Naomi Klein

Taking up the revolutionary potential of climate change.

Best known for her work on neoliberalism, environmental politics has always played a role in Klein’s work. Her 1999 book No Logo memorably discusses the point where environmentalism shifted from ‘save the whale’ to ‘break the brand’ as green activists increasingly worked to erode oil companies’ social license to operate.

More recently, Klein penned an influential 2011 essay Capitalism vs the Climate, played a role in divestment campaigns, including a critique of the green movement’s own portfolio, and issued a call to embrace therevolutionary potential of science, drawing public attention to Kevin Anderson’s argument that many in climate science have been soft-peddling the implications of their research. We can expect more with her new book – entitled This Changes Everything – due for release in September 2014.

With increasing calls to build capitalist-friendly discourse for action on climate change, Klein may well be a voice to buck the sorts of trends on offer from the likes of Calderón, Bloomberg and Unilever CEO Paul Polman (who only narrowly missed this list). We might also expect Klein to provoke more public debate on geo-engineering.