pdotb reviewed A Good War by Seth Klein
Pretty good, once you can get past all of the war references :)
4 stars
Not the first time I've come across this kind of framing of the climate emergency, but the detail of Canada's economy during the war did feel a bit excessive at times. If you can get past that, though, the author's really good on a Green New Deal style of response to the climate emergency, with good coverage of Indigenous resistance to pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure and a keen awareness of how climate change mitigation and adaptation can't just be an elite-driven project. Also helps that he has direct experience of the BC carbon tax and the inequities therein (particularly welcome given I recently slogged through Michael Mann's panegyric to carbon pricing). If I'm honest, I don't know how appealing the book would be outside the country -- apart from lengthy exposition of the war effort, there's also lots of detail on the workings of government that wouldn't necessarily …
Not the first time I've come across this kind of framing of the climate emergency, but the detail of Canada's economy during the war did feel a bit excessive at times. If you can get past that, though, the author's really good on a Green New Deal style of response to the climate emergency, with good coverage of Indigenous resistance to pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure and a keen awareness of how climate change mitigation and adaptation can't just be an elite-driven project. Also helps that he has direct experience of the BC carbon tax and the inequities therein (particularly welcome given I recently slogged through Michael Mann's panegyric to carbon pricing). If I'm honest, I don't know how appealing the book would be outside the country -- apart from lengthy exposition of the war effort, there's also lots of detail on the workings of government that wouldn't necessarily translate -- but for Canadian residents it's well worth a read.