Campbell's Global Warming Game
While eagerly enabling tar sands and freeways, he's cooled out green foes.
Talking 'climate for change' at the Vancouver Board of Trade.
"Let's be honest," Michael Ignatieff told young followers last week in Vancouver. "We got killed at the doorstep with the Green Shift."
The new federal Liberal leader is clear that campaigning on a carbon tax was suicide.
But in British Columbia, Premier Gordon Campbell is sticking with his own carbon tax as he leads his BC Liberals into a May election.
Does that make Campbell an idealist, willing to go down fighting if it means showing how to save ourselves from catastrophic global warming?
More likely, Campbell is crazy like a fox, having crafted a political image that doesn't match his actions.
You wouldn't know it from his eco-hero photo-ops with Schwarzenegger or the soft ride he gets from enviro groups but among Western leaders, Gordon Campbell is actually doing more than most to hasten global warming.
Let's lay out the game Campbell is playing, and so far, winning.
First, the zig:
In B.C., the green-minded swing vote can make all the difference, and environmental protesters can make life hell for candidates they don't like.
Campbell has all but co-opted those forces with his year-old carbon tax, which levies $10 on carbon-based fuels for every tonne of greenhouse gases they generate. (The money is refunded to British Columbians rather than invested in green projects.)
What that means now, most noticeably, is two or three pennies added to the price of a litre of gas. Green wonks will privately admit the tax is too low to seriously deter B.C.'s emissions. "But it's a needed start," they will say. The tax might have a real effect if it rises to a planned $30 per tonne -- three years after this spring's election.
Meanwhile, for Campbell's opponents, the carbon tax issue has shredded the delicate labour / environmentalist coalition some B.C. New Democrats have spent years trying to establish. Jockeying for a populist issue, NDP leader Carole James has opted to slam Campbell's "gas tax." Her stance has enraged climate change worriers, and Campbell is only too glad to welcome those voters into his Liberal tent.
Now the zag:
For a guy supposedly so concerned about global warming, Gordon Campbell sure is quick to back what causes it, like putting more vehicles on the road and revving up Alberta's tar sands production.
Last Tuesday he joined Prime Minister Harper in Surrey, B.C., to brag about their governments' joint $1 billion, 40-kilometre freeway, part of the Gateway Plan to beef up the province as a conduit for Asia. Critics say the road will pave farmland and generate pollution. But the Campbell message was jobs, jobs, jobs.
Less reported, yet potentially much worse for climate change, are twin pipelines Enbridge wants to build connecting Alberta's tar sands with the port of Kitimat, B.C. Right now there's no direct way to get tar sands oil out of North America. Fretting that Obama will tighten that tap, industry is pushing hard to get the Enbridge project approved. Campbell's government has promoted the idea of a pipeline "corridor" across B.C. to fuel Asia and other markets.
The Enbridge project would carry more than a third of the tar sands' current 1.4 million barrels per day production. Producing those 525,000 barrels a day creates 15 million tons of CO2 per year; burning that fuel emits 60 million tons more.
An editorial in the Times of London pointed out what Campbell surely knows, that the tar sands "are already the single largest contributor to Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. If they were all to be mined, the climactic consequences would be unthinkable." So the Times urged UK-based Shell to pull out.
But Campbell apparently is glad to help Enbridge support tar sands production -- and accelerate global warming.
Zig: Two years ago, Campbell vowed to cut greenhouse emissions by at least a third by 2020.
Zag: Last Monday, Campbell downgraded the status of his Climate Change Secretariat, moving the job out of the premier's office.
Zig: Campbell has championed a complex "cap and trade" approach to using market forces to lower emissions in B.C.
Zag: How B.C. regulates such emissions from its own citizens and businesses will have but a smidgen of impact on the rest of the globe. But those gains will be wiped away by Canada's mega-project on the Athabasca, which has a friend in Gordon Campbell.
I know. Times are rough. A premier different than Gordon Campbell might just forthrightly state that green ideals must wait while we build ports and highways and oil and gas infrastructure to create jobs and revenue.
But, then, that premier wouldn't get to be a global warming guru, too.
Related Tyee stories:
- Premier Campbell Backing off Global Warming Effort?
Enviros worried that cabinet shuffle sends a signal priorities have changed. - How Fair Is BC's New Carbon Tax?
