VIDEO: Naomi Klein: We Can Have Climate Salvation and Economic Justice

Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, the pair behind the new climate change documentary “This Changes Everything,” on Monday told “Democracy Now!” about the Leap Manifesto, a plan to transition away from fossil fuels to a 100 percent clean economy by the middle of the century.

“A lot of the polling in Canada is showing that people don’t want just gradual, incremental change,” said Klein, whose book “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,” provided the basis for the new film.

“They’re ready for more dramatic change,” she said. “And this is why we’re seeing more support for the Leap Manifesto. Stephen Harper is an incredibly unpopular prime minister, and because of that, there are a lot of people who are going to be voting strategically for whoever they believe has the best chance of beating Harper, because there’s a lot of concern about splitting the vote.”

“And that’s the other thing that we’re doing with the Leap Manifesto,” Klein continued. “If people are voting for a party that doesn’t reflect their full aspirations, particularly on climate change because not one of these three major parties has made climate change an election issue, the Leap Manifesto gives them an opportunity to say, ‘OK, this is where I’m casting my ballot, but this is what I actually believe in.’ And our hope is that we’ll end up with a government that is not the Harper government, maybe it will be a coalition government, and it will be looking for, OK, what mix of policy platforms from the Liberals, the NDP and the Greens are we going to embrace and make our platform, and that the Leap Manifesto can really have an influence on that process.”

Below, Klein and Lewis discuss their film.

— Adapted from “Democracy Now!” by Alexander Reed Kelly.