Shaping the world
This project is a response to the ISTD brief titled “Shaping the World.” Consideration is given to themes in Naomi Kleins seminal book “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,” in which Klein pins the blame for the climate crisis squarely on capitalism. Published in 2014 it was significant then and to a much greater extent now. The global climate crisis cannot be addressed in the current era of neoliberal market fundamentalism.
Because its several years since it was published, I am in effect repeating some of Naomi Klein’s contentions but also, contextualising and updating them. Some of this project’s content is in book form and, approximately mapped out. The two square meter mapping out, is representative of the surface of the earth. It sits between a map, timeline, chart, and diagram. Then it has various smaller parts. This places in visual form connections between people, events, places, and organisations drawn from themes in Kleins text.
There is a ‘map of footnotes’ in chronological order placed at the beginning of ‘This Changes Nothing’ that distil politics, economics, and history. The text then offers vignettes that traverse carbon offsetting and ‘greenwashing,’ energy security, extractive projects, the Arctic, Just Stop Oil, responsibility and control within the media, global warming, Australia; including the black summer, great barrier reef and Indigenous, funding and support by organisations that contribute significantly to Republican candidates, in particular ones that lobby against efforts to expand government’s role in health care and climate change mitigation or promote climate change denial.
Fossil fuels are referenced two hundred and seventy-four times by Naomi Klein in her ground-breaking book on climate change and capitalism. Because of their origins, fossil fuels have
a high carbon content. The words ‘climate change’ are conspicuous in their absence among releases from almost all our political representatives, who ‘Never Waste a Crisis’ and advise that we should double down on our use of fossil fuels. The United States, Canada and eighteen other countries including Ireland, committed at the COP26 climate summit to stop public financing for fossil fuel projects and steer their spending into clean energy instead. Vladimir Putin’s criminal aggression is not only devastating Ukraine it has also administered a severe blow to the efforts to save the planet.
Naomi Klein asks how the renewable energy sector could receive supports to replace fossil fuels around the world. Fifty three percent of Irelands electricity during February 2022 came from wind power and solar is a technology that has minimal impact on the environment.