And will it make rich people greener? - Bill Clinton praises Gordon Campbell's carbon tax as 'economic generator'
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
Luke Skywalker
25-01-2009
Again... A Good, Reasonable, Analytical Article...
While I have posted parts of the following in another thread, I have also added some after thoughts...
The "zigging and the zagging" surrounding the carbon tax is exactly due to the foregoing. All politics... all the time.
The recent Mustel poll held that the Greens have 16% of current BC political party preferences. While that figure may not stand up on election day, it is also important to note that the Greens garnered just less than 10% in 2005 when Mustel had the Greens polling as low as 8% just prior to the 2005 election.
Even federally, the Greens had just under 10% here in BC during the 2008 election, and the provincial BC Greens always out perform the federal Greens by a considerable margin.
Throw in current BC Green Party leader Jane Sterk, who will be at the leader's debate, and compare her to Adrianne Carr who many considered a flake, and well, reasonably one should be able to read the tea leaves.
As for the carbon tax per se, why would the left-wing Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives support same??? I will leave that question to some other analytical poster.
mcdull
25-01-2009
Candidates
I am still waiting for the Star candidates of the MSM to declare. Those cheerleaders of the Prem's environment policy Vaughn Palmer, Keith Baldry, Michael Smythe and Bill (boring) Good. Would that ever be the show.
BC Mary
25-01-2009
NOT AGAIN ...
TYEE,
Not another beautiful portrait of our Glorious Leader!
You've got them doubled up: Two portraits on one page?!!
Either you are indulging in malicious torture or you are trying to drive readers away.
Surely you can find a photo of something -- anything -- else, but Mr Real Estate?
.
ME2
26-01-2009
The fat lady hasn't sung yet
The carbon taxes etc schemes are just tilting at windmills.
First of all, to give an attack upon CO2 generated AGW a realistic chance of success, all the industrialised nations would have to be fully on board, and given the present lack of alternate energy sources to replace oil, and the decades-long time-frames needed to even begin to, it is highly unlikely such a consensus could be brokered.
Carbon taxes capable of achieving set goals would simply put exporting nations at an uncompetitive price disadvantage, which is why industrialists promote the illusory cap and trade scam which will do little - if anything - to actually reduce CO2 emissions.
GW activists had hoped that the Peak Oil scare would force a rapid switch-over to alternate energy sources, but new exploration technolgy and new fields have pushed that eventuality into an undetermined future. And coupled to that, new coal gasification technology has rendered the virtually inexhaustible reserves of coal competitive with oil.
Nuclear is the most logical alternative to oil, but opposition by enviros, the very high capital costs, and the 10 - 15 year development programs are severe constraints to nukes solving the energy problem.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle GW advocates face is the inability so far to provide uncontestible SCIENTIFIC PROOF that anthropogenicly-induced CO2 is the villain in GW.
Such proof may indeed surface, and for now a politician would most certainably be a fool to ignore (or fail to capitalize upon) the clamor the issue has generated, but IMO, given the resistance by industry, all governments will be foot-dragging on all genuine industrial CO2 constraints until hard proof forces them to do so.
jimmy_laroux
26-01-2009
Luke Skywalker
Wow. I never thought I'd write this, but I agree 100%. That is by far and away the most honest and intelligent comment of yours I've read on these Tyee threads.
It's pure PR. The BC Liberals' abysmal track record on the environment shows the reality of how little concerned they are about climate change.
G West
26-01-2009
Support of the CCPA
Perhaps it would be fairer to note that the support of the CCPA for the Wurlitzer Tax is contingent...
In effect, their analysis shows that it's just another of Campbell's typical reach-arounds to his base since it hurts the poor and lower middle class far more than the upper middle class and the wealthy.
Perhaps inquiring minds should read up on it here:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/BC_Office_Pubs/bc_2008/ccpa_bc_carbontaxfairness.pdf
And of course, not to mention the most important problem with the tax: that it does sweet bugger all to address the problem it's meant to counter.
Which is why it should really be called the Campbell Tax.
Nothing but another CEO money laundering scheme....BTW, as the province is now in deficit it will be interesting to see if Campbell and his ministers will all be taking hits to their salaries....
