If yes to a carbon shift but just "not now", then when?

After the last post I’m all lobby-blogged-out, so I’m not going near that angle with a 10-foot poll. When it comes to the blogger brouhaha of recent days though between Kinsella and Cherniak, there’s one thing I’m confused about.

James Curran gets to the salient point in the comments thread here:

Of course lost in almost all this Jason bashing and Warren bashing is the fact that the point was lost by most of the commenters on both blogs Warren:

"I'm not saying no to a carbon tax. I'm saying no to a carbon tax now."

You're a strategist. I believe the intent was to say this is bad strategy and let's debate Carbon tax later. Of course, that seems to be lost on Jason as well.

That was my read of Warren’s argument as well, or at least his initial argument. He’s not necessarily against a carbon shift, he just thinks that at the current time it’s too politically risky, if not suicidal. That’s a perfectly valid and defensible position, and depending on how things go it could well turn out to be prophetic. I’ve said from the start that, while I think this is worth doing, the politics of this will be very difficult. If we do it right it can be a real winner; if not, well, I think I said suicidal. Many think it can be done.

It’s a judgment call on the politics; perhaps its wishful thinking colored by the fact we need to do something about the environment/carbon that leads me to be willing to take the political risk on this, but where I begin to question Warren’s analysis is when he uses high gas prices (which aren’t expected to be impacted by the Liberal program, or so the scuttlebutt says (release actual details please LPC!)) as an argument against a carbon shift initiative.

*Oh, and just in time for the weekend, gas has gone up again, and we're being told to get used to it. Time for a carbon tax shift!

*Forget about the fact that, with fuel prices having gone up a billion per cent in recent months, we already have a driver-deterring carbon tax.

Yes, gas prices are high. But here’s the thing: when haven’t they been high? And when exactly will they be low? And I don’t mean comparatively speaking. Sure, a year ago gas prices were lower than they are now. Five years ago dido. But that doesn’t mean a year ago, or five years ago, we felt gas was cheap. No, we were complaining a year ago about high gas prices. We were complaining five years ago. Although I’m a young (but aging quickly) 30, I can’t remember a time when we weren’t complaining about high gas prices. I remember in my youth prices were around 55 cents/litre and people complained it was high.

If you think a carbon shift is bad policy that’s fine, differing opinions and all that. But if you think a carbon shift may be good policy, but we shouldn’t look at it now because gas prices are high, well, just when should we look at it? I suspect we’ll either run out of oil or the ice caps will melt before people consider gas cheap, or even moderately priced.

If we think it's good policy we should do it now. If not we should start talking about a Plan B, because I don’t think the environment can afford for us to wait for cheap gas prices before we start tackling the carbon issue in a serious way.

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