1. What was Obama's mandate?
2. What claim blocking serious action on climate change does Klein say Obama could have "buried"?
3. What's "the critical thing" according to Howard Zinn?
4. What created the conditions that enabled The New Deal?
5. Who was the Bernie Sanders of his day?
6. What's been missing in our discourse since 2008?
7. What does Mni Wiconi mean?
8. What's humanity's "most pressing question"?
9. What was Klein surprised to find at Standing Rock?
10. In Klein's analogy humans are to the earth as ____ are to ____.
11. The extended definition of a green job is what?
12. Of what is Trump the culmination, according to Klein? What'll be the good news, "as we de-Trump"?
Discussion Questions:
- Do you think a more aggressive response by Obama to his mandate could have been successful in restructuring our economic system, taking on Wall Street and the banks, and battling climate change?
- "What if the auto companies had been mandated to restructure themselves...?" 213
- What's preventing politicians from taking on Big Oil?
- Do we lay too much stress on who's occupying the White House, and too little on who's occupying the streets? 215 Or, given the current administration's behavior, have we underestimated the harm a presidential administration can do?
- Would you support a presidential candidate running on a New Climate Deal platform? Is there a risk of treating such a candidate as a "savior" in lieu of concrete corrective policies?
- Do we need "explosions of utopian imagination" more than dystopian nightmare visions? Or can both fuel positive change?
- What do you think of Wesley Clark Jr.'s apology? 227
- Do you agree about the "strands of the same braid"? 228
- How do we get ourselves and others out of our "silos"? 232
- Do we have to choose between a healthy environment and a robust economy? Do Republicans think we do?
- How do we build healthier, happier communities?
- Which of the whiteboard bullet-points (239) most appeals to you?
- What qualities do you value most in people? (243) Can they be expressed in public climate policy?
- Can we follow the example of Denmark and Germany? 244
- Do you favor ending fossil fuel subsidies, imposing a transaction tax, etc.? 246
- Can we really give up extractivism, consumerism, and cautious centrism? 248
- Can you express the world you truly want by voting? Can we "explode the box"?
- Add your DQs
Max McConnell - Still locked out from my author status on the blog
ReplyDeleteAlternative quiz questions
1. What manufacturing transformation similar to the transformation that took place during WW2 would have been a better alternative to shutting down automotive factories in 2010, according to Klein? Pg 213 Refurnishing and retooling factories, in order to produce the low carbon future.
2. What is one of the biggest obstacles regarding climate change right now? Pg 213 Fossil fuel companies successful positioning themselves as the only ones capable of creating well-paying jobs and keeping the lights on.
3. What can many of North America’s toughest laws protecting air, water, and endangered species be traced back to? Pg 216 The big oil spill in Santa Barbara in 1969
4. Robin D.G. Kelley said the end of the 19th century was a period of foment for what? Pg 218 “black-led democratic, populist, and radical movements.”
5. What did Upton Sinclair say was the key to ending poverty? Pg 218 “full state funding of workers’ cooperatives
6. Who said, “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting?” Pg 219 Milan Kundera
7. Besides saying no more, what else must we do, says Klein? Pg 220 Chart a credible and inspiring path to a different future.
8. Leaders of the Standing Rock movement insisted that they were not protestors, but what? Pg 226 Water protectors
9. When does Klein say we need to start a grand economic and political transition? Pg 235 Right now.
10. What were the two ground rules Klein’s board laid out directly? Pg 238 One: there will be no playing the card of “my crisis is bigger than your crisis, and two: respectful conflict is healthy and part of getting new territory.
11. What did Christina Sharpe say was the task? Pg 243 “to connect but not to collapse.”
12. Why have most energy companies been so reluctant to switch to renewables, according to Klein? Pg 244 because their primary goal, and fiduciary duty, is to produce the most profit.
13. Why did Klein say they chose to use the term “leap” to title their manifesto? Pg 248 Because the gap between where we are and where we need to go is so great, and the time we have left is so short, that small steps are not going to cut it- we need to leap.
14. What does Klein say must be understood in our bones? Pg 263 the spell of neoliberalism has been broken, crushed under the weight of lived experience and a mountain of evidence.
Alternative Quiz Questions:
ReplyDelete1) What does the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples state? (242)
2) Who is Ellen Gabriel? What did she say about her work with Kanehsata:ke? (242)
3) Who wrote, “In the Wake”? What was it about, according to Klein? (242)
4) What are the qualities that are most valued according to Klein? (243)
5) How much is ending the fuel subsidies worth globally? (246)
6) What slogan did Klein hear in Argentina that reminded her of the response to the launch of The Leap? (249)
7) Where is the most surprising “Leapers” found? (251)
8) Who make up “The Majority”? (254)
9) Klein quotes, Jean-Claude Servais saying what? (257)
10) How can we fight against right-wing demagoguery, according to Klein? (261)
11) What did Michelle Obama tell the crowds at the Democratic National Convention? (265)
12) According to Klein, what must the new iron law of energy development be/state? (268)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
ReplyDelete1) What is your overall opinion of this book?
a) Do you think Klein approached the issues in an effective?
b) Do you think she could've done anything different?
2) What do you think the overall message of this book was?