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WHEN it comes to digging ourselves out of the climate mess we are in, there are a number of big questions. Near the top of the list is: can capitalism help? Then, if so, how? If not, what can? And what do we do about growth?

Two new books provide us with some answers. Radical green polemicist Naomi Klein starts her new book, On Fire, with a shocker: she agrees with the climate deniers. Only about one thing, but it is a big thing. Both sides believe that climate change is, at root, as much a cultural war as a battle for the environment, and that climate policies are a battleground for how our civilisation evolves, either in an individualistic and capitalist way or in a collectivistic and socialist way.

The book, a compilation of some of Klein鈥檚 most trenchant journalism coupled with fresh material about the proposed US Green New Deal, underlines that view as she recounts key episodes. For example, fresh from a meeting of the conservative, free-market Heartland Institute in Washington DC, Klein writes that its CEO said that those on the political left big up climate change because it 鈥渋s the perfect thing鈥� the reason why we should do everything [the left] wanted to do anyway鈥�.

Klein follows on by responding that: 鈥淭hey [the right] aren鈥檛 wrong.鈥� She believes that too many climate scientists and activists baulk at this political truth, clinging to the idea that somehow 鈥渨e can avert catastrophe by buying 鈥榞reen鈥� products and creating clever markets in pollution鈥�.

She says global capitalism has become a geological as well as a geopolitical force, eating Earth鈥檚 resources and spewing out planet-heating gases. 鈥淧olitical revolution is our only hope,鈥� she writes, and those on the political right who say that climate change is a threat to capitalism aren鈥檛 being paranoid, 鈥渢hey are paying attention鈥�. Leftists, she says, have yet to capitalise on the fact 鈥渢hat climate science has handed them the most powerful argument against capitalism since William Blake鈥檚 鈥榙ark satanic mills'鈥�.

Her articles show how she has moved from a preoccupation with the social fallout of globalisation in the sweatshops of Bangladesh and land-grabbed plains of Africa to a belief that the climate emergency and growing inequality are two sides of the same coin.

Some climate scientists see her as an activist who appropriated climate as a vehicle for her anti-capitalist prescriptions. Maybe so, but that doesn鈥檛 make her wrong.

Environmental scientist and policy analyst Vaclav Smil comes at this from a lifetime of Olympian overviews of human society, and a determinedly non-political stance. In his new book, Growth, however, he reaches remarkably similar conclusions to Klein. Smil, whose books have been famously lauded by Bill Gates, grows ever more pessimistic. Once, he dismissed people like Klein as members of a 鈥渃atastrophist cult鈥�, but now he seems to have joined them. Growth, whether biological, social or economic, may be normal, he says, but the exponential growth in economies and lifestyles we have seen in recent decades isn鈥檛, and can鈥檛 continue without disastrous consequences.

The sizes of the average US house and the average European car have doubled in the past half century. Typical TV screens have grown 15-fold. The wealth of the richest has grown even more, with the richest 1 per cent owning close to half of the world鈥檚 wealth.

There is, says Smil, no way of reconciling the preservation of a well-functioning biosphere with the standard economic mantra that 鈥渄oes not conceive any problems of sustainability in relation to resources or excessive stress on the environment鈥�.

Unlike Klein, he doesn鈥檛 call for the overthrow of capitalism, but urges us to get serious about 鈥渢he most fundamental existential (and also truly revolutionary) task facing modern civilization, that of making any future growth compatible with the long-term preservation of the only biosphere we have鈥�. Is capitalism up to the task he sets? Smil largely avoids that question.

Could our unrestrained, turbo-charged version of globalised capitalism be as much the problem as capitalism itself? Maybe just as capitalism banned slavery in the 19th century, and adopted health and safety measures in the 20th century, it can curb carbon emissions in the 21st.

Some leaders, such as Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, believe so. He says that prudent investors are withdrawing from coal mines and power stations to avoid ending up with valueless 鈥渟tranded assets鈥�. Is oil next? Surely we also need businesses to develop renewables?

Klein may be right when she argues that renewables have yet to 鈥渄ecouple鈥� economic growth from emissions growth, but if we are to reach any of our greenhouse gas emission targets, we must switch from carbon-based fuels to renewables. In this version of a green capitalist future, the herd instinct of fearful investors in switching their cash could be more effective and act faster than any emissions target. But Klein is right: the politics is the hardest bit.

鈥淢aybe just as capitalism banned slavery in the 19th-century, it can curb emissions in the 21st鈥�

Her nose for the political and cultural US zeitgeist is astute. She gets the power of the political right. Most North Americans, she notes, supported action on climate change a generation ago. Until the climate deniers, the harbingers of fake news in the 21st century, got going, that is.

She repeats the case that the key to an energy revolution lies in creating a modern equivalent of the New Deal that dragged the US out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is growing, Klein says, in the form of the proposed Green New Deal advocated by people such as Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It will require a committed US administration, supported by a 鈥減owerful social movement鈥� with many disparate voices, argues Klein. That is why she welcomes as critical the emerging voices of young North Americans, echoed by Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion in Europe. It is also why she spends time raising the profile of the arts in climate discourse as per the original New Deal.

Klein makes a splendid attack on notions that individuals can help stop climate Armageddon. 鈥淪top trying to save the world all by yourself,鈥� she writes, in a lecture originally given to students. Only collective action will work, something most people don鈥檛 recognise because they have been 鈥渢rained in helplessness鈥� by those fearful of popular progressive politics, she says.

Klein does seem to concede in her later chapters on the Green New Deal that the world may get through the crisis without ditching capitalism. Her provisos are that capitalism must be recast as a machine that gets certain things done and is controlled for the public good, rather than be followed, come what may, like a religion. Despite the brimstone, On Fire is an invigorating message of climate hope through social transformation. Bring on the revolution.

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