At war

I find myself at the age of 60 quite unexpectedly rich. My mind boggles, because I've been very poor most of my life. My childhood was formed during the austerity years after the war. So I still feel influenced by that. Curious, isn't it, how we were much healthier as a nation after the war when the rationing was on?

In a sense it was easier then because everybody knew there was a war on; you didn't get people like Melanie Phillips or Dominic Lawson saying: "War? Of course there isn't a war. It's just a conspiracy to get money out of us. All the scientific evidence is forged. Real scientists know there isn't any such thing as a war."

-- from Philip Pullman being interviewed on the challenge of climate change for an affluent society.