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  • A Good War

  • Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency
  • Written by: Seth Klein
  • Narrated by: John Cleland
  • Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (23 ratings)

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A Good War

Written by: Seth Klein
Narrated by: John Cleland
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Publisher's Summary

“This is the roadmap out of climate crisis that Canadians have been waiting for.” (Naomi Klein, activist and New York Times best-selling 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 percent 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 that demonstrates our ability to adapt rapidly when we’re at risk. Many recent changes are what Klein proposes here. The world can, actually, turn on a dime if necessary. This is the blueprint for how to do it. 

©2020 Seth Klein (P)2020 ECW Press

What the critics say

“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)

“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

“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, and founder of Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring) 

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Don't listen to this book! Buy the book!

Although the content is essential for outlining a plan to address climate change, unless you want to listen to the author reading sources and footnotes, don't purchase this audiobook. And I mean listening to the author literally reading a footnote and/or source like h t t p colon: slash slash and on and on and on. I think there was 10 minutes when all I was listening to the author reading footnotes and quotes.

What a stupid decision to include that in the audiobook!

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Good listen. Endnote Solution

Timely book. BC forests are burning this summer again. People need to find the will to do more. This book provides a roadmap to get there.

End note reading is not a good feature, but you can just skip to the end of the chapter to solve it.

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An optimistic roadmap for fighting the climate crisis in Canada.

After the last few books on this topic I have read this one offered an optimistic view on the topic. Using the inspiration from the Second World War, this book looks at how we rose to the occasion in the past and can do it again now. At how the government was able to get a country that at the time still had the bad taste of the conscription from WW1 on board for mobilizing all parts of our economy against the nazi risks of the day. Unlike politicians of today who only seem willing to follow what the largest demographic is already asking for or only making the safest decisions, at the dawn of the second word war politicians has the balls to speak to the country honestly, telling them the risks of do nothing, and then tell them what we have to do, even though it was not popular at the time. Drastic changes to industries and the tax system were accepted and eventually happily complied with. And national unity was improved by having the whole country working towards a common goal.

Bu this book imagines a future where instead of youth and woman getting jobs at ammunition factories while the men went to fight, we would have the people transitioning out of fossil fuel industry, youth, or anyone unemployed and willing to take up the climate war effort on the home front. To start building and installing heat pumps, electric busses and solar panels. The we could once again have a government willing to do what is needed, instead of what is popular. A government willing to say it like it is, and have a solid plan to get it done. Like then, I believe that Canadians are strong and would be willing to enlist into this kind of war effort at home.

The only downside with this book was the long end-notes at the end of each chapter. I recommend skipping to the next chapter instead of listen to a long list of URLs and article references.

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Better as a Hard Copy!

Loved this book but but the physical book instead of getting the audiobook. There are some important graphs and images and the reading of URLs and other sources is very clunky.

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couldn't finish it

although I'm very interested in the subject i could not finish the book. the facts are interesting but the presentation is boring and reads like a courtroom manuscript

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