With U.S. president-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration quickly approaching, the stage has been set for the world’s second-largest emitter to take renewed action on climate change that could spill over into Canada.

Biden put forward an ambitious vision for a clean energy transformation of the U.S. economy during the election campaign — pledging to rejoin the Paris Agreement and reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

And with Democrats snagging control of the Senate after winning both seats in Georgia’s runoff elections, Biden will be able to count on steady support for his environmental initiatives.

“It’s night and day within the U.S. to go from a president who rejects science and has been rolling back fairly modest measures to one that is promising 100 per cent clean electricity by 2035,” said Kathryn Harrison, a University of British Columbia political science professor who studies climate and energy policy.

Biden will take office in the wake of a sustained effort by his predecessor to undermine key climate and environmental regulations and policies. More than 70 such rules — including vehicle emissions standards and controls on methane emissions from oil and gas — were eroded under the Trump administration, with efforts underway to weaken more than 25 others, according to a New York Times analysis.

U.S. climate action is crucial to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: the country was responsible for 15 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2018, second only to China, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists’ analysis. 

“With or without the U.S., the world is not on track to meet the targets in the Paris climate agreement, but without the U.S. there’s absolutely no chance,” said Simon Donner, a climate scientist and geography professor at the University of British Columbia. 

Renewed commitment to climate action from a Biden administration could reverberate around the world.

“The U.S., for good and bad, is a leader economically around the world and the decisions the U.S. makes influences what other countries are willing to do,” Donner said.

Here’s where the President-elect stands on key climate and environment issues.

Biden pledged to rejoin the Paris Agreement and ramp up climate action

The United States officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate change on Nov. 4, the day after the U.S. election and a year after Trump gave notice to the United Nations. 

Biden, however, has pledged to rejoin the international accord and could do so as early as February.

That would provide “a shot in the arm” for the agreement, said Ravipal Bains, a McMillan LLP corporate lawyer with expertise in corporate governance and environmental and social governance issues.

Donner agreed. Even if passing legislation remains a challenge, it will mean a lot to have the U.S. “as an international champion” for climate action once again, he said.

Biden also campaigned on a $2 trillion plan to combat climate change that includes major investments in clean energy and a commitment to eliminate carbon emissions from the power sector by 2035. 

His platform includes commitments to sign a number of executive orders “on day one” to put the country on track to meet its 2050 target and to push Congress to pass climate legislation with milestone targets and enforcement mechanisms within his first year in office. 

Biden also committed to major investments in clean energy research and innovation, clean infrastructure, including electric vehicle charging stations, and to — one day — ensure 100 per cent of new cars sold are electric. 

“He’s promising a pretty bold transformation of the U.S. economy pretty quickly,” Harrison said of the plan.

And any transformation in the U.S. is likely to spill over to other countries, according to Bains. 

“If the U.S. government takes a stance that they want to accelerate decommissioning of certain types of fuel sources, that will have ramifications in the U.S. economy and the broader global economy because many of the other economies take cues and are suppliers for the U.S.,” he said.

Emissions rise from an industrial facility in Kentucky. The U.S. was the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter after China in 2018, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Photo: Nik Shuliahin

The U.S. Senate, climate legislation and Biden’s options

Even a Democrat-controlled Senate won’t have guaranteed easy passage for effective climate legislation, experts say.

But Biden could have a meaningful impact through spending and regulation.

“The Obama administration, which Biden was a part of, showed that you can do a lot with regulations, even if you can’t pass a bill,” said Donner, pointing to the Clean Power Plan as an example.

“If it had been fully enacted, because of course Trump repealed parts of it, it would have probably reduced emissions about as much as the legislation would have,” he said.

Donner said he would expect to see Biden reverse Trump’s executive orders that weakened environmental regulations, but noted the courts could pose a challenge given the number of appointments Trump made during his presidency.

Several other initiatives, including energy efficiency retrofits, investments in public transit and electric vehicle charging stations, could be pushed forward through spending, Donner said.

Spending on climate adaptation measures may have more bipartisan support, in part because it wouldn’t necessarily have to be framed as a climate measure, he said.

“We shouldn’t discount the fact that with Biden as president, the Democrats have control of who’s appointed to run all the government agencies,” Donner added.

“That absolutely matters,” said Debora VanNijnatten, a Wilfrid Laurier University political science professor who studies transboundary environmental governance.

