THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

One of my personal conceits is that I write fairly well. I'm an amateur, to be sure, but I enjoy it. I've always been able to write: as a kid in school, I used to love "composition" class, when our teachers would give us a topic or hold up a picture and challenge us to make a story out of it. I could do this easily, and my stories were usually given high marks and were read before the class. It was a sort of identity for me: the kid who could write.

As I got older, I began to think about using my writing skills to further my education and perhaps follow a career. I started to think seriously about journalism as my future calling. When the time came, I applied to Western and Ryerson because both schools had well respected programmes in journalism. I went to both schools, with samples of my high school writing in hand, to be interviewed by faculty, tour the facilities and get as much information as I could. It ended up that I went to Western, but didn't follow journalism, choosing instead to study more academic areas and ultimately go into teaching. Oh well …

However, my interest in journalism has never waned. In many of my courses, I had units in journalism, believing firmly that an understanding of media, how it works and its importance in our society was something my young students should know. I also attempted, on several occasions, to launch a school newspaper as an extracurricular activity. It was one of the great thrills of my career to see, with the opening edition of one of the papers, the entire concourse of our school fall silent with students bent over copies of the paper. Later, with the advent of social media, the hard copy paper fell out of favour, despite our best efforts to publicize it and produce interesting reading.

When it's done well, journalism is a form of living history. It chronicles the times in which we live, and provides material for future historians to use as they attempt to understand us. Good journalism, and especially good writing, can do wonderful things for us. It can teach, of course. It can enlighten. It can entertain with its intelligence and discovery. And it can sway us, and make us think of things that we hadn't thought before. I always believed that good journalism is a jewel in the crown of our democratic society: we need independent, intelligent, objective reporting of events and people in order for us to become aware of what goes on in our locales, our country, and our world. Without good journalism, we would be living in complete vacuums, ignorant and dark creatures of fear and superstition.

When journalism is done badly, as it often is, it becomes either a bad joke in our eyes, or a pernicious tool for those who seek to control or manipulate us. It can be propaganda for demagogues and dictators, or an enabler of mindless and childish titillation. It can be a distraction from real and unpleasant issues which require immediate attention, benefitting only those who drive or profit from those unpleasant issues. It can be clumsy, unprofessional, intrusive and, in its worst iteration, a form of semi-pornographic entertainment. When this happens, people often lose respect for the honest journalists who continue to ply their trade with the same conviction as medieval monks on some wind-swept island among the barbarians they're trying to enlighten.

We now exist in a post-journalism world. Social media, in its many forms, is the main source of information for many people. The 24-hour news cycle constantly hammers us with images and slogans that become, after time, mind numbing. People shun paper copies of publications. We read long form copy less than ever. And, as a result, we think less. The open hostility to real journalism, most blatantly shown in the Trump administration, appeals to many people because these people don't want to think: to do so requires effort. They want to feel, to let emotion rule. And the easiest emotion to conjure is fear: the second easiest is anger. Together, these are potent forces for the corrupt and opportunistic to use. And this is exactly what's happening now.

We need good journalism now more than ever. If our democracy is to survive and flourish, we must be willing to read more, regardless the platform we choose to read. And we must think more. For these to happen, we need to encourage young people to choose journalism not just as a career, but as a calling, as sacred as a religious calling. It is democracy's only hope.

A MAN HEARS WHAT HE WANTS TO HEAR AND DISREGARDS THE REST

You can learn a lot from your friends. I certainly do, every day of my life. And I'm grateful for this gift. Some of the things I learn are harsh and painful, exposing my weaknesses and faults. Some things are uplifting and inspiring, pushing me to be a better person. Other things are funny, creative and even whimsical. But I always assume that the lessons I learn are the truth, for the lessons come from friends, and I trust them.

