photo credit: Josh Berson
Seth Klein is a public policy researcher and writer based in Vancouver, BC
Seth is the Team Lead and Director of Strategy with the Climate Emergency Unit. Prior to that, he served for 22 years as the founding director of the British Columbia office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), Canada’s foremost social justice think tank. He is now a freelance policy consultant, speaker, researcher and writer, and author of A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Seth is a regular columnist with Canada’s National Observer, an adjunct professor with Simon Fraser University’s Urban Studies program, and remains a research associate with the CCPA’s BC Office.
Scroll down for speaking dates and videos of book launch events
The Book - A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency
In A Good War (ECW Press, 2020), Seth Klein explores how we can align our politics and economy with what the science says we must do to address the climate crisis. But Klein brings an original and uniquely hopeful take to this challenge. The book is structured around lessons from the Second World War – the last time Canada faced an existential threat. Others have said we need a “wartime approach” to climate change, but this is the first book to delve into what that could actually look like. Canada’s wartime experience, Klein contends, provides an inspirational reminder that we have done this before. We have mobilized in common cause across class, race and gender, and entirely retooled our economy in the space of a few short years.
Image credits: Joseph Sydney Hallam (left); Meital Smith (right)
Check out this 6-minute Climate Emergency Unit video, written and narrated by Seth, “4 Hopeful Lessons from WW2 to Confront Climate Change,” available here.
Book Events
Virtual book Launch E-Tour (these events are now done, but click on the links to watch the videos)
Join for an evening of music, a reading, author Q&A, and a panel discussion with local climate emergency activists
British Columbia: Monday, Sept. 14 (with musical guests Khari McClelland & Dan Mangan). Video of the event now available here.
Ontario: Monday, Sept. 21(with musical guest Sarah Harmer). Video of the event now available here.
Nova Scotia: Thursday, Sept. 24 (with musical guest Joel Plaskett). Video of the event now available here.
Manitoba: Tuesday, Sept. 29 (with musical guest Decades After Paris). Video of the event now available here.
Saskatchewan: Wednesday, Sept. 30 (with musical guest Eliza Mary Doyle). Video of the event now available here.
Alberta: Monday, Oct. 5 (with musical guest Gerald Wheatley and the Arusha Centre House Band). Video of the event now available here.
Additional public events
Feb. 12, 2021, Seth in conversation with the Centre for Social Innovation’s Climate Ventures. Video available here.
March 29, 2021, Seth gave the annual Splane Lecture for the UBC School of Social Work. Video of this event available here.
Aug. 14, 2021, Seth gave the Rockwood Lecture at the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts. Video available here.
No other public events scheduled at this time. Check back soon.