This Changes Everything

by Naomi Klein

  16. Ibid.; Hans Joachim Schellnhuber et al., “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided,” A Report for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, November 2012, p. xviii; Kevin Anderson, “Climate Change Going Beyond Dangerous—Brutal Numbers and Tenuous Hope,” Development Dialogue no. 61, September 2012, p. 29.

  17. For general overviews synthesizing scientific research on the likely impacts of a 4 degrees C world, refer to Schellnhuber et al., “Turn Down the Heat,” as well as the special theme issue entitled “Four Degrees and Beyond: the Potential for a Global Temperature Increase of Four Degrees and its Implications,” compiled and edited by Mark G. New et al., Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A 369 (2011): 1-241. In 2013, the World Bank released a follow up report exploring the regional impacts of a 4 degree temperature rise, with a focus on Africa and Asia: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber et al., “Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience,” A Report for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, June 2013. Even for the most emissions-intensive scenarios that could lead to 4 degrees of warming, IPCC global sea level rise projections are lower than those cited here, but many experts regard them as too conservative. For examples of research informing this passage, see Schellnhuber et al., “Turn Down the Heat,” p. 29; Anders Levermann et al., “The Multimillennial Sea-Level Commitment of Global Warming,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (2013): 13748; Benjamin P. Horton et al., “Expert Assessment of Sea-level Rise by AD 2100 and AD 2300,” Quaternary Science Reviews 84 (2014): 1-6. For more information about the vulnerability of small island nations and coastal areas of Latin America and South and Southeast Asia to sea level rise under “business as usual” and other emissions scenarios (including more optimistic ones), refer to the Working Group II contributions to the 4th and 5th Assessment Reports of the IPCC, both available at http://www.ipcc.ch See chapters 10, 13, and 16 of M.L. Perry et al., ed., Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and chapters 24, 27, and 29 of V.R. Barros et al., ed., Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Part B: Regional Aspects, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). On California and the northeastern United States, see Matthew Heberger et al., “Potential Impacts of Increased Coastal Flooding in California Due to Sea-Level Rise,” Climatic Change 109, Issue 1 Supplement (2011): 229-249; and Asbury H. Sallenger Jr., Kara S. Doran, and Peter A. Howd, “Hotspot of Accelerated Sea-Level Rise on the Atlantic Coast of North America,” Nature Climate Change 2 (2012): 884-888. For a recent analysis of major cities that may be particularly threatened by sea level rise, see: Stephane Hallegatte et al., “Future Flood Losses in Major Coastal Cities,” Nature Climate Change 3 (2013): 802-806.

  18. For an overview of regional temperature increases associated with a global rise of 4 degrees C or more, see: M.G. Sanderson, D.L. Hemming and R.A. Betts, “Regional Temperature and Precipitation Changes Under High-end ( ≥4°C) Global Warming,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369 (2011): 85-98. See also: “Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia,” Committee on Stabilization Targets for Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Concentrations, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, 2011, p. 31; Schellnhuber et al., “Turn Down the Heat,” pp. 37–41. TENS OF THOUSANDS: Jean-Marie Robine et al., “Death Toll Exceeded 70,000 in Europe During the Summer of 2003,” Comptes Rendus Biologies 331 (2008): 171-78; CROP LOSSES: “Climate Stabilization Targets,” National Academy of Sciences, pp. 160–63.

  19. ICE-FREE ARCTIC: Ibid., pp. 132–36. VEGETATION: Andrew D. Friend et al., “Carbon Residence Time Dominates Uncertainty in Terrestrial Vegetation Responses to Future Climate and Atmospheric CO2,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (2014): 3280; “4 Degree Temperature Rise Will End Vegetation ‘Carbon Sink,’ ” University of Cambridge, press release, December 17, 2013; WEST ANTARCTICA STUDY: E. Rignot et al., “Widespread, Rapid Grounding Line Retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and Kohler Glaciers, West Antarctica, from 1992 to 2011,” Geophysical Research Letters 41 (2014): 3502–3509; “APPEARS UNSTOPPABLE”: “West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable,” Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, press release, May 12, 2014; “DISPLACE MILLIONS” AND STILL TIME: Eric Rignot, “Global Warming: It’s a Point of No Return in West Antarctica. What Happens Next?” Observer, May 17, 2014.

  20. “World Energy Outlook 2011,” International Energy Agency, 2011, p. 40; “World Energy Outlook 2011” (video), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 28, 2011; Timothy M. Lenton et al., “Tipping Elements in the Earth’s Climate System,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (2008): 1788; “Too Late for Two Degrees?” Low Carbon Economy Index 2012, PricewaterhouseCoopers, November 2012, p. 1.

