UN Climate Change Conference ǀ The disaster is not fate – Friday

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Fatalism settles in our movements like rust. In conversations with scientists and activists, I keep hearing the same thing: “We cannot be saved.” The government’s plans are insufficient and come too late. You probably cannot prevent Earth’s ecosystems from transitioning into new stages that are hostile to humanity and many other species.

For a real chance to stabilize our life support systems we do not need slow and gradual change, but fast and drastic action. But that is widely believed to be impossible: there is no money, governments are powerless, and people will not tolerate anything more ambitious than the lukewarm measures currently being proposed. At least that’s what we’re being told. It’s a prime example of a general rule: Political failure is basically a failure of the imagination.

The obvious lessons of the coronavirus pandemic – when the magical money tree was miraculously in bloom, governments discovered that they could rule (albeit with varying degrees of competence) and that people were willing to radically change their behavior – want let’s leave this aside. Because there is a much better and more powerful example. It is about the entry of the USA into the Second World War.

An increase of 42 times in four years

Military analogies often cause unease in environmental circles. But war is one of the few precedents and metaphors that everyone immediately grasps. And we would be foolish not to learn anything from this remarkable lesson. Even before the United States declared war, US President Franklin Roosevelt had begun to draw in troops and build up his “arsenal of democracy”: war material with which he supported the Allied forces. In order to “outstrip Hitler,” he called for production to be increased to levels that were generally thought to be impossible. But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the impossible happened.

The day after the attack, Roosevelt requested and received a declaration of war from Congress. Then he immediately began to reorganize not just the government, but the entire nation. He set up a number of agencies that were poorly supervised but organized through simple and effective measures such as the “controlled production schedule for materials”.

For the first time in US history, he introduced a general federal income tax. The government quickly increased the top tax rate until it reached 94 percent in 1944. It issued war bonds and took out massive loans. Between 1940 and 1945, total government spending increased tenfold. Amazingly, the US government spent more money (in today’s dollar values) between 1942 and 1945 than between 1789 and 1941. From 1940 to 1944 the military budget increased 42-fold, exceeding that of Germany, Japan and Great Britain combined.

Civil industries were completely converted for war. When the auto industry was ordered to switch to military production, it immediately dismantled its enormous facilities and replaced them with new machines in a matter of weeks. General Motors began producing tanks, aircraft machines, fighter jets, cannons, and machine guns. Oldsmobile began making artillery shells; Pontiac anti-aircraft guns. Until 1944, Ford made a long-range bomber almost every hour. During its three years of war, the US produced 87,000 naval ships, including 27 aircraft carriers, 300,000 aircraft, 100,000 tankers and armored cars, and 44 billion loads of ammunition. Roosevelt called this a “production miracle”. But it wasn’t a miracle. It was the implementation of a well-designed plan.

The US war effort mobilized many millions. Between 1940 and the end of the war, the number of American troops increased 26-fold while the civilian workforce increased by ten million. Many of the new workers were women.

From 1942 to 1945 the production of cars was banned. The same was true of new home appliances and even the construction of new houses. Tires and gasoline were strictly rationed; Meat, butter, sugar, clothing and shoes were also limited. Rationing was seen as fairer than taxing rare goods: it was supposed to ensure that everyone got their fair share. A national speed limit of 35 miles (56.3 kilometers) per hour has also been introduced to save fuel.

Posters warned people: “If you drive alone, you drive for Hitler! Join a car sharing club TODAY ”. Others asked: “Is this trip really necessary?”. Or it was said: “Waste helps the enemy: do not waste valuable materials”. The Americans were urged to sign the “Consumer’s Victory Pledge”, something like “The consumer’s promise of victory”: “I shop wisely; I take good care of the things I have; I don’t waste anything. ”Every conceivable recyclable material – chewing gum paper, rubber bands, used cooking fat – has been recycled.

Mobilization has to come first

So what’s stopping the world from responding with the same determined force to the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced? There is no shortage of money or skill or technology. If anything, digitization would make such a transformation faster and easier. It’s a problem that Roosevelt faced up to Pearl Harbor: a lack of political will. Today, just as then, public rejection and indifference, supported by the existing industries (today primarily fossil fuels, transport, infrastructure, meat and media) outweigh the need to act.

The difference between 1941 and 2021 is that today mobilization has to come first. We need to build civil movements so large that governments have no choice but to act on them if they want to stay in office. We have to make it clear to politicians that the survival of life on earth is more important than its ideological adherence to a limited government. If we want to prevent the earth’s ecosystems from tipping over, we have to change the existing political systems.

So when is our Pearl Harbor moment? How about now? After all, the US Pacific coasts were recently hit by an unprecedented climatic attack – to take the analogy further. The heat waves, droughts and fires this year should be enough to really pull everyone out of isolationism. But the gap that has not been closed between these events and an understanding of their causes is perhaps the greatest public education failure in human history. We need institutions that are the equivalent of Roosevelt’s War Information Bureau and that constantly remind people of what is at stake.

The US mobilization has shown that when governments and societies choose to be competent, they can accomplish things that were previously thought impossible. The disaster is not a question of fate, but a question of decision.

George Monbiot is a columnist for Guardian

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