Recently, I polled my friends on facebook on the issue of climate change. The question I posed was a simple one. I asked them if they thought the issue of climate change was real and serious. I now realize, thanks to one of my respondents, that I should've phrased the question better, and framed the issue around "anthrogenic", or human caused, climate change. I assumed, however, that most people, when they consider climate change in the modern context, would understand that we were talking about human caused climate change. I freely admit that I had a certain expectation as to the answers I would get.

I was pleasantly surprised at the response. More than 40 of my facebook friends took the time to respond. I was thinking of a possible response of around a dozen or so: this was a nice surprise. Forty of my friends represents about 10% of my total facebook friend count: of course, many of the 400+ people who are classified as friends are not frequent users of facebook, or are constant correspondents with me. Several of them are in foreign countries, and therefore may not understand the question. So the response was nice. The second thing that surprised me was the overwhelming answer of "yes" to my question. I expected "yes" would be the majority response, but the extent of the "yes" side was amazing. Only one person said "no", which is a fair and honourable response, and two others said "yes" with caveats. The rest said "yes" plainly, sometimes in capital letters, with exclamation marks, or other equally emphatic phrases. It was an education for sure.

The question phrased by one of my respondents was "where are you going with this?" Good question. Initially, I intended it for my own curiousity, to see if my views are consistent with other people's, and yes they are. But then I decided to blog this to try to put it all into some kind of perspective. No reader should be surprised by this.

Doug Ford has recently gone on a high-spirited campaign against the "carbon tax" that Ontario has originally planned to implement. The tax was to be part of an initiative that included cap and trade, which Ford earlier cancelled. Ford claims that a tax will be a strain on those who already "pay too much tax" or who are low-income earners. Ford also claims that a carbon tax would be a "job killer", scaring investors and companies out of Ontario. Ford also intends to challenge the federal government, which is about to implement a national "carbon price" across the nation, specifically targeting the provinces which do not have their own carbon price or tax: Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick. "Coincidentally", those provinces have Conservative or conservative-leaning governments. Ford intends to make this a hot-button issue in all upcoming elections, specifically aiming at Justin Trudeau's Liberal federal government, with the hope of defeating Trudeau and placing Conservative Andrew Scheer as the new Prime Minister. It's a long game Ford is playing, and there are some personal ambitions of his own on view for all to see.

Ford's gambit flies in the face of empirical evidence on the benefits of a price on carbon. When cap and trade was in effect in Ontario ( in a partnership with Quebec and California ), it seemed to work and some 3 billion dollars of revenue was earned by the provincial government which was supposed to be put toward implementing other solutions to the carbon problem. International studies have shown that carbon "taxes" have significantly reduced emissions in certain places, have not "killed jobs", and have, in fact, created a new economic sector, the sustainable environmental economy. Nobel prizes in economics were awarded to those who studied and supported this thesis.

And, finally, opinion polls have indicated that the majority of Canadians support some type of carbon price. Here's where my little poll comes in. In my little corner of the cyber world, more than 40 people, to varying degrees, agree that climate change is real and serious. I did not ask them if they supported a carbon price. But if a problem is that significant and serious, obviously some solution must be sought.

To be fair, there may be other solutions to the issue of climate change. Nobody has "THE ANSWER". But it seems to me that what we have in front of us is a start. If polluters are forced to pay, and if polluting by all of us ( private citizens and large corporations ) is no longer free or convenient, we will be forced into more positive initiatives.

Taxes are, generally, regressive. It's money out of someone's pocket. Nobody likes them, me included. But they are necessary. We all know that. And so, we pay them, grumbling all the while. Fair enough.

Sooner or later, the international studies show, we have to stop talking and debating about climate change, and start to take action. There are those who refuse to accept this, but most of us realize that it's true: the time for climate action is now. We have no choice. It really is a matter of survival for us as a species and for the earth as a planet.

I hope the 40+ of you who answered my little poll agree with me on this. Grumble all you want. But pay the damned tax. And insist our leaders stop turning this into an election issue. It isn't. It's well past that. It's survival.