For this assignment, I have decided to select the reading called “This changes everything: Capitalism vs. The climate” by Naomi Klein because this reading delves deeper into the alarming catastrophic effects of climate change and how our actions have been the cause of the mass deteriorations of Earth`s climate and the continual ruins. Klein specifically provides her audiences with precise details on how human actions have been the central cause of temperature risings and of quite too many natural disasters. Klein also provides some of the many solutions that humans can try to lower down the global warming`s horrifying effects, which is quite educative to the audiences. Her writing also has the ability to attract the audiences` attention by providing the effects of global warming in the style that the general public can understand due to its simplistic and straightforward nature.

For the first picture that I have provided, I decided to use the quotation that states “Like the airline bringing in a truck with a more powerful engine to tow that plane, the global economy is upping the ante from the conventional sources of fossil fuels to even dirtier and more dangerous versions” (Klein, p.2). This picture illustrates a person wearing a gas mask and power plant in the background, greatly shows how much we are both polluting the earth but also the quality of our lives, thus sending a message how if we keep polluting our airs, we might end having to wear masks like these to be able to breathe properly. This picture greatly corresponds to Klein`s message that humans are making the climate change crisis even worse by participating in the acts of using, even more alarmingly dangerous source.

For the second picture, I decided to construct my own message based on Klein`s reading and the message states: The more we ignore global warming and our problematic actions towards our mother nature, the more warming welcomes we get from catastrophic disasters. This specific picture is illustrating the aftermath of ruins of the hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The devastations caused by Hurricane Maria show how climate change is quite real and we are already experiencing its horrifying effects.

For the third picture, I have decided to use Klein`s closing sentences that states: “Can we pull it off? All I know is that nothing is inevitable. Nothing except that climate change changes everything. And for a very brief time, the nature of that change is still up to us” (Klein, p.25). This picture is greatly corresponding to Klein`s last words in the readings by demonstrating how everyone could work together to clean the earth and head towards solutions that would relief the harmful acts that we have committed towards earth, and that the first step that we need to take is treating this crisis as a serious crisis.

One of the main ideas that Naomi Klein makes in her book of “This Changes Everything” is that there is definitely an overlooked correlation between the climate change crisis and the economy. She expresses that the main reason why there hasn’t been much action from the government is because all of the actions that must be taken in order to lower emissions, threatens “an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our media outlets” (152). In other words, taking action towards climate change goes against “deregulated capitalism,” and would ruin the wealth gap between the rich and the poor. She mentions the idea of protests and mass movement, however, she then proceeds to explain that it is not enough. At the end of the day, it is truly up to the government to take charge.

Due to this inequality, there tends to be an unfair amount of treatment. For example, in regards to the destructive hurricanes that have hit, Klein explains that more money was given to New Jersey real estate developers even though they had an insignificant amount of damage, in comparison to New Orleans that had an insane amount of damage when hurricane Katrina hit. This goes to show how the majority of people, including the less wealthy, are neglected when it comes to getting the right amount of attention from the government.

Klein also expresses the effects of rising temperatures, specifically, what would happen if temperatures rose 2 degrees Celsius above. As of now, we have surpassed this and are heading towards a 4 degree, or even a 6 degree world. Rising temperatures could potentially harm the environment to the point where we could have deadly heat waves, drowning cities, a complete loss of ecosystems and a decline in food stocks.

Eve Babayeva: This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein

“Preliminary data shows that in 2013, global carbon dioxide emissions were 61 percent higher than they were in 1990.” (p.10)

This picture shows a factory emitting white clouds of gas, it is white instead of the dark gray means it has less carbon dioxide but it still adds up in our environment. People care more about the mass production of commercial items than the ozone layer thinning; which can increase a person’s chance of having skin cancer and would decrease the release of oxygen. 

“When you add ruinous hurricanes, raging wildfires, fisheries collapses, widespread disruption to water supplies, extinctions, and globetrotting diseases to the mix, it indeed becomes difficult to imagine that a peaceful, ordered society could be sustained” (p.12)

I picked this picture and quote to compare an ideal life we want and could have to what we are slowly getting. A dead Earth with constant environmental disasters. The author wants us to know that this kind of lifestyle is not sustainable and that our society can’t survive in these conditions forever.

