The World Is On Fire, But There’s One Way Out

In her latest book, Naomi Klein makes the case for a Green New Deal.

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The dire urgency of the climate crisis is now a global five-alarm fire. For the United States to begin to extinguish the flames, the country will need to completely restructure its social and political systems. That’s where the Green New Deal comes in.

Veteran activist and environmentalist Naomi Klein rejects the idea that climate solutions should be comfortable, or that they should work within existing capitalist structures, or that “infinite growth on a finite planet is an OK thing.” Her new book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, explains how those in power, on every level, have refused to act against impending peril—and how a Green New Deal could reinvigorate our climate while providing options for economic growth.

“When capitalism produces crises, it naturally lends itself to progressive breakthroughs,” Klein told Mother Jones Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffrey on stage at the First Congregational Church of Oakland late last month. “This is this is the way people logically respond when capitalism produces crises that create massive misery. Let’s have a different system.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s provides a groundwork for restructuring capitalism in today’s society. As Klein tells Jeffrey, the New Deal did more than revitalize the economy during the Great Depression by breaking up the banks and instituting Social Security and unemployment insurance. It also addressed the ecological crisis of the Dust Bowl by creating the Civilian Conservation Corps, which planted 2.3 billion trees.

“If you look at where FDR put the Civilian Conservation camps,” Klein said, “he seemingly deliberately put them in parts of the country that didn’t vote for him. You know, in rural areas that had voted Republican. And a lot of those areas flipped.”

So, hardcore climate deniers and eco-fascists aside, Klein thinks it’s possible to sell conservatives on a progressive agenda. But the feasibility of a Green New Deal doesn’t mean things are all bright and cheery.

“I’m terrified. I am grieving for so much that we’ve already lost, and it will never be OK that we lost it,” Klein said. “If we can see any path, no matter how narrow, it is where we could build a future that could have more real solidarity in it, much more humanity reconnecting with the natural world and with each other.”

Tune in to this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast to hear Klein’s and Jeffrey’s wide-ranging discussion of the ecological challenges the United States faces today, the way the climate crisis is intertwined with countless other social issues, and, as a bonus, the merits of impeaching our current president.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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