I remember many years ago being approached by a former Edmonton Eskimo football player (interesting as I wrote this on Grey Cup day) who was selling a personal development program of some kind. I do not remember what the program was but I do remember the technique he used to get my interest.

He gave me a card with a paragraph written on it. He asked me to read it and count the number of "f"s in it. I did so, gave him a number and he said I had missed 3 or 4 "f"s. Would I try it again? I did and still could not find the 3 or 4 "f"s I had missed. He then showed me why. These were "f"s in the word "of" that appeared 3 or 4 times in the text. It is spelt "o" "f", but it sounds "o" "v", "ov". For some reason, the majority of people given this test, miss these "f"s all the time. They see "f", but lose that in hearing "v".

The point it made in that context was that we are often so limited by what are our preconceived or "grooved" perceptions of the world, and the way we process them, that we can miss the obvious.

It has struck me recently that this observation may help explain some of the incomprehensible misconceptions that surround the climate change issue and prohibit action to fix it in spite of the risks and lost opportunities of not doing so:

1. Those opposed to action say it will kill those jobs that come from the fossil fuel industries. But how will investing in alternative energy kill jobs in the fossil fuel industry? How? If the projected demand for energy for India and China, just for starters, is even close to reality, we are going to need pretty much all the sources we can find and certainly Canada will be able to sell all the oil we can produce. Why would we not want to take advantage of new and emerging markets to diversify our economy. Would we somehow not want to produce Blackberrys because they are not of the conventional oil industry? Do we have a government that simply cannot imagine doing things in addition to the traditional oil industry?

2. One pervasive  conventional wisdom (or should we start saying "politically correct" statement) seems to be that government should not be investing in alternative fuels as this will cause taxes to rise, or government intervention is unacceptable,  and/or these fuels are not commercially viable.

Yet, the oil sands were kick-started in the 1970's with direct government involvement through an equity stake in Syncrude and later in the 1990's by government action to give them special tax advantages. They have been supported by massive government funding of technology development.

Moreover, I can remember visiting the oil sands in around 1990 and being told that it was costing about $25 per to produce a barrel of oil sands oil and the selling price at the time was $10 per barrel. They were prepared to lose $15 per barrel because someone had the vision that technology improvements, economies of scale and price rises would mean that the oil sands wouold become the future engine of our economy.

Why is it that alternative fuels development and serious conservation intiatives do not warrant the same patience, government involvement and leadership and vision?

3. The jobs argument is invoked as an endless mantra in defence of all things big oil. But what about all the jobs that will be lost due to climate change and are already being lost? Why can we not work to protect both energy jobs and other jobs hurt by climate change, like forestry, agricultural and fisheries jobs?

4. Economist Jeffrey Rubin made the case that the real catalyst for the 2008 meltdown was the rapid rise of oil prices to $150 per barrel. It makes sense in the context of peak oil analysis. How can an economy, world and other wise, sustain energy costs at that level? It is a given that we have to keep costs down in our economy to remain competitive. Yet, this government cannot see that alternative fuels and conservation intitiatives would provide competition and reduce demad for fossil fuels, keeping prices lower. When do we start to realize that the current strucutre of energy in the world may be unsustainable from an input cost  point of view.

5, The government put almost none of its stimulus money into green, climate change fighting projects. Why is building a brigde seen to be stimulative but develpoing liquid natural gas fuel station infrastrucutre is not?

6. The Conservatives make the implict argument (sometimes explicitly) that with the emerging economies of China and India, there is really little point inCanada trying to fix cliamte change and we would never be able to influence change in their behaviour that would lessen or fix the probelm.  This is just such defeatism. Canada has so often "punched above its weight" in world affairs. From developing peace keeping in the 1950's to winning at Vimy, to creating the G20, etc, we have lead the world. Why not with climate change. Are we not simply saying to future generations "that we did not fix the problem becasue it looked too hard to do?" Since when woould we ever say to our children, it is OK to give up before you even try? What kind of value is that?

It is hard to answer these questions, but there are probably many reasons why what is clear but not obvious cannot be seen:
1. Change is a threat to what appears to be comfortable and in this case, it is taken as a threat by some of the most powerful economic interests in our economy and society.

2. Change means new risk to business.

3. Perhaps, the Conservative mentality really does not have the imagination to see the possibilites, the new opportunities for the future. Wold this Conservative government ever have taken the leadership role that the Liberal governments did in developing the oil sands?

I wish I had the answer to the question of why inthe face of all kinds of evidence to the contrary, this government simply cannot break out of its tired, old and terribly dangerous paradigms and lead Canada to a new and exciting future with untold opportunities, jobs and health and other benefits.