From Potentiality to Actuality

This Changes Everything was published, with much fanfare, in 2014. Klein's thesis was that climate change presented the greatest opportunity in many decades to enact deep, structural societal change. We are now well into 2018 and the question must be asked: Has anything really changed?

Many will point to various metrics or events; the Paris Accord, the NY City divestment, the stabilization in the rate of emissions, the falling price of renewable energy, etc..and say yes,a great deal has changed. Others cite these same sources and claim they are the illusion of change, that the climate models are if anything more pessimistic now than in 2014. That, barring much more significant intervention, the over-all ecological degradation and creep toward "planetary boundaries" puts us on a catastrophic trajectory. Glass half full/ half empty? Progress or illusion?

Unfortunately the process of investigation/ interrogation of this question is itself fraught with anxiety, fetishistic attachment and emotional investment. Positions harden and are jealously guarded. Motives are questioned and the band-aids ripped off old historical wounds. Klein herself struggled to navigate these tensions, advocating a range of sometimes contradictory positions because guess what- there are no simple solutions. Electoral politics, movement building, protest, activism, theory- she is correct that EVERYTHING changes, including capitalism and Left praxis. The terms of engagement , the field of struggle, perhaps the "structure of experience" itself, all are in flux and yet at the same time the status quo has a revolutionary immutability: the more things change....

What is crucial is to map the terrain accurately enough so you can locate yourself in some sort of relation to an axis or reference points. And in order to do that you have to be able to step back and establish some distance, some critical, reflective non-attachment. And you have to do it in a time of profound urgency. Klein's critique also called out some folks (what she called Big Green) and their failed strategy. It is part of the work and requires some rigor but this is no time for snowflakes and accommodation just to spare people's feelings.