  21. Lonnie G. Thompson, “Climate Change: The Evidence and Our Options,” The Behavior Analyst 33 (2010): 153.

  22. In the U.S., Britain, and Canada, terms for “victory gardens” and “victory bonds” differed between countries and from World War I to World War II; other terms used included “war gardens” and “defense bonds,” for example. Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 54–55; Amy Bentley, Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 138–39; Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Statement Encouraging Victory Gardens,” April 1, 1944, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu.

  23. Pablo Solón, “Climate Change: We Need to Guarantee the Right to Not Migrate,” Focus on the Global South, http://focusweb.org.

  24. Glen P. Peters et al., “Rapid Growth in CO2 Emissions After the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis,” Nature Climate Change 2 (2012): 2.

  25. Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 149.

  26. Corrine Le Quéré et al., “Trends in the Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide,” Nature Geoscience 2 (2009): 831, as cited in Andreas Malm, “China as Chimney of the World: The Fossil Capital Hypothesis,” Organization & Environment 25 (2012): 146; Glen P. Peters et al., “Rapid Growth in CO2 Emissions After the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis,” Nature Climate Change 2 (2012): 2.

  27. Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows, “Beyond ‘Dangerous’ Climate Change: Emission Scenarios for a New World,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369 (2011): 35; Kevin Anderson, “EU 2030 Decarbonisation Targets and UK Carbon Budgets: Why So Little Science?” Kevin Anderson.info, June 14, 2013, http://kevinanderson.info.

  28. Gro Harlem Brundtland et al., “Environment and Development Challenges: The Imperative to Act,” joint paper by the Blue Planet Prize laureates, The Asahi Glass Foundation, February 20, 2012, p. 7.

  29. “World Energy Outlook 2011,” IEA, p. 40; James Herron, “Energy Agency Warns Governments to Take Action Against Global Warming,” Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2011.

  30. Personal interview with Henry Red Cloud, June 22, 2011.

  31. Gary Stix, “Effective World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate Catastrophe,” Scientific American, March 17, 2012.

  32. Daniel Cusick, “Rapid Climate Changes Turn North Woods into Moose Graveyard,” Scientific American, May 18, 2012; Jim Robbins, “Moose Die-Off Alarms Scientists,” New York Times, October 14, 2013.

  33. Josh Bavas, “About 100,000 Bats Dead After Heatwave in Southern Queensland,” ABC News (Australia), January 8, 2014.

  34. Darryl Fears, “Sea Stars Are Wasting Away in Larger Numbers on a Wider Scale in Two Oceans,” Washington Post
, November 22, 2013; Amanda Stupi, “What We Know—And Don’t Know—About the Sea Star Die-Off,” KQED, March 7, 2014.

  PART I: BAD TIMING

  1. William Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal-Mines (London: Macmillan and Co., 1865), viii.

  2. Hugo’s original: “C’est une triste chose de songer que la nature parle et que le genre humain n’écoute pas.” Victor Hugo, Œuvres complètes de Victor Hugo, Vol. 35, ed. Jeanlouis Cornuz (Paris: Éditions Recontre, 1968), 145.

  CHAPTER 1: THE RIGHT IS RIGHT

  1. Mario Malina et al., “What We Know: The Reality, Risks and Response to Climate Change,” AAAS Climate Science Panel, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2014, p. 3.

  2. Thomas J. Donohue, “Managing a Changing Climate: Challenges and Opportunities for the Buckeye State, Remarks,” speech, Columbus, Ohio, May 1, 2008.

  3. Session 4: Public Policy Realities (video), 6th International Conference on Climate Change, The Heartland Institute, June 30, 2011.

  4. Ibid.

  5. “Va. Taxpayers Request Records from University of Virginia on Climate Scientist Michael Mann,” American Tradition Institute, press release, January 6, 2011; Christopher Horner, “ATI Environmental Law Center Appeals NASA Denial of Request for Dr. James Hansen’s Ethics Disclosures,” American Tradition Institute, press release, March 16, 2011; Session 4: Public Policy Realities (video), The Heartland Institute.

  6. Obama for America, “Barack Obama’s Plan to Make America a Global Energy Leader,” October 2007; personal interview with Patrick Michaels, July 1, 2011; Session 5: Sharpening the Scientific Debate (video), The Heartland Institute; personal interview with Marc Morano, July 1, 2011.

  7. Larry Bell, Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax (Austin: Greenleaf, 2011), xi.

  8. Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, “Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Eos 90, (2009): 22-23; William R. L. Anderegg et al., “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (2010): 12107-12109.

