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.
A genuine transformation that results from sustained concerted effort is long lasting because it has a firm foundation.
What are you willing to give up, in order to become who you really need to be?
Most kids just follow the cycle. My grandfather didn't finish high school. My father didn't, and I didn't. But you can break the cycle. You can have a successful marriage and be a good father.
We should live and labor in our time that what came to us as a seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and what came to us as blossom, may go to them as fruit. This is what we mean by progress.
All beginnings are somewhat strange; but we must have patience, and little by little, we shall find things, which at first were obscure, becoming clearer.
They ask me if I'm going to quit. I thought we were just getting started. We have a revolution to fight, a country to change.
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