Under Trump, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a marked deregulatory bent and prioritized the needs of the oil and gas industry, VanNijnatten said.

Under a Biden administration she expects “an absolute sea change in terms of what the U.S. EPA is and can do.”

‘Policies of the U.S. administration echo across the world’

Action on climate change in the U.S., Canada’s largest trading partner, should make it easier for Canada to take more ambitious climate action of its own, Harrison said, noting the federal government needs to implement additional measures to meet its 2030 targets.

Biden seems prepared to ensure other countries are pulling their weight. According to his platform, Biden would consider imposing “carbon adjustment fees or quotas on carbon-intensive goods from other countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations.”

Such climate tariffs could exert pressure on Canada and others to ensure their emissions reductions targets and regulations measure up to those adopted by Biden’s administration, Harrison explained.

A Biden presidency also offers a wide range of potential partners for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in Ottawa, VanNijnatten said, noting that a number of the initiatives Canada and the U.S. were collaborating on, such as methane emissions and fuel efficiency standards, “ground to a halt” under the Trump administration. 

Bains said Biden’s plan will also create opportunities for Canadian clean tech companies through trade — and send a signal to investors that “green investments will be a key component of America’s growth.”

“As one of the world’s largest economies and as one of the globally leading centres of power, the policies of the U.S. administration echo across the world,” he said.

That could serve as a “wake-up call that Canadian industry has to get their act together because our major trading market could be transforming rapidly and we risk getting left behind,” Harrison said.

Biden promised to scrap Keystone XL

A key concern for Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party government in Alberta will be the future of the Keystone XL pipeline.  

The province bet $1.5 billion on the project moving forward earlier this year, but Biden has said he would cancel the controversial pipeline. 

The day before the U.S. election, Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan reiterated the federal government’s support for the pipeline, which could ship 830,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta to the U.S.

In an interview with Global News, O’Regan said “there is a very, very strong argument for the Keystone project that continues regardless of who the president of the United States is.”

“We will continue to make that argument strongly,” he added.

Construction of the Alberta section of the Keystone XL pipeline began near the town of Oyen in July 2020. Photo: Government of Alberta / Flickr

Should Biden scrap the project it could make it easier for Canada to meet its climate targets if the cancellation wards off an anticipated increase in oil production, Harrison said.

But it’s likely to increase pressure from the industry to build the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline, she added.

Bains, however, said given the scope of Biden’s clean stimulus plans, Keystone XL may not be among the first issues he examines.

“The Canadian government has been in favour of this project so there may be opportunities where they can engage with their American counterparts,” he said.

“Short of having specific guidance from the Biden administration on how they plan to deal with these issues, I think there will be opportunity for cooperation with respect to Alberta as well, because from a U.S. perspective getting oil from Alberta is more cost efficient than from a number of international markets,” he added.

Biden’s climate plans could affect Canada’s oil industry

Other Biden climate measures could impact the oil industry as well, including a commitment to phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars — a step that would significantly reduce U.S. oil consumption, Harrison noted.

Donner said simply shifting U.S. government procurement to electric vehicles could have a significant impact.

Any measures that increase the supply of green energy and reduce U.S. demand for oil are likely to affect the Canadian oil and gas industry and more broadly the transition to a clean economy in Canada, according to VanNijnatten.

“The quicker that transition happens in the U.S., the quicker the transition is happening in Canada,” she said.

The Trudeau government may also encounter less pushback from industry on climate measures if Biden moves forward with similar initiatives, in turn alleviating Canadian concerns of a competitive disadvantage.

Permanent protection for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Hulahula River flows north to the Beaufort Sea, from the Brooks range mountains in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: Matt Jacques / The Narwhal

Biden’s platform includes a commitment to permanently protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area of roughly 8 million hectares in northeastern Alaska that includes the critical calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, from oil and gas development. 

In August, the Trump administration took another step toward allowing oil and gas development in the previously protected area, when the U.S. Secretary of the Interior signed a decision approving the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program. The decision made about 8 per cent of the area available for oil and gas leasing. 

Trump’s efforts to open the area to development have met with major political opposition and lawsuits from the Gwich’in Steering Committee and environmental groups, concerned about the threat to wildlife, food security, and culture. 

Alongside protections for the refuge, Biden said he would push for a global moratorium on offshore drilling in the Arctic.

