The New Home Front
February 17, 2011 § 1 Comment
A new pamphlet, The New Home Front, seeks to find lessons in the UK WWII effort for today’s need for transformative social and economic change. Written by Andrew Simms (of nef fame) and Caroline Lucas MP, it finds many useful comparisons – and certainly shows how quickly change can happen, but it’s ultimately left me feeling unsatisfied.
In my eyes, there are three key differences;
- There was an enemy. He was evil, he had a moustache, and his name was Hitler.
- There was a war on – and everyone knew it. Everyone knew someone in the army, and very soon everyone knew someone who had died. The war experience was real every moment of every day – what you could buy, where you could go, what work you did, what was on the radio, who was famous, what politics was about. There was little escape from the reality of war.
- The systemic goal changed. Rather than growing the economy, the primary goal between 1939-1945 was to defeat the Axis forces. This meant new priorities emerged, new decision-making processes, some things sped up – others slowed down. Rover’s factories only produced/repaired cars for the war effort and airplanes. The system re-organised in order to achieve the new goal.
When comparing those three to our situation –
- We are the enemy. My consumption, my lifestyle, the economic/social systems in which I live are the enemy. It’s difficult to hate myself and my life all the time.
- I only have to think about climate/poverty/all the other shit going down if I want to. *Oh look, the latest US series is on a box-set and there are cheap holidays in Slovenia this winter!*
- The systemic goal has not changed.
Solitaire Townsend, my old boss at Futerra, used to talk about the look of incredulity her grandmother gave her when she compared climate change to WWII. “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about”, she would say. I’m certainly not applying this to the New Home Front project – I wish it every success – but I want to be realistic about it’s limitations.
If this topic grabs you, this book by historian Paul Addison is very good.
“Cutting spending on low carbon technologies now would be like cutting the budget for Spitfires in 1939.” Tim Yeo, Conservative MP
ya, agree with you. I am reminded of an article I read last term on carbon rationing by mark lynas where he says:
“It sounds like an attractively egalitarian way to distribute a limited resource. That is why it worked in the Second World War. But carbon is not a necessity like food or water. While we are aiming for a zero-carbon society, it would never make much sense to aim for a zero-food society. Carbon is simply a euphemism for energy, and fossil-fuel energy can be substituted by that from cleaner sources, or consumption reduced.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2008/05/carbon-rationing-lynas
The purpose of drawing comparisons with WW2 seems to be to conjure the scale of the response we need, but the problem is, as you point out, is that by focusing on the “home front” it perhaps might cause people to think that changing lightbulbs, recycling etc is enough and that we don’t need wider change.
I say this all without reading the pamphlet though! I shall.