There is talk of the Marshall Plan.īut isn’t this all rather too convenient? A ‘good war’, fought by democracies, ending in spectacular victory and inaugurating a golden age of economic growth and the advent of the welfare state. In the UK, memories of the postwar welfare state persist. American advocates of the Green New Deal called for a repeat of the staggering industrial production achieved during the Second World War. War remains a crucial way of thinking about collective peril and about agency in the face of that peril in climate politics, the rhetoric of war and wartime mobilisation is commonplace. With only minor alterations, this could be the portrait of a nation sliding towards defeat in a major war: relentless time pressure limited resources rapidly running down over-confident technocrats promises of wonder weapons pro and anti-war factions at loggerheads desperate young people calling for a halt to the madness. A minority, tiny as yet, calls for rebellion. There are demands for a new social contract and a just transition. Centrist liberals are loud in expressing outrage, but shrink away when push comes to shove. The carbon coalition seems death-driven, defiant of expert advice. Their political outriders may be cynical hacks, but public support for the fossil fuel status quo is all too real. Fossil fuel interests remain stitched into global networks of power directly descended from the age of imperialism. But why believe them? Progress towards decarbonisation has been limited. We have achieved the impossible before, we will do it again. Some insist that technology will save us.

Governments and official agencies assure us that all will be well, that they can balance the risks.

Second age total war