Seth Klein

A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency

We did it for the Second World War. We can do it again.

Short-listed for the 2021 BC and Yukon Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Book Prize12 weeks on the CBC Books non-fiction best-seller list.

Short-listed for the 2021 BC and Yukon Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Book Prize

12 weeks on the CBC Books non-fiction best-seller list.

In A Good War (published by ECW Press in September 2020), Seth Klein explores how we can align our politics and economy with what the science says we must do to address the climate crisis. But Klein brings an original and uniquely hopeful take to this challenge. The book is structured around lessons from the Second World War – the last time Canada faced an existential threat. Others have said we need a “wartime approach” to climate change, but this is the first book to delve into what that could actually look like. Canada’s wartime experience, Klein contends, provides an inspirational reminder that we have done this before. We have mobilized in common cause across class, race and gender, and entirely retooled our economy in the space of a few short years.

Weaving together history, politics and policy, the book jumps between our past and present, answering questions such as: What did the marshaling of all our economic and human resources look like during the Second World War, and what might a similar deployment look like today? How was it paid for? What kind of leadership did it require? How was public support and national unity secured? What did we do for returning soldiers, and are there lessons for just transition for fossil fuel workers today? What was/is the role of Indigenous people and youth, then and now? And what are the war’s cautionary tales, the warnings of things that brought us shame, that we do not wish to repeat? The book is an invitation to both the public and our political leaders today, to reflect on the people who saw us through the Second World War, and to consider who we want to be, as we face down the defining task of our lives.

 

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Got a book club?

If your book club or discussion group is reading A Good War, ECW Press has prepared a handy discussion guide, available here.

what others are saying

“The COVID-19 crisis and Seth Klein’s timely book demonstrate heroic measures that become possible in times of crisis. The coronavirus crisis is not yet assessable by historians. World War II presented the West with an existential crisis for which government institutions, corporations and civil society were utterly unprepared. Yet in astonishingly rapid order, society, government and industry were united in resolve and enabled unprecedented government action and leadership. Read this inspiring book to realize giving up is not an option and ‘can’t be done’ is not an excuse.”
— David Suzuki
 
“In his examination of Canada’s climate action landscape, Seth Klein recognizes the deeply rooted social inequality in Canada that continues to be an obstacle for mobilizing a unified front against climate change. Highlighting the power and authority of Indigenous-led climate activism, he makes the striking case for recognizing and building upon the intersections between the fight for climate action and the fight for Indigenous Title and Rights.”
— Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs
 
“A magnificent job. A climate emergency manifesto that brings it all together: history, politics, economics, humanity, mobilization, and science, with a wisdom of the actions we must undertake to win this good war.”
— Libby Davies, former NDP MP
 
“In this ambitious and informative book, Seth Klein intelligently connects past mobilization for war to the sweeping state measures now required to counter global warming.”
— Peter Neary, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Western Ontario
 
“Seth Klein’s critically important book tells the climate truth: our climate emergency needs a WW2 style mobilization. In this strategic call to action we learn about Canada’s impressive war production, and how we can join the war against climate devastation. Your children’s futures are on every page. Read, organize, act!”
— Raffi Cavoukian, singer, author, Raffi Foundation For Child Honouring
 
“One of the great privileges of my life is having Seth Klein as a brother. Here you will see why. This is the roadmap out of climate crisis that Canadians have been waiting for. Serious, specific and madly inspiring, A Good War will fill you with the confidence and courage required to fight like hell for the future we all deserve.”
— Naomi Klein, activist, journalist and author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine
 
“This is an important book, exactly what we need right now. Seth does more than set out the urgency of our climate challenge, he draws a careful study of Canada’s extraordinary and rapid transformation during WW2 to give us a battle plan to address it. Big change is possible, he reminds us. We have done it before. Seth’s book combines urgency and optimism, ambition and clear-eyed understanding of the obstacles to change. It should become an essential resource for policy makers but also for all of us who want to be part of the solution. It is also an excellent and inspiring read.”
— Alex Himelfarb, former clerk of the Privy Council and professor of sociology
 
“Pacifists are not known for evoking war-like rhetoric, so it is one of life’s quirks that I first met an 18-year-old Seth Klein as he toured Canada calling for nuclear disarmament. But, like me, he sees that the only way for human civilization to survive the climate emergency is through an ‘all hands on deck’ approach that has only been seen in times of war – or recently in pandemic. Saving ourselves is a huge challenge. Marshaling the facts, the hope and the path forward is essential work for which writer and policy wonk Seth Klein is ideally suited.”
— Elizabeth May, MP and former leader of the Green Party of Canada
 
