We can't leave everything to the free market. In fact, climate

Host: The sky over the harbor was a deep bruised gray, thick with smog and the sour smell of fuel. Ships idled in the distance, their horns echoing like a tired heartbeat. On the cracked concrete pier, Jack and Jeeny sat side by side, legs dangling over the edge, the wind snapping at their jackets.

A plastic bottle floated by, caught in a tangle of seaweed and oil.

The city’s skyline loomed — a forest of steel and glass — glittering not with beauty, but with indifference.

Host: The world seemed to breathe in pollution and exhale profit.

Jeeny stared at the water, her eyes reflecting the color of storm clouds.

Jeeny: “Naomi Klein once said, ‘We can’t leave everything to the free market. In fact, climate change is the greatest single free-market failure. This is what happens when you don’t regulate corporations and you allow them to treat the atmosphere as an open sewer.’”

Jack: (sighs) “And there it is — the usual sermon against capitalism. But tell me, Jeeny, who else is going to build the wind turbines, the solar grids, the electric cars? Not governments — they can barely balance a budget.”

Jeeny: “You think the market’s saving us? Look around you, Jack. The air is gray. The fish are gone. The same corporations that promised ‘green energy’ are still drilling, still burning, still selling us clean dreams wrapped in plastic.”

Host: The wind picked up, carrying the sound of waves crashing against rusted metal. A single gull cried above them — lost, hungry, searching for something alive.

Jack: “I’m not saying the market’s perfect. But it’s efficient. It innovates. Regulation suffocates progress — that’s why half the green startups drown before they even launch.”

Jeeny: “Efficient? Jack, you call it efficient when a company cuts corners, dumps waste into rivers, and calls it ‘cost-saving’? That’s not efficiency — that’s theft. Theft from the earth, from the future, from everyone who breathes.”

Jack: “And yet, you still use their phone, their clothes, their power. You can’t condemn the system while you live off it.”

Jeeny: “Living inside a burning house doesn’t mean I approve of the fire.”

Host: The argument hung heavy, like the smoke above the refineries on the horizon. The sun tried to push through but failed — its light drowned by the haze.

Jack: “You always make it sound like there’s a villain — some faceless monster called ‘corporation.’ But it’s just people, Jeeny. Workers, investors, families. People trying to survive.”

Jeeny: “Yes, people. But people blinded by profit. Remember the BP oil spill? Eleven men dead. Millions of gallons of crude oil choking the Gulf. That wasn’t survival, Jack — that was greed. Greed wearing a business suit.”

Jack: “That was an accident, not malice. You can’t legislate away every failure.”

Jeeny: “Accident? When you know the risks, when you cut safety budgets for shareholder dividends — that’s not an accident. That’s a choice. And choices have consequences, even when they’re profitable.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the oil slick shimmering on the surface. For a moment, his reflection blurred into the stain — indistinguishable.

Jack: “You act like regulation is some moral cure. But every law has a loophole, every inspector can be bought. At least markets move. They respond. Governments just delay, debate, and drown in red tape.”

Jeeny: “And in that delay, Jack, the world burns. Wildfires in Canada, droughts in Africa, heatwaves killing thousands in India — all part of your ‘responsive’ market. The planet’s lungs are collapsing while CEOs argue over carbon credits.”

Host: The wind lashed harder now, scattering papers across the pier — old invoices, wrappers, fragments of yesterday’s consumption.

Jack: “You’re blaming the system for human nature. People want comfort, convenience, power — markets just give them what they demand.”

Jeeny: “And that’s exactly the problem. When desire becomes law, ethics disappears. Capitalism without conscience is just cannibalism — we’re eating the very ground we stand on.”

Jack: (bitterly) “So what’s your alternative? A global council of moral guardians? Governments deciding how much air I can breathe, how long I can drive, what I can buy? That’s not freedom, Jeeny — that’s control.”

Jeeny: “Freedom isn’t doing whatever you want. It’s doing what’s right when no one forces you to. The market has no conscience, so we must give it one — through rules, limits, responsibility.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice rose, trembling with conviction, echoing against the concrete walls of the harbor. Her eyes shone, not with anger, but with something deeper — sorrow, perhaps, or remembrance.

Jeeny: “Do you know what my father used to say? He worked in a coal plant his whole life. He said, ‘We built light from darkness — but every bulb casts a shadow.’ He died of lung disease at fifty-two. Tell me, Jack, was that efficiency too?”

Host: Jack’s hands froze mid-motion, his breath caught. The sea seemed to hold its own, quiet respect.

Jack: (softly) “I’m sorry, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “Don’t be. Just understand. Every unregulated dollar has a body behind it — someone’s father, someone’s child, someone’s breath.”

Jack: “Maybe… maybe you’re right. But idealism alone won’t fix this. You can’t regulate human greed out of existence. You need innovation too — and that’s what markets do best.”

Jeeny: “Then let innovation serve morality, not the other way around. Let’s invent a world that survives us.”

Host: The wind slowed, the waves gentled. A patch of sunlight broke through the clouds, touching the water — a fragile shimmer amid the gray.

Jack: “I guess I’ve spent too long defending the machine to see the smoke.”

Jeeny: “And I’ve spent too long blaming it to see the people inside. Maybe we both forgot — systems are built by hands, not ghosts.”

Jack: “Then maybe the solution isn’t killing the market… but teaching it to care.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Regulate it not to weaken it, but to remind it what it’s for — life.”

Host: The light spread slowly across the harbor, reflecting in the oil film like a reluctant sunrise.

The city’s towers gleamed — wounded, but still standing.

Jack and Jeeny sat in silence, the sound of distant machinery blending with the cry of gulls — an uneasy harmony between industry and nature, between what is and what must be.

Host: The camera would linger here — on the shimmer of light over pollution, on two souls facing a broken world, finding, amid the ruins of reason and remorse, a fragile new faith:

That the market could be tamed. That progress could learn to breathe again.

And that even the dirtiest air, given time and courage, could still clear.