Global Warming or Climate Change

In an exclusive extract from his new book, Atmosphere of Hope, Tim Flannery argues that recent events in Australia and around the world show how global warming is much more than a debate about scientific projections Globe Centred On Asia And Oceania, True Colour Satellite Image Photograph: Planet Observer/Getty Images/Universal Images Group W hen I wrote The Weather Makers, I laid out the state of climate science as it was understood in 2005. The book received much acclaim, but it was also criticised by climate-change sceptics as extremist and alarmist. Since the book was published, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has completed two major summaries, in the form of its fourth and fifth assessment reports, and thousands of scientific publications have added to our understanding of how Earth’s climate system responds to carbon pollution. As a result, many details of climate science have been clarified. Not only are the scientific projections of major trend

  Naomi Klein: ‘This is my attempt to lay out what disaster collectivism looks like.’ Photograph: Anya Chibis for the Guardian N aomi Klein, the Canadian author, film-maker and social activist, will arrive in Australia this month for a series of events. The author of  No Logo  and the  Shock Doctrine  – a self-confessed fan of  avocado on toast  – will be discussing climate change and capitalism, the key topics in her new bestselling book  This Changes Everything . She spoke to Guardian Australia’s Oliver Milman. Oliver Milman: You  write in the book  that you were a “climate denier”, not in that you denied the science but that you just didn’t want to engage on the subject. Why did you, and others, do this, do you think? Naomi Klein: There are so many reasons, most of us tell ourselves multiple different stories each day. I’m flying to Australia so, just to get through the day, I’ll have to engage in climate denial. It’s just that I’m in a lot less denial than I used to b