ENVIRONMENT Canada spends a good part of its $600-million annual budget cranking out the message that nature is good, man is bad, and global warming is a live threat to life on the planet. The department's Web site is totally dedicated to planting fear of global warming and the looming climate crisis. Elsewhere, the media has been mostly supportive on the climate change issue, their reports filled with the doings of environmental activists, corporate greens and politicians expressing alarm over how fossil fuels are ruining the environment. Global agreements have been signed committing Canada to reductions in fossil fuel consumption of more than 20 per cent over the next dozen years.
Through it all, there must be the equivalent of $1-billion worth of high-power publicity going into the climate change scare every couple of years. But the news this week is that it's falling on deaf ears. At an Environment Canada-sponsored meeting of environmentalists, industry associations and bureaucrats held Monday in Toronto, a pollster delivered the grim message. Despite a decade of unrelenting publicity, the vast majority of Canadians are barely aware of climate change, those that are aware don't know what it is, and almost nobody feels it's an urgent national issue.
What's the single most important national issue? Unemployment loomed largest (20 per cent), followed by national unity (17 per cent), the economy (12 per cent), government spending (8 per cent), health care (7 per cent) and the environment (6 per cent). When Canadians were asked to pick the most important environmental issue, greenhouse gasses and global warming were lost at the bottom of a list behind general pollution issues such as air pollution, water pollution, clear-cutting, fisheries and ozone depletion.
The poll became even more distressing for the audience when Michael Marzolini, whose company, Pollara, conducted the survey, reported that Canadians do not recognize "climate change" and are utterly confused about its causes and meaning. For the most part, people believe it has something to do with the weather; otherwise, it's a mystery.
Environment Minister Christine Stewart, who opened the conference, tried to put a positive spin on the poll. It shows, she said, that "70 per cent of Canadians are concerned about climate change," a modest conclusion that required an analytical stretch. What else could she and her bureaucrats do? Having committed to a massive program of government intervention to curb the use of fossil fuels, Ottawa is now in the business of selling the idea to the people. The purpose of the conference -- called "A Forum on Climate Change Public Outreach" -- was to come up with programs, ideas and propaganda schemes to bring public opinion around.
In the hand-wringing sessions, consultants and experts from the United States and Canada came up with analyses and ideas. The problem seemed insurmountable, however. Peter Victor, dean of environmental studies at York University, listed the obstacles that stood between them and easy conversion of the masses into true believers. For starters, the science is complex and uncertain. Other barriers: The effects of global warming are long-term and varied; there are strong vested interests who hold opposing views; there are no easy fixes; attempts by individuals to solve the problem are useless; there's no way to measure progress; and -- worst of all for propagandists -- the problem has no catchy name.
Fixing the name occupied a bit of time. Climate change is just too general, too vague, too meaningless, too benign. Mr. Victor suggested a national contest to rename climate change, perhaps along more menacing lines. The conclusion here seemed to be that if this movie had a new title, say, The Godzilla Effect, it might have a better chance of capturing the public's imagination and attracting a bigger audience.
The main marketing tool of climate change activists, however, is currently the weather, and it's likely to remain the No. 1 factor in any campaign. Today, the green propaganda machine whirring away within Environment Canada produces a steady stream of reports that virtually equate any instance of bad weather with man-made climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
In Environment Canada's view, here in the Canadian Eden, there are no natural disasters anymore, just unnatural ones caused by humans nibbling away on the apple of life. When the weather gets nasty and delivers ice storms and hurricane-like winds, human activity is to blame, not nature. In Environment Canada's 1998-99 budget estimates, the dozen major weather events of the last decade -- the '98 ice storm, the Saguenay and Red River floods, the Calgary hailstorm of '91, the Edmonton tornado of '87 -- are all listed as "environmental disasters."
The weather connection may work. But right now it looks like the climate change issue, no matter what it's called, is well on its way to becoming a national policy disaster.
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