Declaring Canada’s climate columnist
“Canada’s climate columnist” may not be a thing, in so much that it is determined by a vote, a panel or a jury, but environmental consultant Matt Price has passed his judgment and named what he thinks is the best columnist in the country when it comes to the discussion of climate change.
“Canada’s climate columnist” may not be a thing, in so much that it is determined by a vote, a panel or a jury, but environmental consultant Matt Price has passed his judgment and named The Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson the best columnist in the country when it comes to the discussion of climate change.
Price, who has been working for environmental organizations and NGOs for 15 years, separated columnists into four groups:
- Deniers (“who regurgitate the reality-challenged talking points of U.S. think tanks funded by fossil fuel interests.”)
- Dismissers (“who can’t quite bring themselves to deny human-caused climate change and not feel embarrassed at parties.”)
- Horse racers (“who seem to pride themselves on not taking positions on the issues, but only dissect what it means for the horse race in Ottawa or the provincial capitals.”)
- Progressives (“you can’t help but feel that for some in this category, climate change ends up by default on the shopping list of things progressive columnists are supposed to write about from time to time.”)
So, why Simpson? As Price himself says, you would think that the winner would come from the typically-left-leaning Progressives group.
[node:ad]He not only wrote a book on climate change with Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers, but has consistently used his column to inject climate considerations into Canada’s energy debate, unlike nearly all of his counterparts who fail to see that carbon fuels equal carbon pollution.
Simpson’s small-c conservative credentials also helps debunk the perception that climate change is a left-right debate, when it’s more about those laws of chemistry and physics and whether we are going to take them seriously.
Price made the declaration on his relatively new blog, Project Beaver, which was inspired by “Revenge of the Beaver:” a paper he wrote in January 2012 about waging a culture war in terms of environmental awareness. Price also writes a blog on environmental issues for Huffington Post Canada.
What do you think? When it comes to news and nuanced opinions on climate change, who do you trust? Let us know.
