This Changes Everything

“The New Climate Warriors” (Pages 293-294)

The chapter begins with Klein introducing an incident where her and fellow environmentalists were stopped and detained by riot police on a roadside in Halkidiki, Greece. Why? Because this forested area, close to a popular Greek tourist destination, has become the site of a battle between local environmental activists and a government-backed plan for a Canadian company to build a new mining operation.

“Welcome to Blockadia” (Pages 294-305)

Halkidiki is just one example of what Klein refers to as “Blockadia,” a shifting constellation of conflict zones that forms wherever new extractivist projects are attempting to push into new terrains, to dig up more fossil fuels, and are met by a new generation of environmentalists determined to stop them.

Klein notes the local makeup of these new activists and pockets of resistance; the spark point starts with a local community, whose safety, livelihood and environment are put in danger.

The activists are mostly local, and made up of ordinary people of all kinds, from local shop owners, to mothers and university professors: “[r]esistance to high risk extreme extraction is building a global grass roots and broad based network” (295) and is rooted in a desire for democratic community control over what happens to the lands these communities live and depend on.