In Naomi Klein's latest book, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate," Ms Klein says "We have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis. "We are stuck because the best way of averting this catastrophe is at odds with and threatens the elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most or our major media outlets."

This is a powerful, disturbing and very accurate observation of how our capitalistic system works and why if we continue allowing the elite to control our country and world we are all in major peril.

Groups such as; Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and American Enterprise Institute are the leading climate deniers. The Heartland Institute (they always pick names that sound as though they have the best interest of all people in mind) host annual conferences of climate change skeptics but they really are no more than a free market think tank whose sole purpose is to push deregulation, privatization, cuts to government spending in these areas and push free market ideology. They are backed with enormous corporate funding as it is in the financial best interest of most of those corporations to have as little government interference as possible.

Countries such as Germany, as pointed out in the book, which is not a full neoliberal state, mostly because of the legacy of the WWII, has the strongest environmental movement in the world. Twenty-five percent of their energy comes from renewable sources which is not only remarkable but proves that it can be done.

But and it is a big But we must change our policies towards big business and business as usual. We must fight the climate deniers who do so, so that they can hold on to their inordinate profits. We must demand electoral reform and lower the number and power of lobbyists for the polluters, we must fight for the planet by curbing corporate power. The fossil fuel industry's answer to everything is to drill more and extract more even though it is widely known and accepted that the amount of potential fuel in the ground and in the shale is finite. Renewable sources of energy threaten them because no one owns the wind the sun or the waves, they belong to all of us and are there to be exploited and will not run out unless the fossil fuel industries eventually cause the collapse of the entire ecosystem.

It all starts and ends with you! Do not vote for those who promote these industries. Do not vote for those who accept money from these corporations. Do not listen or read media outlets that are owned by these interests. Start exploring sources that expose these businesses for what they are and what they do. Read Naomi Klein's books, this one and her other excellent book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" and then you will be a more informed voter and participant in saving the planet from the disastrous practices of so many corporations that bent on putting profits before the health of our only home, mother earth.