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Canadian political commentary available here at Scott’s blog and my recent post at takeoffeh.wordpress.com.  Nothing like some intense politics to get me writing!

Al Gore Changes His Mind?

I picked this up at the Daily Dish this morning.  It’s a reference to a post by Shellenberger and Nordhaus at The New Republic on how Al Gore, in a recent missive to president elect Obama, has subtly changed his message regarding climate change and carbon emissions.  The shift is in priority, away from putting a price on carbon to emphasising investment in green technology.  This strikes me as a tactical decision by Gore.  In order to retain relevancy in an uncertain economic environment, he has shifted his rhetoric away from taxation and regulation towards the ever hopeful idea of new technologies.  In this case, he might have been taking notes from the recent federal election in Canada where Dion’s carbon taxing initiative was a political  millstone; it confused voters, was hard to explain and difficult to justify to the public how a new tax was necessary.

The writers at the New Republic have picked up on Al Gore’s shift as it fits their world view and their belief that new technology is necessary and simultaneously the best way to deal with the problems of climate change and carbon emissions.  I am ever hopeful in new technology as well but, historically, new technologies that deal with old problems, well, they tend to develop problems that are unique and troublesome in their own right.  To paraphrase that old expression, technology happens.

Here’s a response and a criticism of that piece over at The Bellows by Ryan Avent.  He suggests that regulation is already happening in a rather awkward and scatter shot way, by various levels and branches of government.  He also criticizes Shellenberger and Nordhaus.  The money quote,

But it should be clear that pricing and investments ought to go hand in hand. Pricing provides information about where and how to invest and incentives to adopt new technologies, while investments in research ease the transition off fossil fuels as carbon prices slowly ramp up over time. That’s the necessary carbon policy. And it’s hard to see how we get to where we need to be without both.

I am fully on board with what Avent is saying here.  There’s not one solution, there are many and they need to be explored simultaneously.  Government investment in technology is problematic in that you have people making decisions about what to do with the dollars involved.  If those people are subject to lobbying, you might get questionable bridge technologies such as ethanol.  Using markets to find what is desired at a societal level removes decision making from potentially flawed individuals in favor of what is going to work in the market.  With a properly designed price environment, the market will find solutions to the problem.

As a matter of political signalling, I find the whole situation to be fascinating.  I have not examined the leanings of these writers, but I am assuming the writers at the New Republic are on the right.  Indicative of this is their fear of regulation, the holy belief in the saving power of technology, and the uncertain embrace of state sponsored spending bailouts and investment that is sweeping governments around the world. 

Alternately, Avent appears to be more left leaning than Shellenberger and Nordhaus, but he’s the one advocating for using the power of markets (historically the domain of the right) and the effective pricing of externalities, in this case carbon emissions.  This just goes to show, when dealing with a complex issue, ideas of left and right are quite useless.  A complex problem requires complex solutions, with contributions from all over the spectrum.

So, did Al Gore change his mind? I don’t think so. It looks like this is case of some writers wanting to say “I told you so!”, when all Gore wants to do is to keep the issue on the front burner before it’s relegated to the dustbin by current economic events.  Avent is more in tune with what is necessary to move forward on climate change and carbon pricing, but Gore has got a message and a speaking tour to maintain.

On Canada

I’ve recently picked up John Ralston Saul’s new book, A Fair Country – Telling Truths About Canada.  An early push of the book examines how Canada deals with the integration of numerous cultures into a relatively harmonious melting pot.  Canada is held up as having got it pretty much bang on, a positive example, where other countries, such as France, are stumbling on integrating immigrants.  Ralston Saul’s idea is that this is not a recent development based upon effective immigration rules and policies but is in a fact very old reality, and is based on First Nations practices.  Indeed, the thesis of the book (so far as I have read), is that Canada is a Metis civlization, with the First Nations as the founding and most senior pillar of our country.  It’s a significant and sober departure from accepted analysis of Canadian history, as far as I am aware.  So far, his arguments are compelling and inspiring.  More to follow.