  9. Keynote Address (video), The Heartland Institute, July 1, 2011; Bob Carter, “There IS a Problem with Global Warming . . . It Stopped in 1998,” Daily Telegraph, April 9, 2006; Willie Soon and David R. Legates, “Avoiding Carbon Myopia: Three Considerations for Policy Makers Concerning Manmade Carbon Dioxide,” Ecology Law Currents 37 (2010): 3; Willie Soon, “It’s the Sun, Stupid!” The Heartland Institute, March 1, 2009, http://heartland.org; Keynote Address (video), The Heartland Institute, June 30, 2011.

  10. Personal interview with Joseph Bast, June 30, 2011.

  11. In the years following the conference, news coverage rebounded to twenty-nine stories in 2012 and thirty stories in 2013. Douglas Fischer, “Climate Coverage Down Again in 2011,” The Daily Climate, January 3, 2012; Douglas Fischer, “Climate Coverage Soars in 2013, Spurred by Energy, Weather,” The Daily Climate, January 2, 2014.

  12. Joseph Bast, “Why Won’t Al Gore Debate?” The Heartland Institute, press release, June 27, 2007; Will Lester, “Vietnam Veterans to Air Anti-Kerry Ads in W. Va.,” Associated Press, August 4, 2004; Leslie Kaufman, “Dissenter on Warming Expands His Campaign,” New York Times, April 9, 2009; John H. Richardson, “This Man Wants to Convince You Global Warming Is a Hoax,” Esquire, March 30, 2010; Session 4: Public Policy Realities (video), The Heartland Institute.

  13. “Big Drop in Those Who Believe That Global Warming Is Coming,” Harris Interactive, press release, December 2, 2009; “Most Americans Think Devastating Natural Disasters Are Increasing,” Harris Interactive, press release, July 7, 2011; personal interview with Scott Keeter, September 12, 2011.

  14. Lydia Saad, “A Steady 57% in U.S. Blame Humans for Global Warming,” Gallup Politics, March 18, 2014; “October 2013 Political Survey: Final Topline,” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, October 9–13, 2013, p. 1; personal email communication with Riley Dunlap, March 29, 2014.

  15. DEMOCRATS AND LIBERALS: Aaron M. McCright and Riley E. Dunlap, “The Politicization of Climate Change and Polarization in the American Public’s Views of Global Warming 2001–2010,” The Sociological Quarterly 52 (2011): 188, 193; Saad, “A Steady 57% in U.S. Blame Humans for Global Warming”; REPUBLICANS: Anthony Leiserowitz et al., “Politics and Global Warming: Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and the Tea Party,” Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, 2011, pp. 3–4; 20 PERCENT: Lawrence C. Hamilton, “Climate Change: Partisanship, Understanding, and Public Opinion,” Carsey Institute, Spring 2011, p. 4; OCTOBER 2013 POLL: “Focus Canada 2013: Canadian Public Opinion About Climate Change,” The Environics Institute, November 18, 2013, http://www.environicsinstitute.org; AUSTRALIA, U.K., AND WESTERN EUROPE: Bruce Tranter, “Political Divisions over Climate Change and Environmental Issues in Australia,” Environmental Politics 20 (2011): 78-96; Ben Clements, “Exploring public opinion on the issue of climate change in Britain,” British Politics 7 (2012): 183-202; Aaron M. McCright, Riley E. Dunlap, and Sandra T. Marquart-Pyatt, “Climate Change and Political Ideology in the European Union,” Michigan State University, working paper, 2014.

  16. For a broad, accessible overview of the study of right-wing science denial, see Chris Mooney, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2012). CULTURAL WORLDVIEW: Dan M. Kahan et al., “The Second National Risk and Culture Study: Making Sense of—and Making Progress in—the American Culture War of Fact,” The Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School, September 27, 2007, p. 4, available at http://www.culturalcognition.net.

  17. Dan Kahan, “Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk,” in Handbook of Risk Theory: Epistemology, Decision Theory, Ethics, and Social Implications of Risk, ed. Sabine Roeser et al. (London: Springer, 2012), 731.

  18. Kahan et al., “The Second National Risk and Culture Study,” p. 4.

  19. Dan Kahan, “Fixing the Communications Failure,” Nature 463 (2010): 296; Dan Kahan et al., “Book Review—Fear of Democracy: A Cultural Evaluation of Sunstein on Risk,” Harvard Law Review 119 (2006): 1083.

  20. Kahan, “Fixing the Communications Failure,” 296.

  21. Rebecca Rifkin, “Climate Change Not a Top Worry in U.S.,” Gallup, March 12, 2014; “Deficit Reduction Declines as Policy Priority,” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, January 27, 2014; “Thirteen Years of the Public’s Top Priorities,” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, January 27, 2014, http://www.people-press.org.

  22. Heather Gass, “EBTP at the One Bay Area Agenda 21 Meeting,” East Bay Tea Party, May 7, 2011, http://www.theeastbayteaparty.com.

