Why Canada’s leading climate scientist backed Campbell and Co

Climate of Confusion

Why Canada’s leading climate scientist backed Campbell and Co

Jason Youmans
Monday Magazine
05/19/2009

The 2009 provincial election was fraught with confusion for enviro-minded voters. A public schism between environmental leaders in the weeks before the vote—one magnified by the corresponding media circus—left many British Columbians wondering where they should place their support if concern for the province’s environmental future was among their primary considerations.

Gordon Campbell, until recently at least, was not viewed as any great friend of the planet, what with his well-publicized connections to industry leaders in sectors whose contributions to natural stewardship include clearcuts and tailing ponds. So it was with some surprise that voters in the Victoria-Beacon Hill riding received pre-recorded election endorsements from UVic’s Dr. Andrew Weaver—whose name adorns a Nobel Prize for his work with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change—telling them to vote for the riding’s BC Liberal candidate Dallas Henault.

Monday wanted to know why Weaver lent his support to the election-fighting efforts of a party that continues to crow about the revenues it generates selling licenses for oil and gas exploration in the B.C., hinterlands and has hinted at openness to the idea of allowing offshore oil and gas development below the province’s coastal waters.

For the respected researcher, it all came down to being true to his word—and being damn pissed off at the BC-NDP.

“I think it was my moral and ethical responsibility to point out that, on an issue where I have some expertise—which is the long-term consequences of climate change—that I have said in every public lecture I have ever given, that the single most important thing an individual can do is to support those who are trying to make the right decisions today because they are doing so not for their own political lifetime, but for inter-generational equity and for long term thinking. I would be a
hypocrite not to stand up and live up to my own words.”

Weaver says the Campbell government’s carbon tax—putting an actual price on carbon—does just that and represents a fundamental first step in changing consumption patterns and will be studied as a model by governments around the world. Besides, he adds, issues related to preserving wild salmon stocks and old-growth forests will be moot if the planet continues to warm at it present pace. And finally, his support of the BC Liberals does not mean he or voters should ignore government policies that prove inconsistent with the party’s avowed climate
commitments, he says.

Weaver was approached by politicians looking for his endorsement from both sides of B.C’s political divide prior to the vote.

“I had told Lana Popham who had contacted me, as had some other NDP people, that I was very upset with the party over their ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign,” says Weaver. “I decided to do what I can to ensure that that attitude does not prevail. It was not me being coerced. I was very proactive because I have spent 20 years of my life trying to ensure that we deal with this problem, and when I see cheap political opportunism, I have no choice but to call it what it is.”

Weaver believes the BC-NDP needs a round of soul searching following its recent defeat.

“The NDP, I think, should be ashamed of themselves and they should really take a very close look at themselves,” he says. “Maybe this is the kind of thing we might have seen from a Harper Conservative government, the kind of disingenuous misinformation they brought out against Stephane Dion, but we don’t expect this from the NDP. We expect the NDP to represent the individual person coming out with honest and open discourse and not misleading people for political opportunism.”

Meanwhile, in January 2008 the Campbell Liberals announced they would allocate $94 million to establish the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions at the University of Victoria. Weaver’s Order of British Columbia biography indicates he “played an active role,” in developing and establishing the program.

http://mondaymag.com/articles/entry/climate-of-confusion/