We Have The Fraser Institute, They Have the Heartland Institute

Adding the word 'institute' into one's 'think-tank', a measure devised to give the patina of legitimacy to what is frequently simply a right-wing propaganda machine, is nothing new, given their ubiquity on both sides of the border, the Fraser Institute and the Macdonald Laurier Institute in Canada, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute in the U.S. being but four examples.

For whatever reason (and a lower collective intelligence may be one of them, he opined snarkily - my abject apologies to any intelligent Americans who might read this), American citizens seem to be more easily swayed by the blandishments masked as researched offered by these organizations.

As reported in today's Star, the Heartland Institute has plans to push for a public school curriculum questioning climate change. The leaked papers from the Heartland Institute has created a controversy within the scientific community as the American Association for the Advancement of Science gathers in Vancouver. This is the first time it is holding its annual meeting outside of the United States:

The documents, which were released via email and then reposted on blogs, say school teachers and principals are “heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective.”

Scientists say it is a frightening sign that much of the public remains skeptical about global warming.

“There are forces at work,” said Nina Fedoroff, president of the AAAS. “The polling data show that the fraction of citizens who believe that climate change is real has declined since 2006. Even as the scientific consensus has increased, the belief in it has declined.”

One can only hope that American teachers are able to put up a strong resistance to this well-funded propaganda machine.

Does This Pass The Critical Thinker's Smell Test?

“All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” So said Doctor Pangloss in what is probably Voltaire's best-known satirical work, Candide. And perhaps it is understandable that I briefly thought that The Hamilton Spectator had decided to devote part of its op-ed page to French literature upon seeing the title, 'All in all, things are getting a whole lot better' (Dec.30).

Written by David Seymour, described as a senior analyst for the Frontier Centre, a conservative/libertarian organization whose website boasts the article's original title, 'Cheer Up- The World Is A Wonderful Place,' the article extols the tremendous advances the world has made in a number of fields, including economic growth (hasn't Ebay enriched all of our lives immeasurably?) sanitation and longevity. At the same time Seymour hints at something deeply pathological about those who do not see the glass as half-full, dismissing them as 'the glum,' 'the moaners, and 'merchants of doom.'

To the reader with critical-thinking skills, perhaps most risible is Seymour's assertions “that everyone is getting wealthier and the environment is generally improving ...” and that “ freer and wealthier countries are better environmental custodians. “

Hmm... In his worldview, the writer has conveniently omitted that pesky problem of climate change which almost all balanced studies suggest will ultimately engulf low-lying lands in catastrophic flooding, make many parts of the world much more vulnerable to drought and consequent starvation, and cost world economies many many billions of dollars. Indeed, although no single year's volatile weather can be attributed to climate change, one cannot help but begin to see a pattern emerging in hotter summers worldwide, record snowfalls and freezes in Europe, and massive disruptions in travel throughout the world.

Indeed, I suspect that few would argue that it is the industrialized, free and wealthy countries who are responsible for the massive buildup of greenhouse gases at the root of these changes, the same nations that are proving quite intractable in their refusal to lower their emission rates in order to slow down the rate of earth's degradation.

And yet, according to Mr. Seymour, things just keep getting better for our species.

Would I prefer to live in an earlier time, before the advances of which the writer speaks? Of course not. But let's not kid ourselves that a world offering us greater longevity, sanitation, opportunity and technological marvels is one separate from the world of poverty, child labour, human exploitation, starvation, disease and early death that are constant realities for a significant percentage of our fellow human beings.

But let's face it. There is something beguilingly attractive about Seymour's premise that we can enjoy and exploit the world, guilt-free, because after all, things are so much better now than they were in ages past. Indeed, that nettlesome small warning voice in our heads can finally be put to rest – as long as we are also willing to cast out any sense of morality and concern for those less fortunate who have to pay a very heavy price for our indulgences.

How Do We Assess Information?

The other day I had an interesting and spirited discussion with a colleague at the food bank where I volunteer. Initially the conversation revolved around the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the possible loss of the team with City Council's decision to proceed with the West Harbour as the site of the new stadium over the objections of team owner Bob Young.

The discussion then progressed to how we evaluate the information we receive. My position, using two illustrations, was and is as follows: Because whatever personal expertise we may possess is usually very limited in scope, it becomes incumbent upon us to be very much influenced by experts in any given field.

Take, for example, the Conservative Government's decision to abandon the mandatory long census form. To be quite honest, the topic of the census, until the controversy erupted, was of no interest to me. The subject of statistics is like a foreign language to me, and seemingly of no pertinence to my life. However, after the almost universal condemnation of the Harper decision by a wealth of experts, critical thinking demands that I accept as true that it is a very bad decision that should be reversed.

We then went on to talk about, and disagree upon, climate change. Her position was that she wants to decide the truth for herself, through research on the Internet. That may well be a sound approach if she has enough time and the ability to evaluate the sources of her information, something that is very hard for a lay person to do on issues with a high degree of technical information.

