I only came across Naomi Klein’s article in The Nation yesterday, although it was published on November 9th. It offers a detailed examination of the (US) climate change denier perspective and identifies some of the substantial changes required in order to address climate change. The ideological battle that this entails does tend to suggest it will be difficult to get the magnitude of change necessary to have some chance of slowing climate change. Nonetheless, there is a challenge to economic orthodoxy that recognises the inherent conflict between industrialised growth and environment:
There is a growing body of economic research on the conflict between economic growth and sound climate policy, led by ecological economist Herman Daly at the University of Maryland, as well as Peter Victor at York University, Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey and environmental law and policy expert Gus Speth. All raise serious questions about the feasibility of industrialized countries meeting the deep emissions cuts demanded by science (at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050) while continuing to grow their economies at even today’s sluggish rates.
(Klein, 2011)
