This Changes Everything

“One Way or Another, Everything Changes” (Pages 1-8)

Klein begins with the anecdote of a plane that got stuck in the melting runway tarmac in Washington, DC. A tow truck was brought in to drag the plane free. The year was 2012, and the summer was “unusually hot,” which was the result of the “profligate burning of fossil fuels” (2).

The anecdote becomes a metaphor for the problem of climate change and the responses to it. Faced with the problems brought on by the burning of fossil fuels, most people, like the airline, carry on as normal. Humans are pushing the Earth’s resources to a breaking point in the search for fossil fuels, and though the environment is throwing them warning signs, they just carry on. Instead of facing the crisis, they “[double] down on the thing that’s causing it” (3).

Klein says she was a climate denier in the way that most are: by simply not focusing fully on the problem, choosing to remain hazy about the details, and continuing to live life as normal. She gives examples of the possible explanations people give themselves: technology will come to the rescue or all one can do is focus on their individual efforts.