Abstract

During the New York Climate Week in 2014, I saw Naomi Klein speak about her new book, This Changes Everything. She inscribed my copy, with the message ‘Stay Brave.’ Naomi Klein was a dynamic, energetic public intellectual during the hectic series of events in September. She launched her book at The New School; attended a civic meeting, with Bill McKibben, Bernie Sanders, Kshama Sawant, Chris Hedges, and Brian Lehrer; and spoke at Brooklyn Book Fair. Naomi Klein has promoted community-led responses to climate change — such as the People’s Climate March. She was a prominent figure at the 400,000 strong People’s Climate March through the streets of New York on the 21 September 2014. She highlighted the Flood Wall Street protests over the linkages between capitalism and climate change on the 22 September 2014. Naomi Klein offered a critique of the outcome of the United Nations Climate Summit on the 23 September 2014. Naomi Klein made her name in 2000 with the brilliant book, No Logo — a mythbusting work about trans-national companies and their well-known trade marks, and the Mad Men of advertising and marketing. She displayed a strong interest in critical responses to Big Brands — looking at the tactics of culture-jamming, AdBusting, and the No Logo Movement. In 2002, Naomi Klein published Fences and Windows. This collection of work particularly focused upon battles over globalisation. In 2007, Naomi Klein published The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. This book is particularly interested in how free market neo-liberal policies have been foisted upon nation states at times of crisis, disaster, war, and shock. At the Copenhagen Climate talks in 2009, Naomi Klein showed a strong interest in climate debt. Since then, she has joined the board of 350.org, promoted fossil fuel divestment, and has written a number of pieces on climate change. Naomi Klein was particularly concerned about the impact of Hurricane Sandy upon New York. Her 2014 book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate represents the culmination of this intellectual engagement with climate change. This Changes Everything is also being transformed into a documentary film by Avi Lewis. In her literary style, Naomi Klein is a writer of sweet reason and cool logic.. Having deconstructed brands and turned them inside-out, Naomi Klein has a gift for marketing. Her writing is often pithy and epigrammatic. Naomi Klein is also an empathetic soul. She is sympathetic to the particular human costs of climate change. Naomi Klein has great intellectual curiosity. She ranges far and wide, in terms of her subject matter, and the geographic spread of her investigations. Naomi Klein is also a fearless critic. She is brave, gutsy, and always willing to speak truth to power. Naomi Klein is also not afraid to criticise fellow travellers for their compromises and hypocrisy. She shows courage in her call for climate action.