Biden climate action could ease impacts of U.S. wildfires

While commitments to reduce emissions in the coming years may help avoid the worst effects of climate change, it is already taking a toll in the U.S. and Canada. 

Hotter, drier weather, for instance, has dramatically increased the risk for wildfires each year.

In California alone, wildfires burned more than 1.7 million hectares this year — an area almost three times the size of Prince Edward Island — destroying more than 10,000 structures and killing 31 people.

San Francisco covered in an orange haze during the 2020 wildfires. Photo: Thom Milkovic

While B.C.’s own wildfire season was relatively quiet, smoke from fires along the west coast of the U.S. blanketed southern B.C. for days.

Biden pointed to the fires as evidence of the need for concerted action on climate change.

“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze,” Biden said during a September campaign stop in Delaware, USA Today reported. 

“We need a president who respects science, who understands that the damage from climate change is already here and unless we take urgent action, it’ll soon be more catastrophic.”

For those communities already impacted by natural disasters, Biden promised investments in efforts to adapt to climate change, creating new jobs and more resilient communities.

—With files from Julien Gignac

Update Jan. 8, 2021: This article has been updated to reflect the results of Georgia’s runoff elections.

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In the mid-1970s, a young lawyer named Ian Waddell took a helicopter ride across the Crow Flats, in northern Yukon. He was accompanying Justice Thomas Berger on his visits to community after community — the so-called Berger Inquiry — to gain their input into a proposed gas pipeline from the Beaufort Sea to Alberta.

When they landed, Berger turned to him and, as Waddell recounts it, said, “You know, Ian, do you realize the magnificence of what we saw yesterday? It’s the last of North America — the eighth wonder of the world.”

That landscape the judge so admired is home to the Porcupine caribou herd, around 200,000 strong, which roam on the world’s longest land-mammal migration between Alaska, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. On the Canadian side of the border, two national parks, Ivvavik and Vuntut, protect much of the herd’s habitat.

But on the Alaska side of the border, the land and the herd that depends upon it have come under threat from oil and gas drilling after President Trump opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in his recent tax bill.

Caribou, like many large mammals, require huge tracts of relatively undisturbed land to thrive. The routes of migratory herds can be imperiled by development, such as pipelines or roads, that divides the landscape or gives easier access to predators. The area that could be opened to drilling is the Porcupine herd’s calving grounds, rich territory where the animals migrate each year to give birth.

It’s also the site of another kind of riches: the so-called “1002 area,” a potentially lucrative patch of land near Prudhoe Bay. It could contain more than six per cent of the total recoverable oil in the entire United States, at about 7.7 billion barrels.

Trump made the controversial decision to undo decades of conservation in the region, apparently, on a whim.

“I really didn’t care about it,” Trump told a congressional Republican retreat in early February. “And then when I heard that everybody wanted it, for 40 years they’ve been trying to get it approved, I said, ‘Make sure you don’t lose ANWR.’”

There may be something else Trump doesn’t know much about, though, and it could put the brakes on drilling in the refuge: a treaty, signed between the governments of Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan in 1987.

The treaty requires that the governments “take appropriate action to conserve the Porcupine Caribou Herd and its habitat,” including considering effects of activities (like, for instance, drilling), avoiding disrupting migration and considering cumulative effects on the landscape.

After Waddell’s time in the north with Berger, he moved on to politics, serving as energy critic for the federal NDP and later as B.C. environment minister. But that experience never left him, and he recently revived the treaty in an article for The Hill Times.

“Canada should now argue that the treaty provides us the right to be consulted before a drilling permit is issued in ANWR,” he wrote.

In an interview with DeSmog Canada, he explained, “If we’ve got a treaty with the United States, we could press that treaty — use that treaty — to raise a little hell.”

A small member of the large porcupine caribou herd. Photo: Peter Mather

NDP, Greens take on Alaskan drilling in House of Commons

Elizabeth May has had her eyes on the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for decades, since she was a senior policy advisor to Progressive Conservative environment minister Thomas McMillan, and later as the executive director of the Sierra Club.

Now, as head of the federal Green Party, May is the only MP to have brought the issue up in the House of Commons.

“It’s been appalling to see Donald Trump as president for many, many reasons, but this is one of those things that he might do that represents irreparable harm,” she says.

Even under Stephen Harper’s notoriously pro-oil government, Canada remained resolute against drilling in the refuge.

New Democrat MP Richard Cannings says he plans to raise the issue in the House of Commons if the drilling plan goes ahead.

