Battle-tested strategies are needed to tackle the war on climate change, a noted author told those in attendance at a recent environmental conference in Nanaimo.
Seth Klein gave the opening keynote presentation on Saturday, Sept. 13, at Nanaimo Climate Connections at Wellington Hall.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' B.C. office founding director, who penned A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, made comparisons between changes from the Canadian government during the Second World War and the current climate crisis. While the crisis was once considered "a threat somewhere else, sometime in the future," Klein said, the 2021 heat dome which enveloped B.C. and damaging wildfires in recent years have brought it close to home.
"From coast to coast to coast, we've witnessed devastating fires in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and here on Vancouver Island, of course, with the Mount Underwood fire," he said. "More than a third of Northeast B.C. has burned in the last three years, and overall this year, fires across Canada have burned an area roughly the size of New Brunswick."
Emergencies need to sound and feel like emergencies, he told the crowd. Memorable leaders from the Second World War were "outstanding" orators who were candid about the "severity of the threat" and gave hope. That kind of leadership is missing now, according to Klein.
"When our governments don't act like the situation is an emergency, or worse, when they send contradictory messages by approving new fossil fuel infrastructure, they are effectively communicating to the public that it is not an emergency," he said.
Mobilization requires social solidarity, noted the author, and determination not to leave anyone behind.
"A successful mobilization requires that people make common cause across class and race and gender, that the public have confidence that sacrifices are being made by the rich, as well as minimum/modest-income people," he said.
Pointing to the First World War, not only was there inequality, but "rampant, grotesque levels of profiteering" that eroded social solidarity, said Klein. At the start of the Second World War in 1939, the King government took "bold steps to lessen inequality," with the excess profits tax, unemployment insurance and the family allowance.
"So the point in recalling all of this as we face today's threat and the need for mobilization is two-fold," he said. "First to appreciate how inequality serves as a barrier to mobilization, but second, understand that effective mobilization isn't just about building more planes and tanks back in the day or wind turbines and solar panels today.
"It requires policies that fulfill that promise, that we're going to better look after one another and guarantee good jobs and income supports that people will be treated with fairness and dignity because when you're asking people to engage in a great undertaking, that's how you keep everyone on the bus."
Nanaimo Climate Action Hub hosted the Nanaimo Climate Connections 2025.
