One of the world’s great English-language newspapers — The Guardian (U.K.) — made a significant editorial decision earlier this year. The paper abandoned the neutral-sounding “climate change” for terms that more accurately reflect the global reality.
Climate crisis, climate emergency and climate breakdown, the paper’s editors determined, better express the gravity of the threat that envelops the planet. With each tick of the clock, homo sapiens stumble nearer to that inhospitable, if not uninhabitable place the world’s scientists say is inevitable unless we stop pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
They talk a good game on all things environmental, but while the spirit seems willing, Grit flesh is weak.
This week, Canadian parliamentarians voted to declare a national climate emergency. The next day the government approved the Trans Mountain Pipeline, the necessary precursor to increased production of that vast pool of bitumen called the oil sands. The emergency will wait while there’s still a buck to make.
Some find hypocrisy in the government’s exhortations about the climate crisis while its actions contribute to the escalating emergency. Realpolitik invariably presents as hypocrisy in politicians who claim ideological purity, as do the Liberals on the now-declared climate emergency.
They talk a good game on all things environmental, but while the spirit seems willing, Grit flesh is weak. The environment is the top priority until it bumps up against political necessity. Liberals believe voters are — as a rule and with the usual exceptions — short-sighted and self-interested.
Ergo, the Liberal government needs to keep the fossil-fuel-fed economy burning hot, while somehow reducing the emissions that it creates. It can’t be done, but Liberals generally, and “sunny ways” Liberals in particular, aren’t about to give you that bad news, at least not before you vote.
Liberals need Canadians to believe they live in a magical land, where you can have both belching smokestacks and clear blue skies. The Conservatives, given the choice, would pick the smokestacks over the blue skies, because when did a blue sky ever turn a profit?
Conservatives who’ve read this far with barely restrained glee might want to stop now. Because, while Liberals will use the environment for their political gain, Conservatives just want to use the environment and expect someone to come along and invent a way to clean up the climate mess.
Liberals need Canadians to believe they live in a magical land, where you can have both belching smokestacks and clear blue skies. The Conservatives, given the choice, would pick the smokestacks over the blue skies, because when did a blue sky ever turn a profit?
This week, Canadians finally got to see what the Conservatives say is their plan to address climate change. They don’t subscribe to the science-based conclusion that this is a full-blown crisis, and voted against the Commons’ declaration of a climate emergency.
The Conservative climate paper can’t really be called a plan, unless hoping for the best constitutes a plan.
When Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer introduced his party’s long paper on climate change he claimed it as “the most highly anticipated policy announcement from an opposition party in Canadian history.”
By the time he was done, it would rank among the most vapid and disappointing pronouncements ever heard by Canadians from a party that could form the next government.
The Conservative climate paper can’t really be called a plan, unless hoping for the best constitutes a plan. The Conservatives favour the full and profitable exploitation of Canada’s fossil fuels. Money that the Conservatives would have heavy polluters send to researchers will lead to a eureka moment, or a series of them, that will solve Canada’s emissions problem and give us world-saving ideas to export far and wide. It is fantasy.
But the Conservatives don’t need a better climate plan than the Liberals or anyone else. Their voters fall into the profits-before-preservation category, or into that vast pool of voters who just want something done — painlessly — so they can stop hearing about the climate calamity.
Politically, the Conservatives needed to create the perception that they have a plan, and the 1,110-word document they produced this week and will wave around through October fits the bill.
The Liberals are in a tougher spot. Their middle-of-the-road approach — the idea that we can have it both ways — may appeal to some folks equally worried about the climate emergency and the economy. But that approach alienates a sizable chunk of the Liberals’ 2015 winning coalition — voters who want consistent action to combat the climate crisis.
The NDP’s climate policy, like the Greens, rests on the recognition that the world must transition off of fossil fuels urgently, and on to renewable, non-polluting energy sources. But pollsters tell us neither of those parties can form a government.
Among the two that can win, Canadians can choose the Conservatives’ hope and prayer approach or they can take a leap of faith that after the election the Liberals’ action on climate change will finally match their rhetoric.
RELATED:
