If you haven't read best-selling science and technology author Charles C. Mann's new book "The Wizard And The Prophet," I highly recommend it.

Mann walks us through the lives of two two scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, and their followers.  Broadly, Vogt is the originator of the kind of apocalyptic environmentalism that Trudeau and the Liberals traffic in, preaching catastrophe and genocide unless we cut consumption radically.   Borlaug, on the other hand, was the breeder of a hardy strain of wheat that transformed the agricultural industry of Mexico and Southeast Asia.  When faced with an environmental issue, he innovated his way out of it.

You would probably not be surprised to find that Vogt's people are the ones who are behind the campaign to instill a sense of planetary doom, and demonize GMO "Frankenfoods".  They create podcasts about how we're cooking the planet and how a completely inadequate $50/tonne carbon tax is needed to ward it off.  Yes, in case it wasn't obvious, this is where the Liberals got the idea to greenwash themselves.

I'm not here to evangelize on behalf of Borlaug, whose approach I do admittedly like better.  I just want everyone to know that Mann's book paints a picture of the debate over global warming as it is everywhere else, as opposed to the idiotic Carbon Tax Yay! vs. Carbon Tax Boo! slugfest that we're being set up for in Canada.  I was shocked to find that there are people who are trying to find technological solutions to climate change.  (You mean that EVERYONE isn't having totally pointless fights over carbon taxes??)  Are some of them pretty wild, like making the sun 1% dimmer to stop global warming by increasing the earth's cloud cover?  Of course.

But at least you could root that in a problem-solving approach, and some kind of actual optimism that humanity will be smart enough to mitigate the effects of climate change.  That'd be some real "positive politics."  That'd be something that Andrew Scheer could talk about instead of pointing out how hypocritical Catherine McKenna is for flying around the world while lecturing Canadians about how the Opposition doesn't have a plan for climate change.  He could, but he isn't, because our politics are REEEEEEEALLY STUPID.

You could ask Andrew Scheer who he thinks he's fooling, but we know the answer to that already, don't we?  It's the same reason why he refused to rule out decriminalizing marijuana, only to look even more ridiculous when he clarified that he would keep pot legal if he won.  They've already climbed down from being vociferous anti-pot crusaders to cashing in hugely as soon as there's money to be had.  This was completely predictable.

What's even dumber is that, after the CPC's tails have been kicked again and again on the climate change issue and they will get their tails kicked focusing on innovative solutions to climate change is probably right where they'll end up.  But why would you talk up startups that are investing in new technologies when you could also be branded by the Liberals as being in thrall to the oil lobby, as well as the dairy lobby?  You don't want discourse about actual ways to "do politics differently" when you have a nice tidy group of interests that run things, do you?

(By the way, has anyone but me noticed that Max Bernier and his bros have never, ever, criticized government propping up tar sands?  Weird, huh?)

And really, this isn't about climate change, or who's subsidizing who.  It's about how our politicians assume that the voters can't walk and chew gum at the same time.  Perhaps they are right.  Perhaps it's ignorance on the politicians' part as well as malice too.  Or perhaps the voters wouldn't be able to handle it if politicians showed themselves to be actually informed on the issues instead of reading off pieces of paper in the House.

But this issue shows exactly why we can't have nice things in this country.  This is why we focus on the minutiae of how much money we're going to get back from the carbon tax while the CPC bleats, "They're bribing you with your own money!!!!"

Written by Josh Lieblein