“There are ways of preventing this grim future, or at least making it a lot less dire. But the catch is that these also involve changing everything. For us high consumers, it involves changing how we live…” (p.4)

Larger corporations will not change unless people begin to only buy things they actually need. Our high demand for items like phones, makeup, clothing, even certain foods, is what drives companies into building more factories and producing more CO^2. I used a picture of trash to show how much of what we buy is just wasteful. We are who must change. 

Easier to DENY

Cities drowning, extreme droughts, and severe storms and hurricanes are threats to our nearby future. If attempts and the proper precautions are not met, this seemingly unrealistic crisis will present itself in a destructive manner. Ways to manage these consequences and brace ourselves from these changes, humans must shift their lifestyle, slowly. Klein states in her book titled This Changes Everything that “We know that if we continue on our current path of allowing emissions to arise year after year, climate change will change everything about of world.” This change cannot happen right away but will take steps to reduce emissions of these harmful chemicals, as well as preventing further damage to earth. Companies continue to grow and capitalize off these practices completely aware of the environmental impacts of this. Ignoring the possibilities to cities becoming ruined and populations declining, there needs to be more done to ensure communities remain intact. Whether this means increasing cost of living and limiting freedom, these luxuries must come with a cost and in this case means survival.

The Big Issue

The lack of measures taken by the elites presents the unwillingness to change their practices in order to save humanity. The companies responsible for these drastic rates of fossil fuel emission and the increasing temperature continue to capitalize and expand their industries, venturing out into poorer countries, and introducing even more populations to the impacts of pollution. Klein states “Climate change has never received the crisis treatment from our leaders, despite the fact that it carries the risk of destroying lives on a vastly greater scale than collapsed banks or collapsed buildings.” There is suppression of these matters and the true detriments of these pollutants, as many conservative groups believe climate change to be a myth. Very clearly presented in the image above is the screen of cloudiness hovering above the city, this murkiness is no doubt seen but companies still to cover up these changes. Klein states “capitalism is winning hands down” as children are forced to wear masks and protect themselves from the inhalation of these unnatural chemicals. Such as those seen in the image, cities are targeted by poisoning the inhabitants with these fumes. 

Our Chance

“I am convinced that climate change represents a historic opportunity on an even greater scale. As part of the project of getting our emissions down to the levels many scientists recommend, we once again have the chance to advance policies that dramatically improve lives, close the gap between rich and poor, create huge numbers of good jobs, and reinvigorate democracy from the ground up.”

The time for change is now, and with this time for change we have a slim margin of action, it is even more important that these disastrous affects are prevented. With technological advancement seen in the past few years, it becomes easier to find a way to hinder to production of fossil fuels. The reluctance from larger corporations to adhere to strict guidelines makes it difficult for activists demands to be met and to prevent further destruction. Companies are sacrificing the sanctity of life by using these destructive energy sources. There is still a glimpse of hope. The chance to take back the detrimental actions and provider new ways to combat these growing issues, such as proving new jobs. These new jobs will not only cut emissions down, but help supply communities with more funding. Climate change can create outbursts of jobs, while also developing safer practices, ones that will charge or eliminate companies.

I chose to do my drawing from Gardiner’s article ” Coronavirus Holds Key Lessons on How to Fight Climate Change”. My picture is portraying how the COVID- 19 crisis is being compared to climate change. My picture is portraying that COVID and climate change are basically equivalent hence the equal sign, but at different time speeds. My picture is also showing people protesting so that political leaders can realize that this shouldn’t be neglected like it was with coronavirus. The people protesting have quotes written from Gardiner’s article as their arguments. The political leaders in my illustration have quotes written from Gardiner’s article as well that are trying to downplay the situation of both COVID and climate change. In my illustration I also added little sayings that I saw on the internet when people attended protest’s for climate change. COVID and climate change are being compared because the effects of climate change will soon be similar to the crisis we are dealing with now. If we continue waiting till we see the effects of the climate it will then be too late to take action. We have to start taking action now and not avoiding it all costs. Which is why I chose to write the message “take action now”. I choose the quote “If you wait until you can see the impact, it is too late to stop it” to be one of the quotes to be on one of the posters in my illustration because I believe it to be very important because that’s were the parallel between COVID-19 and climate change is really seen. This is also another reason for why I chose to write “take action now” and “our planet needs help now” I  chose to use the quote ” COVID-19 is climate change on warp speed” from the articale and I drew a clock saying ” Tik Tok time is running out”.  

