when conservation was partiotic

I've been spending some time working with people on how a few energy saving schemes may be made popular. Some of this has involved studying earlier periods - notably the green movement of the late 60s and early 70s and conversation during WWII.

The WWII era is the more interesting of the two. Here is a short article with some interesting bits to encourage exploration.

a few excerpts:

More important, that national obsession of the 1890s, the bicycle, made a huge comeback, partly inspired by the highly publicized example of wartime Britain, where bikes transported more than a quarter of the population to work. Less than two months after Pearl Harbor, a new secret weapon, the "victory bike"--made of nonessential metals, with tires from reclaimed rubber--was revealed on front pages and in newsreels. Hundreds of thousands of war workers, meanwhile, confiscated their kids' bikes for their commute to the plant or office, and scores of cities and towns sponsored bike parades and "bike days" to advertise the patriotic advantages of Schwinn over Chevrolet. With recreational driving curtailed by rationing, families toured and vacationed by bike. In June 1942, park officials reported that "never has bicycling been so popular in Yosemite Valley as it is this season." Public health officials praised the dual contributions of victory gardening and bike riding to enhanced civilian vigor and well-being, even predicting that it might reduce the already ominously increasing cancer rate.

...

The goal was a "slim, abbreviated silhouette," whose higher hemlines, girdleless form, and stabilized variation in styles would free fabric and looms to make more uniforms, tents, and parachutes. As shorter skirts, along with overalls and pants, became the WPB-approved norm, Life magazine photographers delighted the troops overseas with images of true patriotic zeal: starlets cutting off the bottoms of their nightgowns or showing off the shorter pajamas that were helping to win the war. Those nightgown trimmings, along with the wool cuffs from men's pants (ordered sheared by the WPB in May 1942), were eagerly recycled into blankets and other military fabrics in the 500-odd sewing workshops across the country that had been organized in response to an appeal from the Bureau of Industrial Conservation.

...

Conservation also warred with luxury lifestyles. Although defense production was adding billions to the net worth of America's plutocrats, it became harder for them to spend it in the usual conspicuous ways. In order to force builders to meet the acute demand for affordable housing for war workers, the WPB banned construction of homes costing more than $500 (the median value of the average home was then about $3,000). Simultaneously, thousands of servants fled Park Avenue and Beverly Hills to take higher-paying jobs in defense factories, while many of those who remained joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations' new United Domestic Workers Union. Some millionaires retreated to their clubs to grouse about Franklin D. Roosevelt's latest outrages, but others accepted the servant shortage and moved into smaller (although still luxurious) apartments while allowing their mansions to become temporary war housing. In a typical story, the Chicago Tribune in July 1942 described the adventures of seven young Navy petty officers and their wives who were sharing an old robber baron's mansion. (Today we would call it "cohousing.")

There are enormous resources that could be tapped for attacking climate change and a great existence proof, but we seem to be a long way from having the will to roll up our sleeves and do something.