Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Brad Zarnett Follow Brad According to Naomi Klein....you can't fight climate change without fighting capitalism' Do you agree? http://inthesetimes.com/article/17079/this_changes_everything_naomi_klein_lessons Brad Zarnett Founder, Toronto Sustainability Speaker Series (TSSS) Canada's premiere idea exchange for sustainability leadership 5 Crucial Lessons for the Left From Naomi Klein’s New Book inthesetimes.com You can't fight climate change without fighting capitalism, argues Klein in This Changes Everything. Like (1) Comment (4) Unfollow Reply Privately1 day ago Comments Natalie Robinson likes this 4 comments

Brad Zarnett Brad Brad Zarnett Founder, Toronto Sustainability Speaker Series (TSSS) Canada's premiere idea exchange for sustainability leadership Just saw that Naomi Klein is coming to Toronto to give a talk about her new book. The event is sold out but the event will be streamed into the Atrium of the Toronto Reference Library. Anyone interested in going? Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 1 day ago

Peter Croppo Peter Peter Croppo Business Development at EH Controls Inc. Brad... Naomi Klein is obviously not the dumbest kid in the class & she speaks/writes very persuasively from her lofty perch. But I hope her book outlines a bit more in the details of how/why we need to thoroughly embrace her directives. For example, I see her position to change the Capitalist system & replace it with moral integrity as being a bit short on realism. How will we globally mirror what has happened to Greenburg, Kansas??? My point is how will we 'start over' when so much of the world is tied to BigCorp??? Her suggestions include how the Gov't will have to step up & fund the new direction. That might be possible over the really long term, but who's going to provide the funding for the Gov't when BigCorp has been decimated & everyone is unemployed & not paying taxes??? Perhaps that's how we will all get back to Square One & start over, doing it right??? Maybe, but at this time - forgive me for taking a shot at her - she seems well served by the same principles as most BigCorps who look at a crisis as an opportunity to produce a product or serve a consumer need. I'm not trying to scorch her whole position because there is value in furthering the discussion. However, does she see the current dilemma as an opportunity to write another book to sell to us??? Hard to blame her - it works!!! Cheers... Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 7 hours ago Olubunmi K. likes this

Natalie Robinson Natalie Natalie Robinson Director of Educational Design at Hopefield Sustainability Hi Brad and Peter Looking forward to checking out Klein's new book. I recently reviewed another book that compellingly explains what the shift away from capitalism looks like. Would love your feedback. http://hopefieldsustainability.ca/book-review-democratizing-wealth-building-community-sustaining-economy/ Natalie Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 51 minutes ago

Peter Burgess Peter Burgess Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics developing Multi Dimension Impact Accounting I like Naomi Klein's ideas ... but ideas are many, and few get much traction beyond the 'book circuit' even if they get into a book! My view is that we need to better understand the dynamics of society and the economy. We talk a lot about capitalism, but I like to call what we most talk about as 'financial capitalism'. This is only part of the story. There are other capitals that should also be part of the metric. There is physical capital, human capital, social capital, institutional capital, intellectual capital and natural capital. But we only have easy metrics for financial capital ... and we have learned how to optimize for the increase in financial capital, while doing damage (which we do not measure) to all the other capitals to a greater or lesser extent. We also need to get a lot more clarity about what is 'state' and what is 'flow'. And we also need to better understand what is progress and what is performance. And we need to put improving quality of life and standard of living (human capital improvement) at the center rather than the performance of the corporate organization (mainly financial capital improvement). Within flows ... the role of product (goods and services) becomes important, because it is product that flows out of natural capital, through institutional capital, using intellectual capital to improve human capital / social capital, and eventually do damage again to natural capital. Along the way, there may be increase to financial capital, but this is not essential to a viable multiple capital economic system Peter Burgess Delete 2 seconds ago