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1-Page Summary of This Changes Everything

Overall Summary

In This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein explores the issue of climate change from a political perspective. She argues that despite scientific consensus on the dangers of climate change, we have not taken enough action to reduce emissions and live in an environmentally sustainable way. The reason for this is because our economic system is based on profit and growth at all costs—and what’s needed to avoid environmental catastrophe are sweeping changes that go against that model.

To reduce carbon emissions, we must change everything. We need to think outside of the box and outside of our current way of life. We need a new model for economics and living that will work with nature rather than against it.

Klein also argues that fighting climate change is linked to social justice. She believes a mass movement is necessary, as well as a grass-roots effort to draw together various strands of existing movements and struggles.

Klein looks at the political obstacles to climate change, including the climate-change-denial movement and the rise of neoliberalism. She also examines how big green organizations have been coopted by corporate interests. Additionally, she discusses large-scale technological solutions to climate change.

Klein analyzes the values and policies that are needed to combat climate change. She considers Germany’s renewable energy infrastructure, eco-agriculture, international regulations, tax models for funding green public projects and more.

Finally, she looks at the movement that is growing to fight against fossil fuel expansion and hopes it will lead to more sustainable policies. She sees the beginning of this movement in local struggles around the world referred to as “Blockadia.”

The movement against fossil fuels has drawn people together from different backgrounds and cultures. The movement is also bringing indigenous communities and non-indigenous communities together to fight for their land, environment, and the planet as a whole.

Klein organizes her book into three parts. Part 1 is called “Bad Timing” and explores the political context in which climate change has been fought, as well as the political dimensions of climate change policy. The timing she’s referring to is bad because it came at a time when neoliberalism was dominant globally.

Part 2, “Magical Thinking,” looks at the various attempts to solve climate change that haven’t worked: large green groups partnering with big business; billionaires and philanthropists trying to find solutions on their own terms; and geo-engineering. These are all examples of what Klein calls “magical thinking.”

Part 3, “Starting Anyway,” is about the resistance to fossil fuels and the community-led solutions for climate change. It explores how indigenous people are integral to this movement and what their role will be in it.

The book is divided into three parts. Each part has a series of chapters, and each chapter contains subsections. This study guide follows the author’s chosen structure and provides summaries for each subsection.

“One Way or Another, Everything Changes” (Pages 1-8)

Klein starts with a story about a plane that got stuck in the tarmac during the summer of 2012. It was unusually hot, which is due to “profligate burning of fossil fuels.”

The metaphor of the plane crash is a perfect analogy for our responses to climate change. We are pushing the earth’s resources to breaking point and ignoring warnings from nature itself. Instead of stopping, we’re doubling down on fossil fuels which caused this crisis in the first place.

Author Naomi Klein says she used to be a climate denier, in the way that most of us are. She was not fully aware of the problem and chose to live her life normally. She gives examples of possible reasons for this: Technology will come to the rescue or we can only focus on ourselves.