  23. For more on the conservative movement’s role in climate change denial, see: Riley E. Dunlap and Aaron M. McCright, “Organized Climate Change Denial,” in The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, ed. John S. Dryzek, Richard B. Norgaard, and David Schlosberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 144–160; and Aaron M. McCright and Riley E. Dunlap, “Anti-Reflexivity: The American Conservative Movement’s Success in Undermining Climate Science and Policy,” Theory, Culture, and Society 27 (2010): 100–133. DENIAL BOOKS STUDY: Riley E. Dunlap and Peter J. Jacques, “Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks: Exploring the Connection,” American Behavioral Scientist 57 (2013): 705–706.

  24. Bast interview, June 30, 2011.

  25. Robert Manne, “How Can Climate Change Denialism Be Explained?” The Monthly, December 8, 2011.

  26. GORE: “Al Gore Increases His Carbon Footprint, Buys House in Ritzy Santa Barbara Neighborhood,” Hate the Media! May 2, 2010; HANSEN: William Lajeunesse, “NASA Scientist Accused of Using Celeb Status Among Environmental Groups to Enrich Himself,” Fox News, June 22, 2011; Christopher Horner, “A Brief Summary of James E. Hansen’s NASA Ethics File,” American Tradition Institute,
November 18, 2011; VINDICATED: David Adam, “ ‘Climategate’ Review Clears Scientists of Dishonesty over Data,” Guardian, July 7, 2010; FUELED: James Delingpole, “Climategate: The Final Nail in the Coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?” Daily Telegraph, November 20, 2009; James Delingpole, “Climategate: FOIA—The Man Who Saved the World,” Daily Telegraph, March 13, 2013; BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN: Wendy Koch, “Climate Wars Heat Up with Pulled Unabomber Billboards,” USA Today, May 4, 2012.

  27. Personal interview with James Delingpole, July 1, 2011; Bast interview, June 30, 2011.

  28. Bast interview, July 1, 2011.

  29. “The Rt Hon. Lord Lawson of Blaby,” Celebrity Speakers, http://www.speakers.co.uk; Nigel Lawson, The View from No. 11: Britain’s Longest-Serving Cabinet Member Recalls the Triumphs and Disappointments of the Thatcher Era (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 152–62, 237–40; Tim Rayment and David Smith, “Should High Earners Pay Less Tax,” The Times (London), September 11, 2011; Nigel Lawson, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming (New York: Duckworth Overlook, 2008), 101.

  30. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt (New York: Bloomsbury, 2010), 5, 25–26, 82, 135,164; Václav Klaus, “The Climate Change Doctrine Is Part of Environmentalism, Not of Science,” Inaugural Annual GWPF Lecture, October 19, 2010, http://www.thegwpf.org.

  31. Robert J. Brulle, “Institutionalizing Delay: Foundation Funding and the Creation of U.S. Climate Change Counter-Movement Organizations,” Climatic Change 122 (2014): 681.

  32. In addition to questioning whether the concept of “worldview” is truly distinct from political ideology and possesses unique explanatory power, social scientists have criticized cultural cognition theory for neglecting the structural drivers of the climate change denial movement. For key examples of scholarship focusing on the social, political, and economic dynamics of that movement, see Dunlap and McCright, “Organized Climate Change Denial,” and McCright and Dunlap, “Anti-Reflexivity.” On the Heartland Institute’s funding: according to Greenpeace USA’s ExxonSecrets project, the organization “has received $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998”; according to Heartland itself, it received a total of $100,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 1992 and 1993 and $50,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation in 1994; and according to the Conservative Transparency database maintained by the American Bridge 21st Century Foundation, Heartland received an additional total of $42,578 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation between 1986 and 1989 and in 2011, an additional total of $225,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation between 1988 and 1991 and in 1995, a total of $40,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation (connected to the Koch family) between 1992 and 1999, and a total of $10,000 from The Carthage Foundation (a Scaife foundation) in 1986. See: “Factsheet: Heartland Institute,” ExxonSecrets.org, Greenpeace USA, http://www.exxonsecrets.org; Joseph L. Bast, “A Heartland Letter to People for the American Way,” The Heartland Institute, August 20, 1996, http://heartland.org; “Heartland Institute,” Conservative Transparency, Bridge Project, American Bridge 21st Century Foundation, http://conservativetransparency.org. “MERITS OF OUR POSITIONS”: “Reply to Our Critics,” The Heartland Institute, http://heartland.org/reply-to-critics; LEAKED DOCUMENTS: “2012 Fund-raising Plan,” The Heartland Institute, January 15, 2012, pp. 20–21.