A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency - Paperback

by Seth Klein (Author)

"This is the roadmap out of climate crisis that Canadians have been waiting for." -- Naomi Klein, activist and New York Times bestselling author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine

• One of Canada's top policy analysts provides the first full-scale blueprint for meeting our climate change commitments
• Contains the results of a national poll on Canadians' attitudes to the climate crisis
• Shows that radical transformative climate action can be done, while producing jobs and reducing inequality as we retool how we live and work.
• Deeply researched and targeted specifically to Canada and Canadians while providing a model that other countries could follow

Canada needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to prevent a catastrophic 1.5 degree increase in the earth's average temperature -- assumed by many scientists to be a critical "danger line" for the planet and human life as we know it.

It's 2020, and Canada is not on track to meet our targets. To do so, we'll need radical systemic change to how we live and work--and fast. How can we ever achieve this?

Top policy analyst and author Seth Klein reveals we can do it now because we've done it before. During the Second World War, Canadian citizens and government remade the economy by retooling factories, transforming their workforce, and making the war effort a common cause for all Canadians to contribute to.

Klein demonstrates how wartime thinking and community efforts can be repurposed today for Canada's own Green New Deal. He shares how we can create jobs and reduce inequality while tackling our climate obligations for a climate neutral--or even climate zero--future. From enlisting broad public support for new economic models, to job creation through investment in green infrastructure, Klein shows us a bold, practical policy plan for Canada's sustainable future. More than this: A Good War offers a remarkably hopeful message for how we can meet the defining challenge of our lives.

COVID-19 has brought a previously unthinkable pace of change to the world--one which demonstrates our ability to adapt rapidly when we're at risk. Many recent changes are what Klein proposes in these very pages. The world can, actually, turn on a dime if necessary. This is the blueprint for how to do it.

Back Jacket

"This is the roadmap out of climate crisis that Canadians have been waiting for. Serious, specific and madly inspiring." -- Naomi Klein, activist and author of This Changes Everything

"Read this inspiring book to realize giving up is not an option and 'can't be done' is not an excuse." -- David Suzuki, scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster

"This is the blueprint for rapid societal transformation that we've all been waiting for." -- Ziya Tong, science broadcaster and author of The Reality Bubble

The world has just ten years to at least halve our greenhouse gas emissions if we are to have a hope of holding global warming to a 1.5°C increase. Currently, Canada is not on a path to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets, and radical systemic change to the way we live and work must happen at high speed, but how are we ever to do this?

We can do it. We've actually done it before. During the Second World War, Canadians and their governments completely remade the economy -- retooling factories, transforming the workforce and creating common cause among Canadians for the war effort.

In A Good War, author and activist Seth Klein looks at the Second World War strategies and shows how they can be repurposed today for a rapid transition. He demonstrates that this change can create jobs and reduce inequality while tackling our climate obligations and shows us a bold, practical policy plan for a zero-carbon Canada. In this unusually hopeful book, Klein explores how we can align our politics and economy with what the science says we must do. Inspiring and realizable, his book is an invitation to both the public and our political leaders to reflect on the people who saw us through the war, and to consider who we want to be, as we face down the defining task of our lives.

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has brought change upon our world that would have been unthinkable a few months ago, change very like what Klein has proposed. It turns out the world can turn on a dime if necessary. The blueprint is in your hands.

Author Biography

Seth Klein was the founding British Columbia director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives for over two decades and has been immersed in climate change and inequality issues for his working life. He is currently an adjunct professor in urban studies at Simon Fraser University and remains a research associate with the CCPA. He lives in Vancouver, B.C.