In her book, This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein points out how our society’s fixation on capital wealth and normalization of ignorance towards climate change deters us from making the appropriate, greener changes to our society’s ways. However, one of her key points is that we, as the general public, have the power to influence the government as long as we are educated and make it clear to the political elites that climate change is a crisis that we care deeply about. In her book, Klein says, “But we need not be spectators in this: politicians aren’t the only ones with the power to declare a crisis. Mass movements of regular people can declare one too” (Klein 6). This quote in particular inspired the center of my piece– the protest against climate change in front of the capitol building. These protest signs are meant to show that public awareness and involvement is at the very center of environmental, political, and social change because taking action versus not taking action would lead to very different futures. If people are ignorant about the issues of carbon emissions, austerity politics, and the corporate greed that hides in the smoke of our pollutive ways, we will most definitely fall victims to climate change. On the other hand, large-scale change is possible as long as the government is willing to invest in more greener technologies, such as windmills, and create greener jobs which will help sustain the planet and also address the socioeconomic schism caused by capitalism. Moreover, in addition to having greener policies and restrictions on big businesses, Klein makes the point that we must be willing to make sacrifices to our current lifestyles in hope for a better future. Thus, it is important to remember that we as the people have the power to shape our future and obtain a cleaner, greener planet for those that will come after us.

“ The temperatures in summer were indeed unusually hot… And it is no mystery why this has been happening: the profligate burning of fossil fuels, the very thing the US Airways was bound to do despite the inconvenience presented by a melting tarmac.”(2) This photo shows the cause of climate change due to the excessive use of fossil fuels, and it relates to Klein’s article when she mention about the inconveniences climate change has brought to everyone. She gave examples on how the black pavement melted, causing the plane to delay, and how natural disasters have destroyed homes. Overall, people’s lives have been directly and indirectly affected by climate change, which urges the need to make changes that could lower the emission of fossil fuels to protect the environment.

“Climate change is like that;it’s hard to keep it in your head for very long. We engage in this odd form of on-again-off- again ecological amnesia for perfectly rational reasons. We deny because we fear that letting in the full reality of this crisis will change everything ”(4). Since people’s daily lives are busy due to attending work or school, usually they don’t care about climate change because they are focused on other things. As long as they could earn money and pay their bills, other things don’t seem important to them. Klein is arguing that climate change is an issue people need to turn their head towards, because it would harmfully affect us later on in the future. The harm climate change could bring us is irreversible, so instead of pretending that everything is fine, we should start taking action right away.

“Then surely humans should be capable of making some important lifestyle changes in the interest of stabilizing the physical system upon which all life depends…. Changes that need to be made to dramatically cut emissions would also dramatically improve the quality of life for majority people”(16). Klein introduces certain points people could follow to reduce fossil fuel emissions. She mentioned policies that could improve lives by closing the gap between rich and poor. Which could help us focus more on the issue of climate change. To actually solve the issue, everyone has to focus on this and change their lifestyles. Before things get worse, we still have a chance to make a difference and protect our home from problems that are caused by climate change.

In her book, This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein discussed how capitalism and the free market affects climate change. Capitalism allows for the wealthy people to stay rich while increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. Many of the people in power are part of the one percent and do not want to make a change to the system. “We have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis. We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe—and would benefit the vast majority—are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.” (16). They do not want to lose money so they continue to process their goods and use the free market to distribute their goods.

The ideology of the free market causes an increase of production. When people are allowed to sell their goods all over the world with no tariffs or restrictions, they start to produce even more goods. This leads to the idea of materialism and extractivism. When there is a high demand for products, producers extract more resources and produce more. The more products that are produced the more fossil fuels are being burnt, causing an increase in global temperatures.

In general people like to hand off responsiblilty to others instead of taking charge themselves. People tend to deny the idea of climate change and that it is a legitimate problem that we face. They don’t learn about it and many times like to believe that the science is too complicated for them, so they leave all the work to the environmentalists. People also rationalize their behaviors, for example, people regularly think that whatever they’re doing isn’t going to really affect the environment. They tell themselves that if they don’t recycle this one time it won’t be such a big deal. But in reality, every small action we take to help the environment makes a bigger difference than we realize.

