Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.
Naomi KleinRead
I think I would say that there is absolutely no way to reconcile an austerity agenda with climate action. Our political class needs to understand that the fight against austerity and the fight for climate action are the same fight.
Interpretation
Austerity measures and climate action are interconnected challenges that cannot be resolved separately.
Naomi Klein emphasizes that the fight against austerity is inseparable from the fight for climate action, advocating for a unified approach to address both issues. She argues that those in power must recognize that economic policies, particularly austerity, directly impact our ability to combat climate change, and therefore, a holistic perspective on these challenges is essential for creating sustainable solutions.
In practice
In a speech discussing economic reforms and environmental policies.
Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.
Because it is such a huge crisis, because it puts us on a firm science-based deadline, it's a once-in-a-century opportunity to build a better society and address raging inequality, create huge numbers of jobs, rebuild our public infrastructure. But, we can't do it unless we break every single rule in the free-market playbook. Which is why the worst people in the world all deny climate change.
Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses.
Everybody that's trying to get anything progressive done in this country knows that the biggest barrier is getting money out of politics.
I think the fossil fuel industry is genuinely freaked out by the combination of the price collapse, the divestment movement, and that fact that renewable energy is getting so cheap so fast.
As I was writing 'The Shock Doctrine', I was covering the Iraq War and profiteering from the war, and I started to see these patterns repeat in the aftermath of natural disasters, like the Asian tsunami and then Hurricane Katrina.
General Howard informed me, in a haughty spirit, that he would give my people 30 days to go back home, collect all their stock, and move onto the reservation.
Irrespective of todays judgment and the price we had to pay in this generation, we were able to close an epoch of divisions, different blocs and borders, opening the way for an era of globalization.
One has to change one's life. Maybe this is easier for people who have nothing to do than for those who have something to do.
One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.
I have seen for the first time in 100 years of conflict, the two peoples - the Israeli people and the Palestinian people - are ahead of their leaderships.
There is - and always will be - the legacy of chattel slavery in this nation, an obsession with racial and gender differences, but I think that, at its best, this nation is capable of creating standards for itself and reaching towards those standards.
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