This Changes Everything Part 3

The last section of the book is mostly about how things are beginning to change and how we should take them further to fully address climate change.

I was struck by how hopeful the last section was. I was expecting more of "what we should do," not "what is happening." It did give me some hope reading about Blockadia and the working with Indigenous groups to stop drilling and use green energy. This hope seemed so wildly different from the feeling of impeding doom from the introduction and first section. However, the hope was mitigated with the conclusion stating how we still have much more radical shifts to make. But it is heartening to see that we are making progress, even if we need more.

We discussed earlier whether this book was a call to revolution or not. I guess it depends on what you define as a revolution. The book is without a doubt a call to action, urging for grassroots resistance to fossil fuel companies. But to me revolution conjures up images of chopping off heads with a guillotine to overthrow a government, which is definitely not what is called for here. What I think is more important is not to necessarily change our entire economic system and government, but rather to change our ideology. It's not capitalism per say that is the problem, but the idea of non-regulation and exploitation. We can still use the land, but do so regeneratively and avoid greed. However, this could be more difficult than a bloody revolution... I also liked how she stated that it is a moral problem and not an economic problem. Yes going green may not be the best for the economy, but it is morally right. I did enjoy the analogy to slavery, although that was still a difficult change to make and involved bloodshed. I know as scientists we try to stay away from the moral side of things, but perhaps we should in this case.

Overall I did really enjoy this book. The flow was much better, even though it was still heavy with detail, and a long read. I did enjoy the personal touches Klein adds to her story, especially the section on fertility. This humanizes the author with an experience that many people can relate do (hits the gut, not just the brain.) Although Klein does seem very radical in the intro and conclusion, the main body of the book doesn't contain much of her radical ideas. I feel like if you remove the intro and conclusion you could ALMOST get a conservative person to agree with her ideas (I'm trying to be optimistic here which goes against my instincts.) We've said many times as a group that we wouldn't give these books to our conservative family members, and I have agreed, but maybe we should just to see how they react and if these books would actually resonate with them.