MixedThe Sydney Review of Books (AUS)This Changes Everything builds on Klein’s anti-capitalist critique. In her sly way, Klein is honest enough about the disguised Marxism of her project ... But This Changes Everything is also a polemic ... Klein understands this tradition: she is a robust explainer. If her constructions are often unwieldy, they are always accessible. Her narrative voice is reasonable, approachable and, for her many fans, deeply likeable ... Global emissions exceeded 500 billion tonnes in 2011. We somehow have to industrialise China, India and Africa with less than half the pollution budget of the three centuries since Newcomen. What would this entail? Rapid, indeed unprecedented, upheavals in our energy system ... Can it be done? No, it can’t. The numbers don’t add up. That is the cruel irony of Klein’s title. Climate change is not changing everything. It is not changing things nearly enough. Industrial development continues apace – indeed, at a faster rate than ever before ... you could argue that much of what is interesting about This Changes Everythingis the way Klein uses climate change as the antithesis of the neoliberal thesis. She does it with sincerity and no little rigour. But we never get a synthesis, and Klein’s aphorisms are poor fare compared to Engels and Marx. In truth, Klein seems strangely unable to take the final step of her analysis: to call for a revolution to overthrow the ‘everything’ she claims must change.
