Naomi Klein: the hypocrisy behind the big business climate change battle

[kpete]

Naomi Klein: the hypocrisy behind the big business climate change battle
Soon after reporting on the 2010 BP oil spill, Naomi Klein found she was pregnant – and miscarried. Was there a connection? She looks at the 'greenwashing' of big business and its effects



I denied climate change for longer than I care to admit. I knew it was happening, sure. But I stayed pretty hazy on the details and only skimmed most news stories. I told myself the science was too complicated and the environmentalists were dealing with it. And I continued to behave as if there was nothing wrong with the shiny card in my wallet attesting to my "elite" frequent-flyer status.

A great many of us engage in this kind of denial. We look for a split second and then we look away. Or maybe we do really look, but then we forget. We engage in this odd form of on-again-off-again ecological amnesia for perfectly rational reasons. We deny because we fear that letting in the full reality of this crisis will change everything.

And we are right. If we continue on our current path of allowing emissions to rise year after year, major cities will drown, ancient cultures will be swallowed by the seas; our children will spend much of their lives fleeing and recovering from vicious storms and extreme droughts. Yet we continue all the same.

What is wrong with us? I think the answer is far more simple than many have led us to believe: we have not done the things needed to cut emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have struggled to find a way out of this crisis. We are stuck, because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe – and benefit the vast majority – are threatening to an elite minority with a stranglehold over our economy, political process and media.

the rest:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/13/greenwashing-sticky-business-naomi-klein

[TreasonousBastard]

1. This seems to be more about Naomi Klein...

than about climate change.

[2banon]

3. Obviously you didn't read the article.

evidenced in your remarks.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Actually, I did, and...

while she mentions a lot of things, she does tend to bring it back to "I saw..." "I felt..." an awful lot. It'a not centered so much on environmental subjects so much as her views and experiences with them

Also, she talks of problems, but we all talk of problems-- where are the solutions?

[rhett o rick]

5. Help me guess what your point is. You don't like Ms. Klein? You don't care about climate change?

You don't like The Guardian? Help me out.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. theere is nothing new in the article...

and one would think that someone being paid for writing would write something better.

[rhett o rick]

10. I see, nothing new. I got something new for you, the Palins got in a brawl. nm

[NaturalHigh]

7. Well, I would find it hard to disagree.

Maybe that's just her style. I haven't read much of her stuff.

[MADem]

2. Naomi Klein was forty years old in 2010.

https://sites.google.com/site/miscarriageresearch/miscarriage-general

Miscarriage risk increases 12% after age 30; goes up 39% after age 35; doubles after age 40

In a large cohort of patients who received infertility treatment, the odds ratios regarding risk of miscarriage were as follows: age <30 odds ratio = 1; age 30-34.9 odds ratio = 1.12; age 35 to 39.9 odds ratio = 1.39; age >40 odds ratio = 2.62.
http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v10/n6/full/oby200274a.html

Miscarriage risk increases after age 35; increases 5 fold after age 40

There was no difference in odds of miscarriage below the age of 35 years, but the odds rose sharply thereafter, with a 75% increase for mothers aged 35–39 years and a five-fold increase where the mother was aged 40 and above (relative to mothers aged 25–29 years).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-0528.2006.01193.x/full

Miscarriage risk doubles after age 40 and triples after age 45

With adjustment for gravidity and number of previous miscarriages, the relative risk of miscarriage remained near unity through age 30 years, after which it increased to 2.0 at age 40 years and 3.0 at age 45 years.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3273482

Having a partner over 40 years old increases risk of miscarriage by 60%

The adjusted odds ratio for spontaneous abortion was 0.59 for pregnancies conceived from fathers aged younger than 25 years compared with those from fathers aged 25-29 years. For fathers age 40 years or older the odds ratio for spontaneous abortion was 1.6 when compared with the same reference group. Logistic regression was used to adjust for maternal age, maternal diabetes, maternal smoking, history of miscarriage before the index pregnancy, parity at interview, and interval between the index pregnancy and the interview.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16880308

I'd need more evidence to attribute her unfortunate event to the BP spill, and not other contributors.

[greatlaurel]

8. The volatile organic compounds emitted into the air from oil spills are highly toxic.

Breathing the emissions for substantial periods of time could very well cause a woman to miscarry. If you do not believe it then go look up the constituents of crude oil in the Toxic Chemical Substances Inventory http://www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/tscainventory/index.html The information about the extremely devastating health impacts from the BP oil spill in the Gulf has been suppressed effectively.

Good for Ms. Klein for speaking out.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Naomi brings it home, this is splendidly written, combining the macro and micro.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.