At the launch of Canadian socialist Naomi Klein's blistering press tour to publicize her new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, a wiry man approached the microphone to say hello to Klein, an old acquaintance of his.

Scott Weinstein, a Montreal-based street medic and community nurse, first met Klein in a disaster stricken New Orleans immediately following hurricane Katrina's devastating sweep through the Gulf of Mexico. Their reunion was an impromptu interruption to an evening centered on corporate corruption.

While reports of looting and violence among the black population of New Orleans were being vastly overstated in the media, Klein was busy documenting disaster capitalism at work, with corporations like Kellogg, Brown and Roots making a mint through government contracts subsidized to local carpenters who did the same work for a tenth of the profit.

But while Klein was documenting New Orleans' fall into disaster capitalism, Weinstein was on the ground, tending to the thousands of storm-ravaged victims with nowhere to go. Two years after Katrina, Weinstein stood at the microphone to tell Klein that while an environmental cataclysm can bring out the worst in people, it can also be a catalyst for social progress and change.

Touching down in the wake

In September 2005, images of bloated bodies and desperate children flitted across television screens. With each scene, Weinstein grew increasingly infuriated by the slow response from the government.