Sky is Falling

Environment Minister John Baird presented a study on the horrors of the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate with catastrophic predictions—massive job loss, huge rise on fuel cost and a long and deep recession. Predictably all opposition parties started calling Baird a fear monger. The report certainly seems to bear out this charge. Fear mongering is however about changing opinions. If this were fear mongering, it would be trying to turn people against Kyoto. I have not even heard of a person changing his or her mind after a study is presented in the Senate. How many people out there, well, even in there, understand what the study says? Carbon tax? Job loss and higher gas price, how? Recession? These things just make people scratch their heads. Particularly now that everybody seems to have a position on the matter, heads may be scratched but hardly changed. The government and its advisers may be incompetent but not entirely stupid, especially on public opinions. What then is this “misfiring” of the fear monger really aiming at if not to change public opinions on Kyoto? The most pressing issue in front of the government regarding Kyoto is the private member's bill sponsored by Pablo Rodriguez that requires the government to present a plan to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. The bill has passed in the Commons and it looks certain to pass in the Senate. With all three opposition parties united in support of the bill, there is no way the minority government can stop it. For the government, to try to stop the bill in the Senate is a hopeless cause. The only thing left to do is to justify the defeat. To come up with a plan may be the right thing to do, but that would be admitting defeat. To throw Kyoto out of the window had been proved to be politically too damaging to the Conservative Party. This study serves the purpose of giving the defeat a reason, a justification, not for those whose mind need changing but to those who are in agreement with the government. The targets then of this “fear mongering” are not those who disagree with the fear mongers but the fear mongers themselves. It serves to reinforce the fears in the fear mongers and gives fears a present in public discourse. So, technically it is not fear mongering at all but a manifestation of fear. And for that, Baird seems to be looking for sympathy rather than fright.