“This is what this treaty was drawn up for — this kind of situation,” he said, noting that the Liberals are under pressure to protect caribou and that this “might be an easy win for them,” to make some progress on protecting one of the last intact herds.

Gwich’in sounding the alarm

Its habitat is a place Cannings, like Waddell, is familiar with from time spent on the land in his former life as an ecologist. As was the case for Waddell, the northern Yukon left an impression that he carried with him to Ottawa.

“I think that Canada should stand up for the Porcupine caribou herd, for the First Nations that have relied on that herd over the millennia, because our whole ecosystem up there is related.”

The Gwich’in have been sounding the alarm on drilling in the refuge since Trump’s election.

“The Gwich’in call this area ‘Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit,’ the Sacred Place Where Life Begins,” Vuntut Gwich’in Councillor Dana Tizya-Tramm told DeSmog Canada in November, a year after Trump’s victory.

“It is a keystone in the ecosystems of the Arctic, and the heart that beats outside of the Gwich’in chest.”

Tizya-Tramm expressed horror at the idea of degrading the habitat the caribou depend on, emphasizing the interconnected and fragile nature of the coastal plain, which has been described as the Serengeti of North America.

Cannings says the Gwich’in would be consulted and involved in negotiations with the U.S. over the treaty.

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The solar industry was responsible for creating one out of every 50 new jobs in the U.S. last year and the country’s fastest-growing occupation is wind turbine technician — so no matter one’s feelings on climate change, the renewable energy train has left the station, according to a new report. 

“It’s at the point of great return. It’s irreversible. There is no stopping this train,” said Merran Smith, author of Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017 by Clean Energy Canada. “Even Donald Trump can’t kill it.”

More than 260,000 Americans are now employed in the solar industry, more than double 2010 figures. Meantime, the top five wind-energy producing congressional districts are represented by Republicans.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

“Donald Trump can’t kill clean energy, nor should he want to. It’s creating jobs and economic opportunities in rural communities in Republican-led states,” Smith said.

Since 2012, the world has brought more power online from renewables than fossil fuels each year — and that trend continued in 2016.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

“Global trends show some renewable energy technologies have reached 'grid parity' with fossil fuels—thanks to falling technology costs—meaning no financial support is required to make their cost equal to, or cheaper than, their fossil fuel competitors,” reads the report.

The European Union led the pack, with 86 per cent of its new electricity capacity coming from renewable sources in 2016.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

In 2016, China added 30 GW of new solar capacity — or roughly enough solar panels to cover three soccer fields every hour, according to the report.

By 2015, renewable electricity employment is estimated to have grown to 6.7 million direct and indirect jobs globally, with solar PV the leading technology, employing nearly 2.8 million people. It is estimated that in 2015 Canada was home to 10,500 jobs in wind and 8,100 in solar PV.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

The cost of renewables is expected to continue to come down, leading to further job creation. Between 2015 and 2025, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects generation costs for onshore wind to fall another 26 per cent, while offshore wind generation costs fall 35 per cent and utility-scale solar PV costs drop 57 per cent.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

While renewable electricity capacity held steady, total clean energy investment fell 26 per cent to $348 billion as the clean energy building boom eased off in China and Japan.

“Both countries are now focused on ‘digesting’ the vast amounts of new renewable energy capacity added in recent years,” the report said.

Meantime in Canada, investment in renewables is down for the second year in a row, dropping Canada to 11th place globally.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

“But context matters,” the report reads. “Relative to the top five countries leading the world in renewable energy investment and deployment, Canada already has a remarkably clean grid — deriving more than 80 per cent of its power from emissions-free sources and nearly two-thirds from renewable energy. That fact, coupled with relatively stable demand for electricity, limits the need or opportunity for new investment and deployment.”

For Canada, the opportunity lies in getting Alberta and Saskatchewan off coal, as well as exporting Canadian technology around the world.

“One of the biggest opportunities for Canada is this growing global demand in places like India and China for clean energy technologies and services,” Smith said.

For instance, India has a goal to add 175 gigawatts of renewable electricity in the next five years — more than the entire Canadian electrical system.

“They can’t do it alone,” Smith said. “That’s the opportunity for Canada. It’s taking our knowledge and expertise and services and selling them to the world.”

With 11 Canadian clean tech companies recently making the Global Cleantech 100, Canada is already punching above its weight.