“A call to action to protect our very existence on this planet – exactly the book we need right now. This book should be on the curriculum in every school across the country and required reading for every aspiring/current politician. Seth brilliantly challenges us to embrace the possible, while rejecting the current politics of ho-hum incrementalism. The threat posed by catastrophic climate change will eclipse everything we’ve faced to date, and our response will be the defining task of our era.”
— Paul M. Taylor, anti-poverty activist and executive director of FoodShare Toronto
 
“This is a truly great book. Few people have thought as deeply or with as much precision about the climate crisis as Seth Klein. Drawing on the lessons that history provides, he has provided a roadmap for how Canada should respond. We do need to fight the climate crisis as if it was a war, but how lucky we are: we need neither to kill or be killed, merely to do the hard but satisfying work of building a working planet.”
— Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org
 
“This is the blueprint for rapid societal transformation that we’ve all been waiting for. Klein’s book is not just about thinking big, it’s about doing BIG. During the Second World War, Canada was nimble and consistently hit above its weight: mobilizing media, industry and the citizenry to face the biggest challenge of its time. Today, armed with science and far greater technological capacity we can do it again. A Good War is a fascinating, timely and strategic guide to creating a better world.”
— Ziya Tong, author of The Reality Bubble and science broadcaster (former co-host of Discovery Channel's Daily Planet)
 
“Seth Klein’s powerful new book makes a compelling case that we’ve got to toughen up our lacklustre fight against the climate crisis and make it more like our massive mobilization against Nazi Germany in World War II. As he notes, it’s well past time we gave up on trying for “peace in our time” with the Alberta government and Big Oil.”
— Linda McQuaig, Author and Journalist

media: Reviews & Interviews

art and Music

Mobilization posters were ubiquitous in the Second World War.

Now we need a new generation of climate emergency mobilization posters. Posters like this. If you like it and want to use it for your own climate mobilization purposes, this one is freely available (under creative commons) for download and use, provided the artists are properly credited and the posters are not used for commercial purposes.

Statement from poster artist Meital Smith:

For my illustration, I drew inspiration from the reoccurring “Let’s go/Come on, Canada!” tropes that I saw in my research of Canadian WWII wartime posters. One poster in particular, a piece promoting the RCAF by Joseph Sydney Hallam, was really inspiring to me because of the welcoming and inviting nature of the composition. I tried to incorporate that “can do” spirit and excitement over being a part of something huge into my own design. Building sustainable infrastructure is something I wanted to focus on promoting because I think if it's presented to the public in an inviting way, then it could be met with energy and excitement instead of dread and trepidation. I intentionally played off of the composition of the WWII poster to visually reinforce familiarity with this sort of mobilization. I flipped the composition so that the main character is leading the viewer towards the “future”, which for left-to-right reading cultures is generally associated with the right side of the page. I chose “Let’s do it again, Canada!” as the tagline to again reinforce the idea that this mobilization is possible because it’s been done before. 

Image Credit: Meital Smith

Image Credit: Meital Smith

Image Credit: Joseph Sydney Hallam

Image Credit: Joseph Sydney Hallam

The Second World War had a popular soundtrack. The climate mobilization movement… starts now.

There is some Canadian climate mobilization music out there:

Joel Plaskett’s song Where There’s a Will, written and performed for the Nova Scotia launch of A Good War. Check it out here.

Joel Plaskett’s song Where There’s a Will, written and performed for the Nova Scotia launch of A Good War. Check it out here.

Sarah Harmer has a terrific new song out called New Low that captures the climate mobilization moment. Check out the video for it here.

Sarah Harmer has a terrific new song out called New Low that captures the climate mobilization moment. Check out the video for it here.

Victoria-based duo Decades After Paris have produced a full concept album of climate-themed music, including this great song. You can find Decades After Paris’s full CD here and their webpage here. And check out their new song Here Comes the Music, inspired by my book, here.

Victoria-based duo Decades After Paris have produced a full concept album of climate-themed music, including this great song. You can find Decades After Paris’s full CD here and their webpage here. And check out their new song Here Comes the Music, inspired by my book, here.

Toronto-based Jen Schaffer and Shiners wrote this song inspired by A Good War. Have a listen here.

Toronto-based Jen Schaffer and Shiners wrote this song inspired by A Good War. Have a listen here.

Check our Buckman Coe’s Gathering Storm video (featuring the Tiny House Warriors) here.

Check our Buckman Coe’s Gathering Storm video (featuring the Tiny House Warriors) here.

And more climate mobilization music is on the way.

funders

The research and writing of this book was supported by funding from: