Right Hook
JJ McCullough, OP Columnist

 

prhaps the time has come to add an addendum to the old tru-
that “all politics is local.” If all major political trends begin at

e local level, than it’s equally true that all local politics begin at
e individual level. When you get down to it, most voters ate a
sically self-centered and non-ideological bunch, who tend to

ow their political support behind whatever party’s promises
ake the most personal sense in the short-term. This seems to
p the main lesson to be drawn from the defeat of the
epublicans in last Tuesday’s US congressional election.

The GOP originally rode to power back in 1994 under the

hdership of the brilliantly shrewd Newt Gingrich. Gringrich’s

ategy was to market conservative values in a very concise,

ect manner; a “contract with America” as he dubbed it, with a
par cut-list of promises to “the people” that his party would get
acking on immediately upon assuming control of the legisla-
ire. Such promises, in turn, were largely simple and direct
ings; we will cut taxes, we will bring in tougher sentences for

gerous criminals, we will increase handouts for new parents,

If these sound familiar it’s because Prime Minister Harper
opted the same winning tactics in 2006, for his own slide to
tory.

As the years went on, however, the Republican strategy began
change. They became more pragmatic and more populist, and
re principles fell by the wayside as a result. Cozy in the womb
power, suddenly things like curbing spending and improving
ountability no longer seemed as interesting. So much easier to
st co-opt your enemies’ tactics than abolish them altogether.

 
 
  

science
Matters

David Suzuki,
David Suzuki
Foundation

Nicolas Stern’s recent report on the economics of global
brming has finally changed the nature of the debate. Instead of
ing pigeonholed as an environmental problem, global warming
finally be seen for what it really is — an economic one.
The Stern Report was huge. Literally, at 700 pages, but also
r the shockwaves it sent around the world. Mr. Stern is no
Ihtweight. He’s a former chief economist with the World Bank.
his disposal was a team of 20 other researchers and academ-
. And the report they presented, while certainly not the final
brd on the topic, has finally assigned a dollar figure to the costs
global warming. j
That figure is astounding: $7 trillion (US)—or between five
d 20 per cent of the global economy — wiped out by the begin-
g of the next century because of problems brought about by
warmer planet. Global warming, the report says, could cost
re than the first two world wars combined and lead to a
brldwide depression.
Predictably, some people pounced on the report, saying it
s alarmist and inaccurate. Of course, the reality is that no one
ows how accurate it is. Creating a report of this kind naturally
huires making certain assumptions and even some guesses
out future trends. But it represents a very good estimate that

pinionsubmit@hotmail.com

 

A Reflective Exile

   

After September 11, the GOP’s elevator speech further
devolved to the point where it was basically “national security is
issue number one, and damn the expense.” This rhetoric made
sense for a while, but accountability—for both costs and leader-
ship, is not something that can be readily sacrificed, even in times
of war. Yet too many Republicans seemed to believe just the
opposite, with all security policies being justified with a sense of
extreme defensiveness, in which any compromise began to be
seen as weakness. Granted, this may have been an understand-
able position considering the state of the opposition party at the
time, in which securing a Republican loss was considered a more
important goal than securing any sort of coherent victory. The
War on Terror, especially the Iraq war, became Republican wars,
rather than America’s wars. >

The domestic agenda was no less inspiring. As part of the
Karl Rove strategy of “mobilizing the base” the GOP’s electoral
strategy for addressing domestic matters tended to almost exclu-
sively obsess over controversial religious and moral wedge-issues
like gay marriage and abortion. There’s nothing wrong with
bringing up such issues per se, and Ameticans deserved a full
debate on them. But they had one, and today public opinion on
both matters has stabilized. The problem with constantly resusci-
tating such wedge issues again and again is that after a while they
fail to wedge, as people grow numb to the debate and move on.
In this election, the Democrats, to their credit, filled this slim ros-
ter of domestic politics with issues of their own choosing for a
change. Just as the GOP had done a decade prior, Democrat

or

stern

 

can now be refined over time.

What we mustn’t do, however, is get so bogged down in
fighting over the details that we fail to see the most important
message in the report—that we can’t afford not to take serious
action, For years, many politicians and industry lobbyists have
painted global warming as an environmental problem—like cre-
ating a new park, helping an endangered species recover or plant-
ing trees. Yes, we need to help the environment, they said, but we
have to be careful not to do anything that could slow economic
growth. In fact, some went to great lengths to insist that tackling
global warming would mean “shutting down” the economy. Sure,
they lamented, we could do something about the problem, so
long as you don’t mind living in caves and eating dirt.

Basically, global warming was painted as an either-or envi-
ronmental problem. Either you had a robust economy and
accepted a hotter planet that might not have as many pretty birds
or plants, or you had no economy and lived like the Flintstones
with lots of fuzzy animals and spotted toads. According to the
standard argument you couldn’t have both.

Mr. Stern’s report shows this is a lie, for two reasons. First,
the economic costs, not just the environmental costs, of inaction
are actually much higher than adequately dealing with the prob-

for the

Republicans

leader Nancy Pelosi championed interesting, pressing issues that ~
mattered to ordinary Americans, like minimum wage, Social

Security, and healthcare. Her policies aren’t necessarily wise, mind
you, but clearly they did ultimately appeal to American voters
more than abstract talk of “staying the course” abroad and pur-
suing “moral values” at home.

It’s quite ironic, but more often than not the electoral lessons
learned by a party in the United States will end up being the most
applicable to its ideological opposite in Canada. Ih this case, the
modern Republicans have really been more like the Canadian
Liberals than Harper’s Conservatives; after all, both parties were ,
perennially in power, self-confident of their own entitlement to
rule, and routinely given the “benefit of the doubt” by voters
who trusted their stable brand over an uncertain alternative. But
both parties ultimately became too self-righteous, fear-monger-
ing, and elitist to justify a continued stay in power.

One hopes that the Republicans will use their time in opposi-
tion to get their act together, and return to the conservative-liber-
tarian principles of Gingrich that originally brought them to
power 12 years ago. Make the party relevant to the people again,
with small government policies that offer tangible benefits in
daily life. Canada’s Liberals, by contrast, seem content to use their
time in exile to continue hammering over matters ordinary
Canadians care nothing about, like the Kyoto Accord, the
Kelowna Agreement, and Quebec’s constitutional status. Only
time will tell which party can make a more successful comeback,
but I know where I’m placing my bet.

Wwarninc

Sidnges une

|
ALC

lem now. Mr. Stern says that measures to stabilize greenhouse gas
concentrations at levels that will prevent dangerous global warm-
ing will cost just one per cent of the global GDP. This means
that we most certainly can afford to take significant action.

Second, the report shows that tackling global warming is not
about saving the whales or some such thing; it’s about not being
stupid. It’s about having the capacity to recognize the health of
the world we live in and the health of our people and our
economies ate intimately connected. It’s about recognizing that,
although we rarely think about it, the services provided by nature
are worth a great deal (of money, if you like to think.of it that
way)

We can’t stop global warming in its tracks, but we can avoid
the worst of it. Fighting the problem certainly has a price, but it’s
manageable. These are the lessons of the Stern Report. Reasons
enough to put aside the rhetoric, stop the posturing and not be
stupid.

Take the Nature Challenge and learn more at
www.davidsuzuki.org