For my project, I decided to focus on Beth Gardiner’s article “Coronavirus Holds Key Lessons on How to Fight Climate Change”. My project consists of a drawing of different people gathered at a conference and while most of them are focusing on the coronavirus pandemic that is seen on the right TV screen, there is only one man who is focused on the two other screens that show climate change. While seated, the people have different papers in front of them that reflect how they want to treat the coronavirus pandemic and use it as a way to make a profit but we see none that has to do with climate change, showing that they do not care about it. On the two other screens, on which the man is pointing at shows how the effects of the industry have destroyed nature due to pollution and the burning of fossil fuels. The Earth is cracking and the trees are wilted. On the other screen behind the man, the news statement states that icebergs are melting and the polar bears are dying as a result. The quotes I included are three direct quotes from Gardiner’s article and the other is an implication. The first quote I chose, states “if you wait until you see the impact, it is too late to stop”. The words impact, too late and stop are bolded because they are the most important and emphasizes the importance of realizing a problem as it comes instead of waiting around to see how long it can last before it becomes deadly. The second quote states “We are missing the obvious”. This quote is a bit of an antithesis to the entire picture because as seen, the people sitting at the table are all focusing on the pandemic which most would argue to be obvious or the more deadly one but in fact, climate change is more obvious, so obvious that people see it every day but now consider it to be normal. The third quote states “Tell the story, help people understand that this is an accelerated version of another story”. This quote brings light to the fact that climate change is just as serious as any pandemic and people should give it the same alertness that they gave to the pandemic. It also shows that the pandemic is a wake-up call for people as climate change can create an even larger impact sooner or later. Finally, the speech bubble on the right shows a man saying “That can’t be real. It can’t be THAT deadly”. I added this quote in order to imply this quote as it fits better into the situation in the image. The corresponding quote from the article states “In the case of COVID-19, while some have sought to deny the seriousness of the coronavirus, people and governments have mostly been far quicker to appreciate its danger. That may in part be because we are instinctually more frightened of disease than of climate threats that many people struggle to envision”. While the man in the picture says what he did, in his hands, he holds a phone where he texts “I’m scared”. This is used to show that people often reject the existence of certain issues out of fear. Once they acknowledge the importance of a situation, it becomes real.

Here this photo shows the deceiving nature of businesses. Businesses capitalize on such crisis like climate change to benefit their own company and maximize their profits. To cover each component within this image, businesses use think tanks and lobby groups that favor their own cause to justify their actions. That is where the denial and doubt towards climate change come from. This allows businesses to move on and continue even if they are harming the environment. This is shown in the article “This Changes Everything” by Naomi Klein as she states, “Over the past four decades corporate interests have systematically exploited these various forms of crisis to ram through policies that enrich a small elite.” (Klein 7). Businesses do not care about the greater welfare, they only care for themselves and do anything to ensure their profits. Approval from these think tanks and lobby groups trick the public into believing that what they are doing is safe and this gains their support.

In this photo, a group of teenagers are protesting against climate change in the streets of New York. The government often turns its head away from climate change and focuses their power elsewhere. They are not aware of the scale of the impact of climate change. People do not take it upon themselves to create change and businesses will not budge on their current methods if a higher power does not tell them to do son. People rather feel their contribution is insignificant and businesses only care for their profits however, with the government’s say and influence, great change can be brought about to climate change. Klein elaborates as she states, “Climate change has never received the crisis treatment from our leaders, despite the fact that it carries the risk of destroying lives on a greater scale than collapsed banks.” (Klein 5). The government will not act upon climate change until it is too late. Climate change is a crisis worthy occurrence that must be remedied by global action. Global action cannot be achieved without the influence by world governments.

This last image resembles the ongoing debate whether renewable resources can truly replace and live up to the efficiency and reliability of fossil fuels. While it may seem questionable, there are many places where renewable sources of energy are incorporated. Wind power, solar power, and hydro power are just three examples of where renewable resources have had breakthroughs in the recent years. Klein states, “Power from renewable sources like wind and water predates the use of fossil fuels and is becoming cheaper, more efficient, and easier to store every year … We have the technological tools to get off fossil fuels” (Klein 14). This shows how the world is capable of making the transition but, it hasn’t. They refuse to make the change until faced with authority. If people do not take it upon themselves to create change, the climate change will be sure to turn into a bigger crisis in the future.