Naomi Klein’s book, “This Changes Everything” was published in 2014 and I read it shortly afterwards. It is quite a dense book, with 466 pages excluding the notes and references but it provides a very good analysis of climate change. The book develops a theme from the author’s previous book, “The Shock Doctrine” hypothesising that the solution to the issue of climate change lies in politics and economics and not in science. This is a conclusion I share and which I try to explain to the environmental policy students with whom I work. I also agree with the author that the necessary changes will be extremely difficult to achieve, given the entrenched values that drive our current neoliberal economic and political system.
I found reading the book quite a frustrating experience. I realise I was probably waiting for the flash of inspiration or the call to action that would provide the clear solution to the problem. I was waiting for the answers to the intractable problems that Naomi Klein describes so eloquently but was disappointed when they were not forthcoming. Of course, I realise from my work on climate change and other environmental issues that there is no silver bullet, no single solution to the mess we have caused for ourselves but despite this, I still found myself asking her for the answer! Instead, she describes a series of relatively small, apparently unconnected events that have built to become a movement; a slow groundswell that is building to challenge the conventional worldview. Whilst changing values and behaviours is a long-term process, my concern (and the author’s) is that the changes will not happen quickly enough to avoid the catastrophic environmental changes associated with climate change.
Given her origins, it is perhaps inevitable that Naomi Klein’s case studies focus on North America. She mentions the Occupy Wall Street movement that had its parallels in the UK and elsewhere. These movements failed to change the banking and finance systems in the wake of the 2007/8 crash but have helped to begin a much more interesting debate about the nature of our financial and political systems. The protests against the Keystone XL pipeline are also highlighted and the importance of Native Americans or First Nation groups in mounting legal challenges to fossil fuel developments and the infrastructure changes needed to support new sources of energy are explored in depth. In the UK, the anti-fracking protests are highlighted and linked to action both in North America and around the world.
This is where the whole thing begins to get interesting. The author makes the case that in an effort to demonstrate to their shareholders that they continue to be a good investment, the fossil fuel companies must continually identify new sources of oil and gas as existing fields mature and decay. Without this continuous pipeline of new discoveries, the companies become worthless. This is prompting the search for unconventional sources of oil and gas because the easy to win, relatively shallow, land-based sources have all been found and are in use.
These unconventional sources include the tar sands in Canada and Venezuela and shale gas in the United States and elsewhere. The same pressures are encouraging Shell and others to explore the potential for tapping into resources within the Arctic circle and the inhospitable reaches of the Southern Ocean. In addition to being more carbon intensive than conventional reserves, these sources of oil and gas are also found in places that are unused to industrial development and the infrastructure necessary to support an oil and gas industry.
While oil and gas exploration was taking place in Saudi Arabia or Iraq, or even in the North Sea, we in the UK, individually, had little connection to it. But the idea of an intensive industrial process such as fracking taking place in some of our most precious landscapes and adjacent to our front and back gardens prompted a new wave of activism by a new group of people. Although initiated by the major environmental NGOs, many of the protests are led by people unused to direct action and the increasingly draconian response of the government suggests that the protests are having an effect. The release of additional tracts of land for shale gas exploration and the government’s attempts to circumvent the planning process means that few of us will be unaffected by this development in the next few years. If this happens, many more people will be prompted to take direct action.
This is where Naomi Klein’s book and another favourite of mine tend to collide. “The Shepherd’s Life – a tale of the Lake District”, by James Rebanks has, on the face of it, little to do with climate change, geopolitics and neoliberalism. But what these two books share is an attempt to help us find our sense of place – geographically, socially and politically. As sheep farmers, looking after a flock of local Herdwick sheep, James Rebanks and his family are deeply rooted in the fells of the Lake District. By continuing a way of life and a family connection they can trace back over 600 years, they work to protect the landscape and the way of life they love (and sometime loathe) and which forms such an important part of what and who they are.
Recent surveys suggest that a significant majority of the population of the UK is against fracking but our democratically elected government thinks it knows better. It has put its weight behind fossil fuels and fracking, while failing to support the renewables industry that is critical to avoiding catastrophic climate change. If the places where we have our roots are threatened, indirectly by climate change but more directly by fracking or other technologies, will we do what is necessary to protect them? This link to a sense of place could be one of the important factors that will help us to stop the oil and gas industry and its political puppets in its tracks.