Nonetheless, I have already accepted the truth of climate change, not just because of the worldwide evidence of something happening at an unprecedented rate of change, but also because, again, the overwhelming majority of experts in the field say that it is essentially indisputable. I italicized the word experts because a favorite ploy of climate change deniers is to have people whose credentials lie elsewhere to call into question the analyses of the real experts, thus sowing doubt amongst the lay people.

In fact, that is the tack regularly employed by Globe and Mail writer Neil Reynolds who, in his last column on climate change, cited the opinion of some environmental economists to support his thesis, and in a previous piece used the 'expertise' of a Nobel Prize-wining physicist.

Bringing these issues into sharp relief is writer Antony black, who had a column in today's Hamilton Spectator. I urge those of you interested in critical thinking to take a few moments to read it, as the evidence he presents to undermine the climate change deniers is quite interesting. I urge those of you interested in critical thinking to take a few moments to read it, as the evidence he presents to undermine the climate change deniers is quite interesting.

80% of Canada's Population and Climate Change

There is an interesting article from today's Globe and Mail, which I am reproducing below, discussing how a coalition of four Canadian provinces has joined with seven American states to form the Western Climate Initiative, set up to establish a cap and trade system to reduce carbon emissions. I find it quite telling that the four provinces (Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia) representing about 80% of the Canadian population, find it necessary to use their powers to circumvent the Harper Government - a clear indictment, their rosy rhetoric notwithstanding, of the lack of action on the part of Canada's Conservative Government, which plans to force reductions in emissions, not next year, not next decade, but in another 42 years, by 2050!

Bilateral coalition unveils cap-and-trade proposal
JOSH WINGROVE
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
July 24, 2008 at 4:05 AM EDT

A coalition of four provinces and seven states revealed a framework yesterday for a broad cap-and-trade program to reduce polluting greenhouse-gas emissions, the first such program in North America.

The Western Climate Initiative draft design proposes setting a hard cap on industrial emissions, providing cash incentives for companies to reduce their pollution levels. Following a European cap-and-trade model - by which greener companies can sell their pollution "credits" to the highest bidder - it would be the first such carbon system on the continent.

"This rewards efficiency," said Nicholas Heap, a climate-change analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation. "The people that are using less fuel and emitting less greenhouse gases are going to have lower costs."

The program would grant each participating province (British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec) an allocated and declining cap for each year from 2012 to 2020, set in advance. Those caps have not yet been set, but would be based on population, electricity consumption and production, and economic activity - not on current efficiency, the WCI report says. As such, the most efficient provinces in 2012 could sooner sell credits to other regions, creating a revenue stream.

The overall WCI emissions cap - the sum of each province and state's cap - "will be set at the best estimate of expected actual emissions," the WCI report said.

It is not yet clear how each province would enforce the caps, with the draft design allowing flexibility for each jurisdiction. One carrot on the enforcement stick is set, however: Any company that did not have sufficient credits to cover its emissions would pay a threefold credit penalty the next year.

The plan is still open for review, and is the culmination of several policy briefs released earlier. It will be reviewed publicly and finalized in September.
The effect of the cap would be for polluting companies to pay for the emissions they created. They would be free to pass those costs on to consumers.

"They'll be paying a price for putting carbon in the atmosphere; that is the idea," said B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner, whose province was the first to join the WCI. "We believe there are economic and environmental opportunities that can come from a cap-and-trade system."

Emissions caused by the production of transportation fuels, such as gasoline, are included in the draft design. Others include electric generation, general combustion, industrial process emission sources and transportation fuel combustion. The gases considered as emissions are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride.

The cap would apply to all companies emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of those gases, measured as "carbon dioxide equivalents" per year.

"We recognize we're in a carbon-constrained world," said Jock Finlayson, chief economist at the B.C. Business Council, adding that it remains to be seen how the WCI proposal would fit in with the federal government's plan to reduce emissions.

"The devil will all be in those regulatory details. There's a great bit more to come."

The emissions would be regulated at the point of entry into the member province or state. For instance, emissions created by transportation fuel would likely be measured at a distributor - not car by car - but may vary from province to province. Companies would be required to begin monitoring emissions in 2010, and begin reporting them in 2011.
Emissions from the production of biofuel would not be included.

The WCI plan includes the option for provinces or states to maintain "comparable fiscal measures" for putting a price on emissions. B.C. is the only province with such a system, after introducing a carbon tax this month.

The four provinces, which joined the initiative voluntarily, make up nearly 80 per cent of Canada's population, and account for 49 per cent of its greenhouse-gas emissions. Ontario joined most recently, just last week. The participating states are Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The eleven jurisdictions have a total population of more than 80 million people, creating a broad trading market for polluters.

The United States has a similar cap-and-trade program to reduce acid rain.

The WCI draft design will be discussed by stakeholders in San Diego on July 29. The WCI plan is open for public comments until mid-August.

View the full report or make comments at http://www.WesternClimateInitiative.org.