Climate change activist who appeared on panel at Vatican speaks in Salt Lake City

Friday, Nov. 20, 2015

SALT LAKE CITY — Naomi Klein, who in July led, with Cardinal Peter Turkson, a debate at the Vatican on climate change based on Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, was the guest speaker at the 2015 Salt Lake Community College Tanner Forum Nov. 10.

During her presentation at SLCC, the Canadian journalist and author said she was surprised at being invited to speak at the Vatican, but “it illustrates a growing understanding about environmental concerns that have forged surprising partnerships … to work together for much-needed change and to save ourselves.”

Klein views the pope’s position on climate change as a “moral voice in the world;” his position as the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics “gives him the ability to unite campaigners for a common goal,” she said. 

Klein spoke about her international non-fiction bestseller, This Changes Everything - Capitalism vs the Climate, and the documentary film of the same name that presents portraits of seven communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of southern India to Beijing.

“It is climate change that changes everything,” Klein said. “The film is not an adaptation of the book. The projects were done in parallel. The book is useful in laying out the argument for people who want to be a part of the process for change, while the film is an exploration of the movements that are on the frontline of climate change and are already fighting for the next economy.”

The film will be shown at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11. The conference objective is to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate from all nations of the world.

Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, spoke about climate change at the Parliament of World Religions, which was held in Salt Lake City in October; he also mentioned the upcoming conference in Paris. 

“We should all be in daily dialogue finding solutions,” Archbishop Auza said.

Klein said she realized 10 years ago that climate change is occurring when she saw, on television, victims of Hurricane Katrina sitting on their rooftops in New Orleans with signs that read ‘help.’ “I also saw people in the Super Dome and the New Orleans airport that had been abandoned for days.” 

During the Katrina disaster response, Klein went to New Orleans. 

“Katrina was a toxic mixture of heavy weather, the kind we are going to see more and more of in the face of climate change, and a weak and neglected public infrastructure – the levies should not have broken,” she said. “What Katrina showed is how our current system on one hand makes impassive climate change worse because of the refusal to properly fund the public sphere and, on the other hand, that same system then uses the crisis to further destroy some of the most essential parts of our society: public education, health care, housing, workers’ rights and safety.” 

Klein turned the research she conducted during her trip into a film, The Shock Doctrine 2009. 

“We are seeing the impacts of climate change with the California drought; 2014 was the hottest year on record,” she said. 

However, “it’s not too late to prevent these catastrophic outcomes,” Klein added. “We need to find integrated solutions that radically bring down emissions while simultaneously building more just economies and stronger democracies based on true equality.”