But some sectors understand that climate change may be real and have been hedging their bets. Klein reports that between 2005 and 2006 there was a booming trade in “weather futures.” The weather derivatives market jumped nearly five-fold from $9.7 billion to $45.2 billion. Global reinsurance companies are making billions, in part, by selling new kinds of protection schemes and soon, Klein writes, everyone will have to have disaster insurance. And, she noted, as with every disaster, gun sales to individuals and demands for weapons systems by countries go up. Also, she noted that private militias are already forming.
Indeed, one possible scenario includes the wiping out of dozens of coastal cities, low-lying islands and countries. Hundreds of millions will be refugees and millions more dead from more powerful storms, droughts and famine. A dystopian barbarous society could emerge, she said, in which the world’s “winners” will still profit and the “losers,” of course, continue their losing streak.
Klein ends her book with some optimism, hopeful a world resistance movement by grass-roots groups and indigenous people could win in the courts by citing treaty terms and threats to drinking water and the environment. However, she explains that even with a victory, people will still have to endure “a hotter and wetter” future for centuries.
She also reminds the fossil fuel industries that, in the beginning, lawsuits against tobacco companies were routinely tossed out of court -- but not recently.
Near the end of the book, she quotes a cartoon showing a man at a climate change summit who asks: “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?”
“This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate” by Naomi Klein. Simon & Schuster. September 2014; 566 pages.
William L. Haacker is an award-winning journalist and editor who has worked for various New Jersey newspapers, including Gannett New Jersey.