The big loser this election was us.

In September, 2007, an Environmental Monitor poll found two-thirds of Canadians considered climate change a "very serious" problem. In no other developed nation was concern higher.

What a difference a year can make.

Even before I knew who won yesterday's election, I knew who lost. We did. All of us.

We said climate change was urgent. Somebody has to do something, we insisted.

Then came the election and somebody promised to do something and somebody else said it was too risky and polls found the do-something leader was sinking and the do-less leader rising. So the do-something leader talked less about climate change and more about how very scary the other guy is and when the global financial crisis hit he started running around in circles, flapping his arms, and shouting that the sky is falling -- not because the climate that governs all life on earth is changing but because the other guy doesn't have a 30-day plan to hold meetings and come up with a plan to do something about a financial crisis the Canadian government can do very little about.

We should be embarrassed. Given a chance to have a discussion about climate change and the choices we face, Canadians talked about gaffes, blue sweaters and ATM fees.

And Julie Couillard. I haven't tallied the column inches, but I'm pretty sure she got more ink than climate change.
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And please, let's keep the chronology clear. The global financial crisis did not derail what would otherwise have been a substantive discussion of climate change. The Conservative response to the Liberal "green shift" proposal -- "too risky" -- was set months before the election and was in high gear long before the markets started blowing sparks. Similarly, it was long before the market meltdown that the Liberals started treating the green shift like a crazy aunt locked in the attic.

We didn't have a serious discussion about climate change because Canadians didn't demand it. We didn't reward those who wanted to talk about it. We didn't punish those who changed the subject.

We shrugged -- all of us, media and public alike -- and talked about pooping puffins instead.

The harsh description for this is hypocrisy but that word has a certain gravitas that doesn't quite fit here. It would be more precise to say we are, collectively, a flighty little country.

A year ago, Canadians said the environment -- and climate change in particular -- is our top concern. Ten months ago, one-third of Canadians said climate change is the world's top problem, far more than those who named any other issue, including inequality, human rights and terrorism.

A mere three months ago, a survey asked Canadians if they agreed that aggressive action must be taken despite the high cost of energy or if Canada should respond cautiously "so that we don't drive up the cost of fuel and the cost of living even further." One-quarter chose the go-slow approach; 61 per cent said they supported aggressive action. Pollsters were convinced the Conservatives had to get religion quick. "The risk here for the government is that they may not have the same priorities or see the same risks as the public," Peter Donolo of the Strategic Counsel observed last year.
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The phrase "climate change" or "global warming" didn't appear in the Conservatives' 2006 election platform but Stephen Harper's message did begin to change dramatically in 2007.

Climate change is "a serious threat to the health and well-being of Canadians," he said in February of that year. He would soon declare climate change "perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today." Next the prime minister was promising that Canada would be "a world leader" in the fight against the "growing menace of climate change."

But when the election began, the menace Harper fought was Stéphane Dion's plan to impose a carbon tax and use the funds raised to reduce income and other taxes. It would be a disaster, he shouted while running around in circles and flapping his arms. It would destroy the economy.

Harper promised to cut the federal tax on diesel -- an excellent way to increase fuel consumption and carbon emissions -- and when the Conservative platform was finally released near the end of the campaign, the phrase "climate change" or "global warming" was nowhere to be seen.

Was Harper punished for so blatantly betraying what he had said before? Not at all. That would have required the media to compare and contrast but journalists were too busy with polls and bar-stool political analysis to bother.

And most Canadians didn't care, it seems.

Sure, climate may be the most important issue facing the planet. It may even be, as Stephen Harper once said, the biggest threat to the future of humanity.

But it's no Julie Couillard.

You can contact Dan Gardner at the Ottawa Citizen.
E-mail: dgardner@thecitizen.canwest.com

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