Canadians know Canada won’t meet its obligations under the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol.Yes, I did say encouraging. Now follow me. Many, including myself, are convinced Kyoto is pretty useless as a treaty. It's based on outdated data from IPCC 3 since eclipsed by the new more severe projections in IPCC 4. Those of us who pay attention to the implications of the science with any sort of seriousness know that a few changes to the tax system in one country won't make a difference in a world of environmental upheaval. But that doesn't matter in the short run. For all our screaming, the vast majority of us plod on in our cars and trucks bitching about the price of petrol. It's what we know. Most of us understand the world within the confines of certain frame of reference. To the popular sense of Canadian or Western political economy, this is really reduced to a few superficial notions of tax cuts and right-left partisanship. The lack of broad awareness and concern is frustrating but that's the way it is. No party is going to get elected preaching doom and gloom scenarios and calling for drastic action. The voting public, in spite of themselves, is just not there yet. Sure, there may be a general sense that something is wrong, but anything more than that is not within the realm of conception for most. People feel something must be done, but they won't support anything that takes them too far out of their comfort zones. So what is to be done?
Find something we will accept. Come up with plan that'll tell us what we want to hear. Make it robust enough to stand up to non-partisan scrutiny. Promise us lots of things we like, and make them deliverable. We can't quite conceptualise a world outside of our present economic framework and the various fads that go with it. Right now, this means no government in North America is going to win an election without promising some sort of tax reduction and economic 'growth' shizbang.
If Dion wins an election on the Green Shift and puts it through, it represents a broader public acceptance that something is wrong and a willingness to do something about it, albeit within familiar terms. We get on board in our own uncertain way, like some first year undergrads passing an intro course, with seeds of ideas in our heads. Establishing this baseline is crucial, because as things worsen and more drastic measures become necessary, we need everyone reading off the same page. If that means a mixing tax play and carbon emissions, then so be it because it'll done within the context of GREEN. If it can be done, this would push AGW into the realm of actionable policy and not just rhetoric or hollow treaties.
For those of us who are a little more aware, it's probably wise to accept that we aren't going to get any significant moves against climate change until it's probably too late. Some of us won't support anything but an immediate and radical shift involving shutting down GHG emissions yesterday. FSM knows I tend to think that way. But, reality suggests that just ain't going to happen, so there's no use sweating over it. The alternative then is to have a coherent population ready to adapt when things get tough. I read The Green Shift as an attempt at finding a broadly acceptable point from which to start. It's clearly nowhere near enough to make a dent at climate change, but it is a badly needed start. Now let's see if the Liberals can win an election on it.
Anecdote, 20 June: I just witnessed an otherwise nice individual eagerly and readily accept a climate scientist's explanation of the functioning of climate and weather systems, but suddenly grow extremely bellicose AGW was introduced in that context. What is it about AGW that prompts such an active hostility and paranoid suspicion in some people?
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