Giving them a boost, last week’s federal budget allocated $15 million over four years to help market clean energy technology to the world.

“In the past there’s been a lot of focus on marketing our oil and gas internationally. Now there’s real money to help these companies export their products to the world,” Smith said.

“As the U.S. government retreats from international climate diplomacy, clean energy innovation and free trade, it leaves a gap that Canada is well-positioned to fill. And it’s clear that if we don’t step up, somebody else will.”

Image: Solar power array at the Gerlach School in Nevada. Photo: Black Rock Solar via Flickr

6 Charts That Show Trump Isn’t Stopping the #RenewableEnergy Revolution Any Time Soon https://t.co/ggdcaCzf9k #cleanenergy #solar #climate

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 30, 2017

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Almost a full decade since first applying for a presidential permit, TransCanada looks set to finally receive go-ahead in the U.S. for its massive $8-billion Keystone XL pipeline.

But here’s the thing: U.S. approval, while a great leap forward for TransCanada, doesn’t guarantee the Keystone XL pipeline will ever be built.

U.S. President Donald Trump was elected with the explicit promise to get the 830,000 barrel per day pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska built, under the conditions that the U.S. would receive a “big, big chunk of the profits, or even ownership rights” and it would be built with American steel; his administration has already flip-flopped on the latter pledge.

*Update: On March 24, 2017, Trump granted Trans Canada the presidential permit required to build Keystone XL, saying: “It’s going to be an incredible pipeline, the greatest technology known to man, or woman."

So is Keystone XL going to be built? Not so fast. Here are three key reasons why it may never become a reality.

1) Economics

Even Enbridge CEO Al Monaco recently stated that Canada only needs two more export pipelines.

"If you look at the supply profile and you look at our expansion replacement capacity for Line 3 and one other pipeline, that should suffice based on the current supply outlook, out to at least mid-next decade," Monaco said on a fourth quarter earnings call last week.

Wood Mackenzie analyst Mark Oberstoetter seconded that: “There's not an evident need to get three or four pipelines built.”

Add to that the rapidly declining long-term prospects in the oilsands.

Those include Exxon’s writing off of 3.5 billion barrels in bitumen reserves, ConocoPhillips’ cutting of 1.2 billion barrels in reserves and Shell’s forecasting of global peak oil demand in 2021.

Just last week, Shell sold off almost all of its oilsands assets to Canadian Natural Resources Limited. This follows divestitures by Statoil and Total SA in recent years.

“There will be no more greenfield projects if the price of oil stays at what it is,” says David Hughes, expert on unconventional fuels and former scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada.

Hughes adds that Western Canadian Select already sells at a discount of around $15/barrel due to transportation and quality discounts.

Pipeline companies thrive on long-term contracts with producers, with lower rates for longer terms (such as 10 or 20 years).

Such contracts are huge financial gambles, especially given uncertainty about oil prices. In a low oil price scenario, oilsands take a hit because of the high cost of production.

“The economic case is not there for the three pipelines,” says Amin Asadollahi, lead on climate change mitigation for North America at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. “And should the massive expansion happen, I don’t think the financial benefits for the sector … would be there.”

Three Reasons Why #KeystoneXL May Never Get Built https://t.co/YirVu8lmaf #Keystone #tarsands #oilsands #cdnpoli #NoKXL @james_m_wilt pic.twitter.com/PsN64605vE

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 24, 2017

2) Landowners

We’ve already seen what lawsuits and protests can do to proposed oil pipelines, including crippling Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and seriously delaying Energy Transfer Partner’s Dakota Access Pipeline.

Same goes for Keystone XL. Lawsuits have plagued the company for years. In 2015, over 100 Nebraska landowners sued TransCanada over the proposed use of eminent domain; the company eventually withdrew from the case and its plans for eminent domain, but it appears such conflicts will reignite with the federal approval. Landowners have already started to meet to plot out how to resist the pipeline.

TransCanada requires a permit from Nebraska in order to proceed. Last week, two-thirds of Nebraska’s senators signed a letter petitioning the state’s Public Service Commission to okay the proposed route; the original route was altered in April 2012 due to public opposition.

Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Canada, says: “They’ll probably get the federal approval, but state-level and other legal challenges will go ahead to try to stop it.”

Adam Scott of Oil Change International notes that he expects a lot of resistance to the Keystone project on the ground in Nebraska, especially given that the project still doesn’t have a legal route through the state.

