While this is a compelling story, it also creates the paradoxical effect of making this perspicacious and successful author seem like an idiot. “I told myself that the science was too complicated and that the environmentalists were dealing with it.” She then takes us into her realization that not only carbon but capitalism must be destroyed, a story that she weaves in with her fertility battles and the birth of her son. “I denied climate change for longer than I care to admit,” she writes. In her telling, she was, until just five years ago, a complete naif about climate change.
Manifestoes are often most powerful if the author plays a role in them, so this perhaps explains why Klein includes a problematic introductory section that frames the entire book as a Saul-to-Damascus story of her own coming to grips with climate change. Citing the Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol, Klein argues that the “major barrier to success” in climate change has been the “absence of a mass movement applying pressure from below.”īut while the book is a symphonic synthesis of ideas and polemic, of reportage and activism, and a bracing call to action, it is not only unlikely to spark a new global movement against carbon, but capitalism, too. The book is a manifesto-a single-handed attempt to galvanize the world to take to the streets.
Especially because she wants to change the world with this book. But we’re talking about Naomi Klein, author of the bestsellers No Logo and The Shock Doctrine-so these rankings matter a lot more. For most authors, just getting on any bestseller list would be a huge victory. 14 on The New York Times bestseller list. Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything recently dropped from No.
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