Grumpy
26-01-2009
Carbon tax? Campbell's Green?
The Carbon tax is a fraud, always has been. What the carbon tax is is a tax on the poor and this is Campbell's great gambit - reduce taxes for the rich and increase user fees (taxes)for the poor and working poor.
Campbell's P-3 projects were all falling apart and he needed a new revenue source so he pirated the carbon tax to use as his new source of revenue.
You just can't keep building fancy new highways and metro systems without increasing taxes.
So all you media types out there, take off your rose coloured glasses and see what Campbell's Green initiatives are?
"Rubber on asphalt old chums", it was ever thus!
Stump
26-01-2009
ME2
That was the most balanced post on 'climate change' from you I think I've ever read. Thank you for that. I don't agree with your position, but you didn't characterize those of us who disagree with you as the victims of an enormous con job and I think you are to be recognized for such. Again, I in no way share your view on climate change, its effect or causes, but think you've still opened the door to intelligent discourse on the topic by not calling folks Warmies or Greenies or whatever.
As to incontrovertible proof, well, I don't think of the battle to mitigate climate change as a religion, but I would point out that in terms of public buy-in, you CAN achieve same without a shred of material evidence and a Good Book. :-)
Having said that, the BODY of evidence (see what I did there?) does point to anthropogenic causes as the culprit and we should work under that assumption until the weight of research swings in another direction. We have little incontrovertible evidence of quirks and quarks, mesons and other quantum particles, yet somehow science manages to embrace those little fellows into a bigger picture without much controversy and has convinced us of the efficacy of super-colliders and other gee-whiz gadgets.
Regarding the economic impacts I'm convinced that the caterwauling over lost jobs and financial Armageddon primarily come from those sunset industries who have a vested interest in the status quo. The money will still be spent, perhaps even MORE dollars will flow into infrastructure, education, R & D, and capital projects as we build cleaner ways to generate the necessary power to fuel our way of life. Who among us would begrudge our children this progress except those selfish individuals and corporations who fear the golden goose will be laying eggs in a different farm yard to which they don't hold the deed?
Rod Smelser
26-01-2009
GOOD ARTICLE
A good article.
It's worth remembering that when ENGOs start raising $6 million per year, and are spending $1 million of that on more fundraising, they are no longer a group of unpaid volunteers. They have become an interest group with a donor base that is providing them with significant financial support, support that comes from people with real economic interests and an income/wealth status sufficient to allow them to make those donations, and a payroll of careerists who have dedicated themselves to working in that industry.
Now that Barack Obama is in office and is supporting a cap and trade system, I expect that most Canadian academics, including the 200 university economists who signed the open letter for the Liberals to cite during the election in support of the Green Shift, will quietly drop their insistence on a carbon tax instead of a cap and trade system.
They know they dare not attempt to smear Obama as "dishonest" and say they are "ashamed" of him, the way they can and have done with Carole James and Jack Layton. The double standard here, and the obsequious political favour seeking that motivates it, is pretty obvious.
PeteL
26-01-2009
Second that thought Ron
Its been apparent for a good three years that that the political right and corporations have bought the mainstream environmental movement.
You don't see them on your porch anymore seeking donations. These are all made in the boardroom now. Just look at the silence of the World Wildlife Fund or the David Suzuki Foundation on key questions facing the BC Environment. Total silence, except to undermine those of us who actually live and work in the environment, not in the hothouses of the downtown office towers and the Premiers office.
I believe we are seeing on a macro scale the same thing we saw some years ago when Patrick Moore was co opted.
KWD
26-01-2009
just say No
At this point it matters little whether climate change is anthropogenic or not.
If climate change is a man made problem, the time lag between the start of serious atmospheric CO2 introducion (somewhere around the Industrial Revolution), the time we agreed that the climate is changing, the time it has taken to arrive at the belief that CO2 may be the cause, and the time it will take to introduce corrective measures, guarantees we will see the results of having too much CO2 in the air. We won’t alter the cummulative effects of environmental abuse, that have occurred over the last two centuries, in the next15 or 20 years.
If climate change is a result of other than human activity we will see its impact regardless of what we do to reduce CO2 levels.
If we error on the side of caution, and tackle CO2 output, the question now is, How do we make sure the money spent actually benefits society (humanity) and the environment?