There’s also growing resistance from Indigenous people, especially in the wake of Standing Rock. Thousands of Indigenous people recently gathered in Washington, D.C. for a four-day protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In 2014, the Cowboy Indian Alliance united potentially affected farmers and Indigenous people to protest against the Keystone XL project. The recently signed continent-wide Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion specifically identified Keystone XL as a proposed pipeline to be stopped.

3) Environment and climate

Then there’s the fight north of the border over greenhouse gas emissions and climate obligations.

The Canadian government’s approvals of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain and Enbridge’s Line 3 added a bit over one million barrels per day in potential capacity to the oilsands network.

Unless there are significant breakthroughs in technology to cut per-barrel emissions, those two pipelines alone will allow for oilsands production and associated greenhouse gases to hit Alberta’s 100 megatonne (Mt) cap; Stewart says companies have been talking about the possibility of emissions-cutting technologies such as solvents since 2007, but they still haven't materialized in a commercial setting.

Unconventional fuels expert David Hughes has calculated that if the 100 Mt cap is reached and a single LNG export terminal is built, Canada will need to cut non-oil and gas emissions by 47 per cent cut in order to meet the 2030 target, which will be impossible “barring an economic collapse.”

Adding an additional 830,000 bpd of export potential via the Keystone XL — allowing for the kind of expansion hoped for by the National Energy Board and Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers — could result in the breaching of Alberta’s emissions cap and the country’s climate targets.

Stewart points to Chevron’s recent submission to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which acknowledged the increasing likelihood of climate-related litigation as a related sign of looming danger for companies.

It’s a rapidly growing trend. Climate-based litigations are grounding fossil fuel projects around the world. A lawsuit based on constitutional rights to a healthy environment filed on behalf of 21 children during the Obama administration threatens to bring a similar precedent to the U.S.

“We’re actually looking at a variety of ways to put pressure — including possible legal challenges — on companies that are basing their business model on the failure of the Paris Agreement,” Stewart says. “If you’re telling your investors, ‘We’ll make money because the world will not act on climate change’ are you actually engaging politically to try to produce that outcome? Are you lobbying against climate policy?’ ”

Photo: Tarsands Action via Flickr

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At a speech given to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he intends to work with President-elect Donald Trump to approve the northern leg of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. 

The speech comes as Trump revealed in a recent interview with Fox News that one of the first things he intends to do in office is grant permits for both Keystone XL and the perhaps equally controversial Dakota Access pipeline. Because Keystone XL North crosses the U.S.-Canada border, current processes require it to obtain a presidential permit from the U.S. Department of State, which the Obama administration has denied.

The next State Department, however, could be led by the recently retired CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, who was just nominated to be U.S. Secretary of State and soon will face a Senate hearing and vote. Potentially complicating this situation is the fact that Exxon holds substantial interest in both tar sands projects and companies, which stand to benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline bringing this carbon-intensive crude oil across the border.

Exxon, along with its subsidiary Imperial Oil, owns both the Kearl Oil Sands Project and Cold Lake tar sands production facilities, and a 25 percent stake in the tar sands production company Syncrude.

According to Bloomberg, Trump's team has shown interest in getting rid of the Executive Order which created the presidential permit process altogether, which President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry used in November 2015 to axe the pipeline. 

On the campaign trail and during his post-election "Victory Tour," Trump has pledged to rescind all of Obama's Executive Orders. Unsurprisingly, Tillerson has stated his support for Keystone XL, as well.

As reported in a recent investigation by InsideClimate News, nearly a third of Exxon's global reserves is situated in Alberta's tar sands, an oil patch which covers about 55,000 square miles, or roughly the size of New York state. Alberta's tar sands represent the third largest oil reserves on the planet.

Image Credit: InsideClimate News

Processing and producing tar sands crude emits roughly 17 percent more carbon into the atmosphere than conventional crude oil, according to State Department figures cited by InsideClimate News. Exxon's website says that by 2040 the company will provide a quarter of the oil for the Americas via the tar sands.

It remains unclear what Tillerson will do pertaining to the 1.7 million shares of Exxon stock which will be deferred to him — "unvested," in corporate lingo — over the next decade or so. Some industry experts have called for him to either receive his stock payments immediately or divest completely in order to avoid the associated conflict of interest as Secretary of State.

