The public policy analyst and commentator Seth Klein discusses his new book A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency (ECW Press, 2020), with Joseph Planta.

A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency by Seth Klein (ECW Press, 2020). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: A Good War

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

One of the more engaging and fascinating books of the season is the one from Seth Klein, who joins me now. The founding British Columbia director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has just published A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. In the book, Mr. Klein takes on the skeptics who might think that Canada can’t remake its economy for a zero-carbon future. And that’s even before the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Seth writes about in the book, as he added to it this past spring just as we were all consumed by the effects of the coronavirus around us. It’s a good case Klein makes in the book, as he views Canada’s experience during the Second World War, showing us how people in the government of the day, C.D. Howe chief among them, met the crisis head on. The war effort galvanised a country to a common cause, and that same sort of thinking could lead to radical change as to how we view the climate emergency. I’ll get Seth to tell us about his book, about the history he mined to make the case he does, and about qualities of leadership our politicians and other leaders might need. He draws timely parallels to the response to the COVID crisis, and how change can happen quickly. Seth Klein is an adjunct professor in urban studies at Simon Fraser University, and remains a research associate with the CCPA. Visit www.sethklein.ca for more information, as well as his blog. This book is published by ECW Press. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Seth Klein; Mr. Klein, good morning.

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