by Adi Varshneya 

Climate activist, author, and filmmaker Naomi Klein spoke at NYU’s Tishman Auditorium on Friday evening as part of the Educating for Sustainability series. The series focuses on women on the forefront of the environmental movement and is a collaboration between Office of Sustainability and EarthMatters, the largest environmental student group at NYU.

Klein is well known for her criticism of global corporate capitalism, continually stressing the incompatibility between neoliberalism and climate justice throughout her speech. She makes two key points: firstly, neoliberal policy inhibits the public investments needed to combat climate change. A weak public sphere cannot implement clean energy, extend public transport, and improve infrastructure. Secondly, neoliberal ideology is centered around a growth imperative. While marginal growth is possible alongside marginal emission reductions, 2016 is no longer a time for marginal improvements. Our leaders have waited far too long to take action. If we want to keep global temperature increases below 1.5-2 degrees Celsius and prevent climate catastrophe, we need to act radically and begin making systematic changes in our governments and economies.

Environmentalism has a reputation as a privileged movement – to many, environmental concern appears to be something for people who have the luxury of not struggling with issues like poverty or institutional racism. It was almost a relief to hear a prominent activist stating that combating climate change will never be a universal priority. Klein argued that the environmental movement loses support when we attempt to convince people that the environment matters more than their own problems, and advised students at the leaders’ roundtable held after her speech to “connect the work [they] are doing to other social incentives.” Climate change, Klein noted, is an accelerant to not only weather conditions but also existing inequalities; these existing inequalities are exacerbated by neoliberal policies and a weak public sphere just as climate change is. It is integral for climate activists to address what she calls “multiple overlapping crises” – we need to create and fight for integrated solutions that reduce carbon emissions, create living-wages, unionized jobs, and look to rectify race and gender inequalities.

Klein outlined some of the plans for these integrated solutions in her rundown of “The Leap Manifesto,” a policy document directed at the Canadian government co-written by Klein and a number of environmental and social justice specialists. The “leap” towards a better system begins with addressing indigenous rights: all communities, particularly the indigenous ones that have been on the frontline of natural resource protection, should have collective control of their own clean energy systems. Carbon workers should be retrained to work in the new green economy – interestingly, this does not necessarily mean jobs in clean energy. Fields like teaching, public-interest media, the arts, and social work are carbon neutral, thus “green,” and simultaneously contribute social good. Intersectionality is key and a solution that benefits all is possible, but this requires a transformation out of the extractive, neoliberal economy and into a new economy of caring.

As an active member of NYU’s environmental community, I appreciate Klein’s refreshing optimism in a field that can tend to inspire pessimism and frustration. “Don’t just say no to the status quo,” Naomi Klein urged the audience, “but say yes to something better.”

Adi Varshneya is a junior majoring in Metropolitan Studies with a minor in Environmental Studies. She is the campaign coordinator for NYU Take Back the Tap, a member of Real Food Challenge, and an EarthMatters E-Board member. She spends her spare time experimenting with recipes and reading in parks.