluters. The Clinton administration, however, pushed for a complex system of carbon trading, and this is what was adopted despite the US failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol itself.

The carbon-trading scheme established a market around carbon emissions from 2005 onward. It worked by issuing pollution permits that could be bought and sold and a system of carbon credits companies could earn for activities that “offset” the effects of carbon emission. Large polluters, in effect, could pay to keep polluting at the same level, so long as that was offset by reductions elsewhere.

Klein points to the flaws in this system. The bar for carbon credit was set low, and all kinds of dodgy industrial projects were able to claim lucrative carbon credits. It became a convenient way to make a profit by doing things that weren't beneficial to the environment. Klein points to the examples of the coolant factories in India and China that made fortunes in carbon credits by cheaply disposing of greenhouse gases they were creating as a byproduct of their primary operations: “Questionable offset projects have come to dominate the emissions market” (220). Some of the carbon credits given may not accurately represent carbon reductions.

The system was easily exploited. Klein points to cases around the world where Indigenous people and poor people were encouraged to sell their land rights to carbon-offsetting ventures, which then restricted access to the land. There have been perimeter fences and armed guards patrolling lands, stopping Indigenous people from foraging, hunting, and farming. In Honduras, sprawling tree farms have displaced local agriculture, leading to conflict, land occupation, evictions, and hundreds of deaths.

Klein points out that carbon offsetting was proposed as a non-confrontational, win-win solution by pro-corporate greens. She claims it shows that the big green organizations who are heavily involved in these carbon offsetting deals and arrangements found it easier to “cordon off a forest inhabited by politically weak people in a poor country than to stop politically powerful corporate emitters in rich countries” (221). She calls this picking the fruits rather than challenging the roots of the climate crisis.

Klein points out that not every offsetting project is suspicious, and we’ve seen positive steps with wind farms, solar arrays, and forest preservation. However, overall, the carbon trading system simply hasn’t worked. Any benefits of these green projects have been countered as they’ve allowed major polluters to keep polluting at the same rate: “At best, we are running in place” (223).

Klein next quotes geographer Bram Buscher, who argues that the system has commodified and abstracted nature and reduced it to its carbon-absorbing value to allow polluters around the world to keep polluting and to appease our consciences. Nature becomes a “virtual commodity in a global trading system” (224) to preserve a polluting, consumerist economy.

Crucially, the carbon-trading market in Europe has failed as a market. After an initial boom, it collapsed after the economic crisis of 2008 when the shrinkage of the economy led to a fall in emissions and a steep drop in the market value of carbon credits. The carbon price drop left little incentive for companies to switch to greener developments or for polluters to buy more carbon credit. The UN’s Clean Development Mechanism fared even worse, seeing a 99% decline in carbon credit prices after 2008. Klein argues this is the law of the market—volatility, boom, and bust—and “it’s simply too risky and time is too short” (225) for us to rely on this kind of approach. At the same time, fossil fuel and energy companies have seen their profits soar while consumers have seen their energy bills rise.

Klein goes on to describe what happened to the failed attempt to introduce carbon trading legislation in the US. The bill was drafted by a coalition called USCAP, made up of the EDF, some other big green groups, and large fossil fuel companies. It was full of corporate incentives and loopholes to make the bill appealing to the fossil fuel industry. It gave free allowances that covered 90% of US emissions—a very favorable deal for the fossil fuel companies but nowhere near the kind of measures required to make a serious difference to climate change.

The companies themselves, Klein argues, were only on board because they saw climate change legislation as inevitable at first. However, once the political climate changed in 2007 when the Tea Party and denialist movement gained the upper hand, these same companies abandoned and attacked the policy they’d helped to draft. They began to realize they could avoid climate change legislation altogether, a far better option for them, and the bill collapsed. As Klein puts it, “Big Green was outmaneuvered on a grand scale” (228). She quotes Harvard sociologist Tehda Skocpol, who argues that the key failure was the lack of a mass movement to put pressure on the polluters and legislators from below. Looking to the future, Klein points to a resurgent grassroots climate movement of just this kind, one that’s starting to win victories.