Since a great many of our institutions and fields of endeavor are little more than make work projects that keep folks occupied and out of trouble, we need to prioritize our spending.
No additional spending for the military other than what it takes to maintain the existing infrastructure.
No additional spending on bailouts for financial institutions like private banks.
No additonal spending on bailouts for industry other than those whose primary reason for existence is carbon reduction.
No tax cuts for big business or the wealthy.
I'm sure this list can be expanded ...
Start a global campaign telling those that insist on clinging to destructive behaviour; “No you can’t!”
Rod Smelser
26-01-2009
AGREED PETEL
PeteL
You don't see them on your porch anymore seeking donations. These are all made in the boardroom now.
And the boardrooms of some of the ENGOs are themselves very well-appointed, and the salaries paid are high enough that the organizations chose not to reveal them for fear of damage to their corporate image among the public.
The ENGO annual reports will sometimes give names of donors, as in "John and Mary Smith", but that's not much help in determining what industry/occupation these people represent, and from which they derive their incomes, unless one just happens to see a familiar name.
pmagn@yahoo.com
26-01-2009
We are missing the point
We are missing the point and the boat on the opportunity that the down turn is presenting.
It is disappointing to see that our leaders are not getting it - look at all the money they have committed to try and kick start the old consumer base paradigm that got us in to this dilemma and which is relentlessly driving our CO2 upwards.(Climate change envoy calls for state aid to create low-carbon economy http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/25/climate-change-summit-global-international)
You can see how it happens, with the mad panic that has engulfed us all as we stare over the cliff at the gaping depression sucking us in.
This year is it!
If we don't switch our bail out packages and infrastructure spending towards obtaining the target for 100% CO2 reduction. then we are hosed for sure. There won't be a second chance. We will have wasted the money, the political effort and the time (the oh so precious time) correcting the more urgent at the expense of the most essential.(Climate change in 2009: the defining issue http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/email/climate-change-in-2009-the-defining-issue)
We won't make it below 3degrees then! And that means we are looking at +5degrees eventually. (I think we are probably past the tipping point at this time, but lets not go there until we have to)
It must be fate that Obama arrived at this moment. If he is able to realize that this is the most crucial point in the history of mankind and is able to engage the international effort needed, then there is hope.
God bless America.
BrianWhite
26-01-2009
The other bad CO2 stuff.
CO2 also acidifies the oceans, ruins buildings made from lime products, (eats them away), makes plants grow faster in arid places (and use up all the water), kills fish, same as the limestone buildings, it takes away their bones and it makes it harder for them to get enough oxygen out of the water, and it helps algal blooms (zones of fish death) form in the water. what else? Every single plant in the world is effected by it, some absorb it efficiently some not. Those that grow quickly will kill off those which grow more slowly. This changes nutrient balances and animal number balances everywhere too! Same with animals, some can live with lots of CO2 in the air. We humans have a rather low toxic limit value for CO2
"At 1% concentration of carbon dioxide CO2 (10,000 parts per million or ppm) and under continuous exposure at that level, such as in an auditorium filled with occupants and poor fresh air ventilation, some occupants are likely to feel drowsy.
The concentration of carbon dioxide must be over about 2% (20,000 ppm) before most people are aware of its presence unless the odor of an associated material (auto exhaust or fermenting yeast, for instance) is present at lower concentrations.
Above 2%, carbon dioxide may cause a feeling of heaviness in the chest and/or more frequent and deeper respirations".
BrianWhite
27-01-2009
Link about the toxic limits for CO2 for humans
http://www.inspect-ny.com/hazmat/CO2gashaz.htm
The U.S. EPA recommends a maximum concentration of Carbon dioxide CO2 of 1000 ppm (0.1%) for continuous exposure. We will reach 400 ppm quite soon in outdoor air. Indoor air is often around 600 already. Really, when you think about it, given that much of our lives are spent indoors, 1000 ppm is not that far away.
G West
27-01-2009
Push Back
I see there's a full page colour ad in the paper this morning starting a little push back - on both the salmon farming and the native affairs issues.
I'd say you can forget about the green Campbell - we're about to see the roll-out of the old corportate campbell all over again.
G West
27-01-2009
More Games...
But really folks, that whole thing about Campbell being 'green'--- where did that come from anyway?
