Jim Prentice, Canada’s Minister Minister of Environment, has resigned from Cabinet and the House of Commons in order to become Vice Chairman and Senior Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Imperial Bank Commerce.
Could this have anything to do with the results of the midterm elections in the United States? The Canadian government will certainly face less pressure now to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions.
Why is are members of the American Tea Party movement so worried about burdening future generations with debt, while simultaneously so unconcerned with imposing dangerous levels of climate change on them?
Anything actively advertised as being ‘green’ or good for the environment is probably nothing of the sort. At best, it is less harmful than competing products (like the Toyota Prius). At worst, some of the most damaging technologies out there are hocked on the basis of green promises.
It is an especially bad sign if the advertising is (a) close to Parliament Hill, in Ottawa or (b) featured in the pages of The Economist. Both venues seem to cater to companies that know they can’t make much of a logical case in favour of their products; instead, they try to impress decision-makers with how much money they have and what kind of messages they can craft for voters.
Ads from the October 30th issue of The Economist that make ‘green’ claims:
The area around Parliament Hill is currently plastered with ads making dubious claims about the environmental benefits of biofuels, along with pure greenwashing from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
I suppose it’s obvious enough that people aren’t advertising some of the technologies that could make the most difference, given that there isn’t a lot of money to be made in insulating homes, reducing deforestation, or cutting total electricity consumption.
In a disappointing but not unexpected development, Environment Minister Jim Prentice is saying that if the midterm election puts carbon pricing on hold in the United States, Canada will not proceed either. He says: “We’ve been very clear that we will not go it alone on cap-and-trade legislation” and suggests that if Congress delays consideration of carbon pricing in the U.S., Canada will put it “on the back burner for a continued period of time”.
The first response to this is to remind people that, as Richard Feynman famously said: “reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled”. That remains true no matter how poorly informed your electorate and elected officials are on critical issues. As long as we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the planet’s threatening warming trend will continue.
Secondly, it is worth pointing out that the lowest-cost, least disruptive way to achieve the transition to carbon neutrality is to start immediately and work gradually. Delay will ultimately make the process more costly and difficult.
Thirdly, for those who think carbon pricing is a socialist scheme to control the economy, it is actually the most hands-off policy that is likely to work. If its implementation is delayed, the policies that will eventually be necessary to fill the gap will be much more expensive and intrusive.
In November 1960, Norman Mailer wrote a piece for Esquire on the national convention of the Democratic Party in the United States. One little passage from it made me think about climate change policy, and the people trying to reform it:
Depression obviously has its several roots: it is the doubtful protection which comes from not recognizing failure, it is the psychic burden of exhaustion, and it is also, and very often, the discipline of the will or the ego which enables one to continue working when one’s unadmitted emotion is panic.
Should we be panicked, in these apocalyptic times? Probably. Panic should be at the back of our minds, to remind us of why we must struggle energetically against long odds. We must, after all, continue working.