Michael, you’re nowhere nearly cynical enough about either “our” leaders or “our” media.
Extinction Rebellion is NOT a campaign to change people’s behaviour. It is civil disobedience aimed at governments.
In the Second World War, resources, especially food, were scarce due to the German U-boat attacks upon commercial shipping. The government did not “start a campaign” for people to be more frugal; it imposed rationing, and it took control of industry by commandeering it, so that wartime necessities were produced rather than luxuries.
Churchill had his faults but he is rightly respected for his leadership at a time of crisis. Johnson is a charlatan, a liar who is conning the British people; hydrogen is indeed a scam, to extract yet more money from ordinary people and to prop up the dying fossil fuel industry:
Blue Hydrogen. The greatest fossil fuel scam in history? YouTube, under 16 minutes.
There is a climate and ecological emergency. The polar ice is melting away rapidly; the only possible cause is more heat. Sea level is rising rapidly; the only possible cause is thermal expansion of the oceans, which can only possibly be caused by more heat. The largest living thing on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef – half of it is already dead.
What you think is “fervour” is in fact desperation. Thirty years of trying to influence governments democratically has failed – governments just batted it back to the people and refused to control the markets. Churchill would be spinning in his grave.