Many thought leaders have pointed to World War II as a case study in how we might address climate change through top-down command structures. The point is well taken. After all, World War II saw the rapid conversion of many national economies to meet the challenges posed by the Axis Powers. And this strategy worked.

Recently, Paul Gilding and Jorgen Randers published the One Degree War Plan, a well-thought out strategy for rapidly responding to and solving the climate crisis using methods inspired by the war mobilization seen in many countries during World War II. In essence, the One Degree War Plan would remake the global economy through rapid, permanent and, yes, painful changes to the way the world economy is structured. The plan is divided into three periods with the first period reducing the global CO2 output by 50% in just 5 years time. In the second phase, the world would reduce emissions to zero in 15 years. During the following 80 years, the One Degree War Plan would complete the process of removing the CO2 already in the atmosphere until the world reaches the 350ppm threshold deemed safe for climate stability.

The mechanisms for achieving these goals are similar to what many countries experimented with successfully during World War II: rationing, repurposing industrial infrastructure, widespread local mobilization programs and regulations of certain foods and materials.

Of course, Gilding and Randers understand that the politics required for making such extreme measures palatable do not exist at the moment. This is why they put off implementing this program until late in the next decade. This is a gamble that they acknowledge will cost lives and ensure economic harm, but which will be necessary since people will refuse to get on a war footing until the climate crisis is a clear and present threat, as would be the case around 2020.

Assuming that Gilding and Randers’ assumptions about human nature and crisis response are accurate (and I don’t doubt they are), this would mean that humanity will be taking an incredible risk. And as the authors write, by opting to delay until the crisis is undeniably affecting us all, we will be condemning ourselves and future generations to a miserable world for at least a century…and perhaps forever.

This is one area where I agree the analogy with World War II is apt. Recall that the world chose to bide its time as dangers posed by militarism and fascism in the Pacific and in Europe grew in the 1930s. The world chose not to act in a timely manner, simply because the political will could not be mustered until the aims of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were unmistakable. As a result, the danger grew until the deaths of around 70 million people and the ruin of entire regions were assured.

Similarly, the war did spark a period of innovation that saw, among other things, the unprecedented retooling of civilian industry towards war production and advances in war-related technologies like radar, rockets and nuclear fission. This too will be a likely outcome of a rapid war-like response to climate change. If we are successful, we may find ourselves on the other side of the crisis with some new breakthrough energy source like nuclear fusion or something as of yet undreamed of.

But another lesson we should not forget is how unpredictable war can be.

In another global conflict, that of the First World War, most leaders believed that the war would end decisively in weeks. But as it happened, it just got worse as the instability and unpredictability that war brings led to consequences few imagined in 1914. Indeed, by 1919, when hostilities finally ended, the war had irrevocably weakened the power of the European empires, decimated millions of lives, saw the collapse of one of the most powerful nations in the world (Czarist Russia) and, some have argued, planted the seeds of the next, even greater war. Nobody had envisioned these outcomes in 1914, but that is what happened, despite many well-laid plans.

And so, while I agree with the One Degree War Plan, I fear that we may delay long-enough to make it our only option and one that may come too late.

We simply don’t know what horrors may be unleashed by the chaos that will come if we delay another decade. In fact, there is no guarantee that waiting for the catastrophe to scare people into action will work as we hope. There is also the chance that rather than banding together to face the challenge, we might instead dissolve into warring factions, driven to madness by hunger and thirst.

Waiting for the politics to naturally evolve as events dictate is fraught with risks. Rather, I think we need to challenge the public with straight-forward talk of the calamity to come. This is not unlike what Gilding already does in his lectures. But it is not what the scientific and academic community does regularly. And it is not what many of our leaders who know better do at all.

If fear can motivate people, as Gilding and Radners argue, then we need more of it and sooner. Scientists who fear what they see in the data more than they admit publicly, need to take more risks with their reputations. Leaders at all levels, in corporations and in government need to talk frankly with their constituents and shareholders. We need to shake people with the kind of talk that goes on out of public view. We need to be scared straight sooner rather than later.