Quotessence
Home / Books / On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal

On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal

Book by Naomi Klein · 3 quotes · Green New Deal, Climate Change, Social Justice

Filter quotes by topic

AllGreen New DealClimate ChangeSocial JusticeEconomic JusticeEnvironmental JusticeClimate CrisisEnvironmentalismHumanityClimate JusticeEcologyGlobal WarmingStorytellingActivismArtCapitalismCarbon EmissionsChangeClimate DenialismClimate ResilienceCommunity

On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal Quotes

“We have dangerously warmed our world already, and our governments still refuse to take the actions necessary to halt the trend. There was a time when many had the right to claim ignorance. But for the past three decades, since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was created and climate negotiations began, this refusal to lower emissions has been accompanied with full awareness of the dangers. And this kind of recklessness would have been functionally impossible without institutional racism, even if only latent. It would have been impossible without Orientalism, without all the potent tools on offer that allow the powerful to discount the lives of the less powerful. These tools - of ranking the relative value of humans - are what allow the writing off of entire nations and ancient cultures. And they are what allowed for the digging up of all that carbon to begin with.”

HumanityRacismGlobal WarmingEnvironmentalismCarbon EmissionsOrientalismOtheringGreen New Deal
Book:On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal
Create image

“Indigenous people from Brazil to Uganda are finding that some of the most aggressive land grabbing is being done by conservation organizations. A forest is suddenly rebranded a carbon offset and is put off-limits to its traditional inhabitants. As a result, the carbon offset market has created a whole new class of green human rights abuses, with farmers and Indigenous people being physically attacked by park rangers or private security when they try to access these lands.”

EnvironmentHuman RightsEcologyEnvironmentalismGreen New DealHuman Rights Abuses
Book:On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal
Create image

“Let's stop making the same old mistakes. Here are a few, but I trust that you will silently add your own: Projecting messianic fantasies onto politicians. Thinking the market will fix it. Building a movement made up entirely of upper-middle-class white people and wondering why people of color don't want to join 'our movement.' Tearing each other to bloody shreds because it's easier to do that than go after the forces most responsible for this mess. These are social change clichés, and they are getting really boring. We don't have the right to demand perfection from each other. But we do have the right to expect progress. To demand evolution. So, let's make some new mistakes. Let's make new mistakes as we break through our silos and build the kind of beautifully diverse and justice-hungry movement that actually has a chance of winning - winning against the powerful interests that want us to keep failing.”

Social JusticeClimate ChangeActivismEnvironmentalismEquitable Movements
Book:On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal
Create image