This is one of those times when Canadians need to vote for a policy rather than voting for a party. It may not matter if the Liberals get into power this fall or whether they actually implement a carbon tax. But it matters a lot that the idea of such a tax is being derided by the Conservatives.

If the Conservatives had come up with the "Green Shift," I would be voting Conservative. If the NDP had come up with it, I'd be voting NDP. The Green Party did come up with it, but they stand little chance of getting it enacted any time soon. The Liberals are the ones bringing it into the national spotlight, and whether or not you support the Liberals, it's critical that we support the validity of this idea.

We talk about all kinds of changes and improvements to our industrial and economic activities on WorldChanging. A lot of what we talk about has the intent of mitigating and ultimately reversing climate change. You can drown in the details you can find on this site and others like it. Mitigating climate change will be an immensely complex activity, and it's a daunting subject to even discuss. Everything we talk about, however, ends up being predicated on one simple economic factor that by itself will drive all the thousands of other research activities, industrial transformations and social revolutions:

There must be a price on carbon.

Everything—literally—depends on this. It is the change driver, as we say in foresight studies. And here's the problem: the Conservatives' attacks on the "Green Shift" plan constitute an attack on the legitimacy of this principle.

We're all suspicious of hyperbole, and rightly so; but I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that everything you're doing will be rendered useless if the public comes to think that putting a price on carbon is a bad idea.

If you read this site, you probably have a good idea of how a carbon tax works. If not, there's plenty of resources available, starting, of course, with the Wikipedia entries on carbon taxes and cap and trade systems. If you do understand some of the implications, then you can't afford to be a spectator in the unfolding political debate about the Liberals' policy. It's not about the Liberals. And you know what—it's not even about getting such a tax in place right now. It's about ensuring that the Canadian public understand that it's a reasonable idea.

Arguing about things like this can be tricky. In particular, we tend to reinforce spurious accusations and rumours if we repeat them while trying to refute them. So it's a bad idea to directly address the criticisms of the plan; those criticisms are properly refuted by simply telling the truth about it.

Here's a few examples, which you might find useful:

• By accepting this income tax reduction you will do more to benefit the world than you can do by swapping all your lights over to compact fluorescents, buying carbon offsets, autosharing, locavoring or insulating your attic. You wanna be green? Take this money.
• There's nothing radical about this tax. It's pretty mainstream, in fact, and taxes like it have been around for many years. Germany, for instance, has had a similar tax structure since 1998.
• Canada is simply going where the rest of the Western world is going. Not just Germany, but the UK, Portugal, and the Netherlands either already employ carbon taxes or are rapidly working in that direction. The conversation is taking place in many other countries as well.
• It's not the case that somebody has to lose money. To say this is to deny the basic fact of modern economics, that it is not a zero-sum game. Eastern Canada won't benefit at the expense of Western Canada. Everybody can win. As Gore put it the other day: When demand for fossil fuels increases, their prices go up. When demand for renewables like wind or solar power increases... their prices go down.
• Carbon taxes like this one are fundamentally simple compared to measures that 70% of Canadians have already signed on to. Now that Ontario has joined the Western Climate Initiative, nearly three-quarters of the country will soon be involved in a much-more complicated cap and trade system, along with much of the rest of the continent. If you're one of that 70%, all the potential negatives of such schemes would affect you anyway; with the Green Shift, at least you stand to get some of your money back. In fact, even if you live in Alberta, the pricing structures imposed by the cap and trade practices of the rest of the country will affect you whether you want them to or not. In that sense, the Green Shift can be seen as the only complementary instrument that can ameliorate any potential harmful effects from a policy Canada is already pursuing.
• Once again: everything else we do to mitigate climate change depends on people understanding the legitimacy of putting a price on carbon. Whether we do it this year, next year, or ten years from now, it has to be done. No other instrument will suffice.

So. You might not want to vote Liberal. You may think that the East is out to screw the West. Whatever, believe what you want. Just don't let the poisonous meme that a price on carbon is bad spread any further than it already has.

Photo credits: Scott Liddell (Outside photo | Inside photo 1 | Inside photo 2)

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