Sunday, November 23, 2014

CCL-Canada conference - Day Two

Photo shows the participants in Citizen Climate Lobby 2014 conference - except for the photographer.
The second day of the Citizen Climate Lobby - Canada conference was even more interesting that the first.

Speakers included a Skype appearance by Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and evangelical Christian who was born and grew up in the Toronto area but who now lives in Texas. She talked about the need to shape your climate change message to your audience - for example, evangelical Christians.

Michael MacMillan talked about his book, "Tragedy in the Commons," which is based on interviews

Michael MacMillan
done with 80 former M.P.s about their experiences in politics. Even though many of them had been in senior cabinet positions, they overwhelmingly were unhappy with the high level of party discipline in the Canadian parliament. Several reforms were suggested.

CCL executive director Mark Reynolds gave an address titled, "The Way Forward." When things go wrong, people ask, "What's wrong with me?", "What's wrong with them?" and "What's wrong with it?" he said. A better approach would be to ask, "What are we committed to?"

A common metaphor used to explain how people react to the threat of climate change is the story of putting a frog in a pot of cool water and gradually warming it. The frog supposedly will remain until it cooks. Tom Rand, the
Tom Rand
keynote speaker in the afternoon, talked about his book "Waking the Frog," which examines the psychology of denial.

Final workshop was a panel discussion on economics with Tom Rand, Celine Bak (president of Analytica Advisors), Stewart Elgie (University of Ottawa and member of the new EcoFiscal Commission), Christopher Ragan (chair of the EcoFiscal Commission), and David Robinson (Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development).
Although Celine Bak emphasized that she is not an economist, the panel members seemed to agree that the consensus of economists was that the best way to tackle climate change would be by pricing carbon dioxide - preferably through a carbon tax.

Stewart Elgie said a carbon tax set at $30 per tonne (the same as B.C.'s) would generate $20 billion per year federally (assuming there are 20 million adults in Canada, that would mean a carbon dividend as proposed by CCL would amount to $1,000 per year per adult).

The day closed with convention participants getting together to plan their meetings tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday with M.P.s and senators.
Panelists (l-r) Tom Rand, Christopher Ragan, Stewart Elgie, David Robinson and Celine Bak.

2 comments:

  1. Did Tom Rand also write "Kicking the Fossil Fuel Habit: 10 Clean Technologies to Save the Earth"?

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  2. Yes he did, Grace. Waking the Frog is his most recent book.

    ReplyDelete