Let us start by praising some of the ‘good’ Naomis. Naomi Campbell the model. Naomi Nishida, the actress. Naomi Judd, the singer.

Hopefully having convinced you that I’m not allergic to the name, let us now ponder the coincidence that finds two of the most strident and annoying activists currently on the world stage sharing the same name.

I refer, of course, to Naomi Oreskes and Naomi Klein.

I have discussed my problems with Ms. Oreskes before–see here, here and here. She is not a scientist–she is a ‘science historian’, and she is busy rewriting the history of climate change and the conversation surrounding it. She teams up with people like the charlatan Lewandowsky and Eric Conway to come up with bizarrely unscientific sci-fi scenarios, contorted reasoning on why deniers are infiltrating the minds of scientists, etc.

She’s a bad actress, unlike this Naomi.

Today we will focus on Naomi Klein, as she is interviewed by Al Jazeera (no relation to Al Gore, Al Hirt or Al Capone).

The title of the article is ‘Is Capitalism Driving Climate Change?‘ (The short answer is no. Increasing population, development (much of which is happening in anti-capitalist countries, and growth in GDP all contribute to climate change. Capitalism is no worse than communism in that respect.)

The article starts with a bold assertion: “Scientists say the world is in the midst of a “climate emergency”.” It does not provide a quote, citation or anything to back that up. A search on Google News using the term returns 262,000 results and many NGOs, weblogs and commentators do say much the same thing. But I could not find one scientist doing so.

Anyway, on to Ms. Klein. “The idea that we can deal with climate change within the confines of our current system is exactly what we’ve been trying for two decades, and it’s failed miserably,” Klein says. “If we want to avoid climate change, we need system change,” the author adds.

This is called hijacking. Ms. Klein has been trying to boot capitalism off the globe since she started writing. She is simply using climate change as a front. As Wikipedia notes, “Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of corporate capitalism.[2]”

Ms. Klein is not a scientist (neither am I) and does not discuss the science (recent posts will show that it is heavy going for me as well). Like me, she is focused on policy.

However, I care about climate change, getting the science right and about policy possibilities focused on the people who need help with the weather now and the climate in the future.

Klein is just piggy-backing on a popular issue that appeals to the demographic she’s been trying to reach with her other books (No Logo, This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine). Her 2014 book This Changes Everything is just another tirade against capitalism with green camouflage. She took her cue from capitalist companies that adopted green mission statements and other accoutrements of environmentally friendly organizations, but she cares just as little about climate change as most of them.

Evidence of that can be found on naomiklein.org, where she writes, “For me, the road to This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate begins in a very specific time and place. The time was exactly ten years ago. The place was New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.”

Somebody should tell her that Katrina had nothing to do with current climate change. It was a run of the mill Cat 3 hurricane that landed in the wrong place at the wrong time. That she would use it as inspiration for her books is hilarious. In a not-really-laughing sort of way.

Ms. Klein posts an entire section from her book The Shock Doctrine underneath that preface. It’s quite long.

It doesn’t mention climate change.

Naomi Klein doesn’t understand the issue.

I am a leftist. (I think Barack Obama is too centrist, much to the amusement of many of my readers.) I have problems with capitalism being subject to corporate capture and being able to resist needed regulations. But I try to keep most of that under wraps when talking about climate change, as the economic system driving a country’s economy shows no correlation to their emissions or attempts to control them.

If Naomi Klein could find an angle in used tires to further her attacks on capitalism, she would write a book about it.

This Naomi is perhaps most famous for her Joan of Arc-based character in the 1917 movie Womanhood, the Glory of the Nation.

I like her a lot better.