Climate March Targets Wall Street
Last weekend, two protests pushing for climate change occurred in New York. After the Climate March on Sunday, Flood Wall Street on Monday resulted in arrests because protesters did not disperse as told by the police. Many of the protesters believe that the world has not viewed our contribution to climate change and its detrimental effects on the environment as a serious issue. However, one protester, Naomi Klein, the author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, wrote in her book, “We have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism.” I think Klein makes an interesting point in that the government cannot take effect action against climate change because of the interests of big industries and corporations. I agree with her in that the government can’t implement regulations because of the opposition of corporations and the money they bring in. Their interests are tied, and therefore, initiatives for change and possible plans are paralyzed
This relates to our current discussion about power in networks. While the government is powerful–with its legislative, executive, and judiciary power–it is tied, with an “edge”, to corporations and industries, who are also powerful with respect to influence in the world. Our society runs on money, and these big companies are the ones who bring in a lot of the money for the United States. Moreover, a country’s power and influence internationally is partially dependent on its wealth. Thus, because both of the US government and the corporations are powerful “nodes”, the government is relatively weaker with respect to one person it governs (if we look at only one node it is connected to), who can only make a small difference by himself. Due to this issue of relative power, the US government seems to be less able to lead towards renewable energy.