rod mclaughlinYou can't make it up LXXVI - Naomi Klein plays the race card again on climate change (29 jun 15)
"Nearly 500 years since Galileo was found guilty of heresy, the Holy See is leading the rallying cry for the world to wake up and listen to scientists on climate change." Welcoming being invited to a Vatican conference on climate change, Naomi Klein writes - “There are a lot of people who are having a lot of trouble in realising there is a voice with such global authority from the global south. That’s why we’re getting this condescending view, of ‘leave the economics to us’”. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/28/pope-climate-change-naomi-klein It used to be that doubting His Holiness was allegedly caused by the influence of the Devil. Today, it's because you were born in the Northern Hemisphere. “We’re seeing the power base within the Vatican shift, with a Ghanaian cardinal and an Argentine pope. They’re doing something very brave.” This isn't the first time Klein has played the race card in the global warming debate. In 2011, she wrote in The Nation "Given the expansive challenge that climate change poses to the industrial capitalist economic system, it should not be surprising that conservative white males’ strong system-justifying attitudes would be triggered to deny climate change" - http://www.thenation.com/print/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate. In other words, it's not about what you say, and how convincingly you say it, it's about how many "oppression points" you have accumulated. Coming from the 'south' helps. Doesn't Klein know that Ghana is north of the Equator? She thinks that "conservative white males" tend to "deny climate change". She's right about that - for example, I deny that the climate has ever changed, at all - but I wonder how Klein would react if someone said her beliefs are the result of being a liberal Jewish female. Here is a response to Klein's earlier article, from a woman in the Southern Hemisphere: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/naomi-kleins-crippling-problem-with-numbers/. But I'm not sure if Joanne Nova's gender, and Australian nationality, gives her as many points as you get from being Argentinian, Ghanaian, or Canadian. Back
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