Left Global Warming Right

Brent Jessop - Knowledge Driven Revolution.com
June 28, 2007

It seems that every time you turn around a different think-tank, government funded or otherwise, pumps out some solution to global warming. We are led to believe that these groups consist of either extremist enviro-communists pushing a new carbon tax or some greed-driven corporate front pushing for a cap-and-trade approach.

If things were only so simple then each group should nicely be divided into their happy little left-right paradigm. But reality has a way of popping up now and again for those who wish to take note.

From the CBC:

“[T]he National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy said Wednesday that the government would save Canadian businesses more money if it signed up to international carbon trading markets, rather than going it alone.”

Nothing too special here on the surface. A federally appointed advisory group telling a conservative government that it needs the typical rightwing cap-and-trade solution to global warming (with a hint of internationalism for good measure).

So who is this group? Their "mission is to generate and promote innovative ways to advance Canada’s environmental and economic interests in combination, rather than in isolation. In this capacity, it examines the environmental and economic implications of priority issues and offers advice on how best to reconcile the sometimes competing interests of economic prosperity and environmental conservation." [emphasis mine]

In combination.

A cursory look at the membership of The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy highlights some curious bedfellows ( listed here).

Members have connections to leftwing / environmental groups like the PEW Institute, World Wildlife Fund, United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change and International Institute for Sustainable Development. Their rightwing / business representatives have connections to World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Petro-Canada, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc (military contractor), Inco Limited (mining), Alcan Inc (aluminium), Suncor (Alberta oil sands), Falconbridge Limited, Alaska Highway Gas Pipeline Project, CD Howe Institute and even a Conservative Politician (under Brian Mulroney, Mike Harris and Stephen Harper).

How can a group with such polar opposite interests work so well together?

In fact, it is hard to place any of them in either the left or the right. Most of the members belong to major polluters and the big sustainable development / environmental groups.

How can a group with such polar opposite interests share so many members and work so well together in combination?

Maybe their interests are not that different after all? Maybe they work in combination all the time, not just in special groups like this one? But to accept that, you would have to abandon your comfortable left-right paradigm.

**As a little side note, the Council on Foreign Relations advocates a hybrid approach. That is both a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade system. How nice.

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