Is Earth F. Geo Summary
“More or less…” This was Brad Werner’s answer - a complex systems researcher – to a question posed by a journalist at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in 2012. The question being “Is Earth F**ked” [Pg. 449]. Klein claims that this book is optimistic. I don’t think the book itself is optimistic even if that is what the author believes. It seems almost impossible to believe that the future of climate change is an optimistic one. Klein presents this future to be possible though. Her examples and demands for solving this problem are not small it is calling for mass movements to redistribute wealth on the scale of trillions of dollars worldwide. [452] In a nation where we cannot even agree on basic human rights. How will we organize to the
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point of being able to turn the tides on the most powerful industries ever developed. In Klein’s own words she raises question about the possibility that she is “rejecting possible solutions because they threaten my own ideological world view” [58] because her solutions call on mass movements and yet her own research has shown that the number of people who even believe climate change exists and is human caused is actually lowering [46]. This is in part thanks to the Heartland Foundation where a billion dollars a year being poured into conservative think tanks such as this. [45] These types of organization have crippled scientific discourse through bankrolling studies than providing funds to popularize these views. Getting them publicity through blogs and news organizations. [45] This combination of a decreasing belief in risk vs. an uptick in spending by groups casting doubt on climate change does not make for a promising scenario. Mass-movements have had some victory though that optimistic feature has soured when comparing how they started to what has happened in the current day. This is shown clearly in the Nigeria Delta where mass protests performed by the Ogani people took to the streets 300,000 strong. Having success and having their land free from oil extraction cost thousands of lives as their own government sent troops against them. This is mostly due to large amounts of the governments operating budget coming from the fossil fuel industry. [306] The region is still to this day plagued with violence as harsh government repercussion have turned the indigenous residents of the area to violent measures such as destroying equipment and the ransoming of Shell Oil personnel. As the armed insurgency continued it became harder to find the original goals of the movement. [309] The Insurgency continues to this day. While Nigeria continues to extract close to 2.5 million barrels of oil daily. (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, 2016) Following the problems in the Niger Delta as Klein’s next point which was written to be one of hope was that the Nigerian struggle had inspired an alliance between the Nigerian Environmental rights watch and the environmental group Accion Ecologica in Ecuador, who have watched their legal trials with Chevron take a turn for the worst as their case was brought to a US Federal Appeals court, that has overturned their claim due to evidence that the Ecuadorian legal team gained the 8.65-Billion-dollar settlement via bribery and fraud. Circuit Judge Amalya Kearse was quoted saying “Even innocent clients may not benefit from the fraud of their attorney,”. This case had been in ongoing trials for the past 20 years. This legal battle is unlikely to end from this ruling alone but it was a substantial loss. A representative from the group did state that they were pursuing legal battles in other countries.(Rueters, 2016) Court cases like this truly exemplify the industry’s ability to have expert legal teams on hand that can use every kind of delay possible to forestall any kind of recompense for their actions. In her conclusion Klein speaks of several “sort of” successful attempts at addressing these problems.
The optimistic part is that some of these worked for a time after periods of intense poverty several democratically elected socialist governments have formed and redistributed large amounts of wealth from natural resource extraction into the poor and middle class. Unfortunately, these governments such as Chile under Salvador Allende or Iran under Mohammad Mosadeegh, were consistently undermined and sabotaged due to foreign backed military coups, assassinations and other forms of foreign interference. [454] So, does this book have an optimistic view at the Climate crisis? Absolutely. Even with mounting evidence that we will continue to miss the goals provided to us by the world’s climate scientists. The fossil fuel industry has already shown that they will not let go of their stranglehold on their profits. To look at this situation and not be filled with an overwhelming sense of despair at the possibility of a positive future is about the most optimistic out there. Will we be able to curb emissions and the extraction mentality or will we as a species pass into extinction as
well?
point of being able to turn the tides on the most powerful industries ever developed. In Klein’s own words she raises question about the possibility that she is “rejecting possible solutions because they threaten my own ideological world view” [58] because her solutions call on mass movements and yet her own research has shown that the number of people who even believe climate change exists and is human caused is actually lowering [46]. This is in part thanks to the Heartland Foundation where a billion dollars a year being poured into conservative think tanks such as this. [45] These types of organization have crippled scientific discourse through bankrolling studies than providing funds to popularize these views. Getting them publicity through blogs and news organizations. [45] This combination of a decreasing belief in risk vs. an uptick in spending by groups casting doubt on climate change does not make for a promising scenario. Mass-movements have had some victory though that optimistic feature has soured when comparing how they started to what has happened in the current day. This is shown clearly in the Nigeria Delta where mass protests performed by the Ogani people took to the streets 300,000 strong. Having success and having their land free from oil extraction cost thousands of lives as their own government sent troops against them. This is mostly due to large amounts of the governments operating budget coming from the fossil fuel industry. [306] The region is still to this day plagued with violence as harsh government repercussion have turned the indigenous residents of the area to violent measures such as destroying equipment and the ransoming of Shell Oil personnel. As the armed insurgency continued it became harder to find the original goals of the movement. [309] The Insurgency continues to this day. While Nigeria continues to extract close to 2.5 million barrels of oil daily. (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, 2016) Following the problems in the Niger Delta as Klein’s next point which was written to be one of hope was that the Nigerian struggle had inspired an alliance between the Nigerian Environmental rights watch and the environmental group Accion Ecologica in Ecuador, who have watched their legal trials with Chevron take a turn for the worst as their case was brought to a US Federal Appeals court, that has overturned their claim due to evidence that the Ecuadorian legal team gained the 8.65-Billion-dollar settlement via bribery and fraud. Circuit Judge Amalya Kearse was quoted saying “Even innocent clients may not benefit from the fraud of their attorney,”. This case had been in ongoing trials for the past 20 years. This legal battle is unlikely to end from this ruling alone but it was a substantial loss. A representative from the group did state that they were pursuing legal battles in other countries.(Rueters, 2016) Court cases like this truly exemplify the industry’s ability to have expert legal teams on hand that can use every kind of delay possible to forestall any kind of recompense for their actions. In her conclusion Klein speaks of several “sort of” successful attempts at addressing these problems.
The optimistic part is that some of these worked for a time after periods of intense poverty several democratically elected socialist governments have formed and redistributed large amounts of wealth from natural resource extraction into the poor and middle class. Unfortunately, these governments such as Chile under Salvador Allende or Iran under Mohammad Mosadeegh, were consistently undermined and sabotaged due to foreign backed military coups, assassinations and other forms of foreign interference. [454] So, does this book have an optimistic view at the Climate crisis? Absolutely. Even with mounting evidence that we will continue to miss the goals provided to us by the world’s climate scientists. The fossil fuel industry has already shown that they will not let go of their stranglehold on their profits. To look at this situation and not be filled with an overwhelming sense of despair at the possibility of a positive future is about the most optimistic out there. Will we be able to curb emissions and the extraction mentality or will we as a species pass into extinction as
well?