This is my counterpoint to Bob Hackett’s article in the Peak [“Climate Crossroads: Reducing our carbon footprint needs system,” September 11].
Bob and I are old colleagues from SFU, and both on the Sue Big Oil committee, but we have different viewpoints. Bob strongly supports system change through political action.
I believe we need to persuade individual people to change their behaviour. If they do, and there are real benefits they can see, then cognitive dissonance - what they do and think don’t match - will kick in to change their attitudes over time.
The weakness of Bob’s argument is that Canada is a democracy. If politicians make changes that make your life more expensive or lower your quality of life, you can get rid of them next election.
Prime minister Justin Trudeau, for example, has been supporting gas taxes intended to lower Canada’s carbon footprint. Now, Mr. “Axe-the-Tax” Pierre [Conservative Party leader] Poilievre has sprung far ahead in the polls. At 39 per cent, he is within range of majority government.
Poilievre says he will cancel Mr. Trudeau’s gas taxes intended to reduce GHG and climate change. With gas cheaper and more GHG, maybe there’ll be more climate change, too.
Like the game of Snakes and Ladders, it could be a bit of a downer for those believing that burning fossil fuel makes climate change. They’ll have to work long and hard to elect someone different just to get back to where they were.
On the other hand, if regular folks see the benefit to behaving differently, Mr. Poilievre’s changes might have no effect. I see! I just sold my Tacoma gas hog and my hybrid SUV, for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Whatever Mr. Poilievre does for the price of gas, I won’t need any gas driving around town. It didn’t cost me much!
There was a similar effect on a larger scale when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. He had promised to rehabilitate burning coal in American power plants to get the West Virginia vote. His predecessor, Barack Obama, had been trying to eliminate coal as a major GHG polluter.
Mr. Trump loosened the coal regulations but his actions had little or no effect. The people running the power stations had been persuaded to switch to oil or natural gas and saw the benefit. They continued to do so.
My point is simply that once people are persuaded that what they are doing is right, and has real benefits for themselves and their families, policy won’t matter. People try to do what they think is the right thing, mostly. They don’t need politicians or big companies telling them.
If people see real benefits from making changes in their lives, they will do their best to get those benefits. They might not even believe those politicians anyway.
What do you think? Is government making you, or taking personal responsibility? Which do you prefer?
Neil Abramson is a retired professor from Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business and a member of the Sue Big Oil committee.
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