Maybe some have forgotten that the guy leading Green GORDO's charge was Graham Whitmarsh...
About which Sean Holman said the following:
source: Public Eye Online July 26, 2007:
http://www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/002558.html
We now have the somewhat disconcerting result that a man with few credentials for the environmental file is now equally 'qualified' to be DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE.
Amazing what a few years in the Royal Navy can prepare you for!
G West
27-01-2009
Graham Whitmarsh
In fact, not only was he unqualified and inexperienced as an environmental guru, the stillborn failure of the Campbell tax to actually address the environment in a positive way could have been surmised by anyone who did a little more digging into Mr Whitmarsh's CV.
Had one done so, one would have realized that Mr Whitmarsh's background is PR and sales and (although his Navy background was submarines) airplanes:
... after university Whitmarsh pursued a career in the Royal Navy as a warfare Officer in Nuclear Submarines.
...His 17 year 'international business career' included senior executive positions at Harmony Airways, Sabre Airline Solutions nota bene- Market, Sell, Serve and Operate...(at)
http://www.sabreairlinesolutions.com/
, Mercury Scheduling Systems
Sales and Marketing http://www.rati.com/SULANDING_10135.htm
and British Aerospace Inc.
More from Sean Holman here:
http://www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/002494.html
Hard not to think that Mr Whitmarsh's 'in' with the Premier's Office has something in common with a certain former 'MINISTER OF FINANCE' who played an important role in the Basi Virk case and the Legislature Raids....funny how all the people Gordo promotes are friends or friends of friends.
As to his abilities to handle a technical job in the Finance Ministry...don't kid yourself, Vaughn Palmer has actually covered that one quite well:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Bureaucratic+shuffle+prelude+cost+cutting+balanced+budget/1201422/story.html
Whitmarsh clearly has no chops for finance - he's been brought in to handle the Campbell version of the Bill BENNETT 'Massacree' which will begin the day after May 12 if the people of BC are so foolish as to re-elect the current Premier....
For anyone still wanting to get a clearer picture of the man the Premier thinks so highly of, here’s a bit of ‘stuff’ from the man himself – a little bit of fluff he prepared for Document Boss that talks about ‘teams and ‘team leaders’:
http://www.documentboss.com/article_teamleader.asp
Des Emery
27-01-2009
GW
ME2 talks about wanting scientific proof of Global Warming being anthropogenic, but doesn't say what he would consider as proof positive.
How about the just recently completed study by a team from Stanford U. that connects GW in reverse (that is, Global Cooling) to human activity? Unfortunately, the process requires a more lengthy explanation than a mere two words.
In pre-Columbian times the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere were hunters and farmers. After Columbus, the explorers and exploiters brought blankets, beads and metals for trade, and also smallpox, cholera and typhus which effectively decimated mainly the native farmers.
When they had to abandon their farm plots, the jungles and rainforests moved into the cleared lands quickly. The Stanford team could trace that re-forestration's abrupt absorption of a lot of CO2 to the Little Ice Age, Global Cooling.
The slow growth of the Industrial Age followed that event, and pumped the CO2 which had been sequestered in coal and petroleum many millenia ago back into the atmosphere, and is giving us Global Warming as a geometrically-developing process now.
Our activities do indeed influence nature.
stevie wonders
27-01-2009
Ziggy (and Zaggy) Stardust
How is transferring the maintenance of climate-action policy to the Environment Ministry a "zag"?
And if allowing a pipeline to traverse BC, a pipeline that emits no green-house gases in itself, is "un-green", how do you reconcile the traversing of BC airspace by very-polluting jetliners?
And how is building a highway to get traffic moving, and thereby easing traffic congestion with a resultant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, a step in the wrong direction?
It's not the infrastructure itself that creates pollution, it is how it is used. Additional highways and bridges, if they include transit, HOV, and other special-use dedicated lanes, is a smart use.
The same pipeline that can transport dirty oil can (and will) transport production from the oil sands when new (as yet undeveloped) technology dramatically cleans up the process. And it will get cleaner - market forces alone will drive that.
Why is this article so negatively focused on Gordon Campbell's efforts to solve some of society's problems? His initiatives may not all be perfect, but they are more positive than much of what I read on this website sometimes.