"Keystone XL Clone"

Keystone XL North links Alberta's massive tar sands reserves to the oil hub mecca of Cushing, Oklahoma. From there, it connects with the southern leg of Keystone XL — now known as the Gulf Coast Pipeline — which carries the diluted bitumen (or "dilbit," the result of tar sands oil being mixed with lighter petroleum products to allow it to flow more easily) to Gulf coast refinery markets. 

Trudeau also recently gave a permit to the oil company Enbridge for its Line 3 Pipeline, which likewise crosses the U.S.-Canada border. That line to the Great Lakes connects to what DeSmog has called the broader "Keystone XL Clone" pipeline system, which like the Keystone Pipeline System, links Alberta's tar sands to Gulf Coast refinery markets. 

The southernmost piece of this Keystone XL Clone system, the Seaway Pipeline, which runs from Cushing to Gulf Coast refineries, had a spill in late October.

"Bring It On"

Even with the deck now stacked against those who have spent years fighting against Keystone XL, at least one environmental group responded with a simple message: "Bring it on."

"Keystone XL would imperil countless communities as well as our climate, and President Obama was absolutely right in finally rejecting it last year," Oil Change International's David Turnbull told the publication Common Dreams. "The movement to stop Keystone is one of the most inspiring and powerful collections of landowners, ranchers, Native Americans, and concerned citizens all across the county that we've ever seen. If Trump tries [to] undo President Obama's wise decision, this movement won't be standing idly by. In other words: Bring it on."

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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The U.S. election was a chilling illustration of the atrocious state of public discourse. It doesn’t bode well for a country once admired for leadership in education and science.

As public relations expert and former David Suzuki Foundation board chair James Hoggan writes in I’m Right and You’re an Idiot, “polluted public discourse is an enormous obstacle to change.” How, he asks, do we “create the space for higher quality public debates where passionate opposition and science shape constructive, mind-changing conversations”?

If those vying to be president of the most powerful country in the world couldn’t do it, what hope is there? For his book, co-written with Grania Litwin, Hoggan interviewed a range of thinkers, from linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff to the Dalai Lama. Whether or not their insights can raise the level of political discourse among politicians who think name-calling, logical fallacies and lies constitute legitimate debate remains to be seen, but the book offers advice for anyone who wants to improve conversations and create positive change in this age of online bickering, propaganda and entrenched positions.

Social psychologist Carol Tavris says part of the problem relates to “cognitive dissonance.” Unlike scientists, who revise their positions in response to testing and challenging hypotheses, most people resist changing their minds, especially if they feel it would threaten them or their real or imagined privileges.

Yale Law School psychology and law professor Dan Kahan says confirmation bias and motivated reasoning also come into play. Confirmation bias is people’s tendency to seek and select information that confirms their beliefs. Motivated reasoning is the unconscious habit of processing information to suit an end or goal that doesn’t necessarily conform to accurate beliefs.

Climate change is a good case in point. Although evidence for human-caused global warming is backed by mountains of research compiled over decades by scientists from around the world, and its impacts are observable, many people refuse to accept it, promoting debunked ideas and fossil fuel industry talking points, because they feel profits or their way of life will be negatively affected by addressing it. “When you have a combination of economic, ideological and psychological biases all in play, it’s very difficult for human beings to easily accept large-scale social and economic change,” Tavris observes.

So how do we overcome these stumbling blocks, especially when climate change deniers hold power in the U.S.? In looking at changing perceptions and habits around things like seatbelts, smoking and environmental protection, Tavris argues that dialogue and changing people’s hearts isn’t enough, that “you have to first change the laws, change public notions of what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior and change the economic consequences of practices you want to alter.” That’s more than a challenge in the current political atmosphere.

But we have to start somewhere. And improving the ways we communicate with each other is essential. Much of current discussion around the U.S. election result centres on politicians not listening to those left behind as global trade and technology outpaced antiquated economic systems. Many say the Democrats failed in part because they abandoned those who lost livelihoods in coal mines or factories as technologies changed and corporate leaders shifted production to parts of the world with lower labour costs and standards. Although the president-elect’s choices of appointments and advisers show he’s deep in the pockets of corporate America, especially the fossil fuel industry, he succeeded in tapping into the disillusionment.

We must listen to those who are suffering. We should also consider the difference between debate and dialogue. As social scientists Steve Rosell and Daniel Yankelovich tell Hoggan, “debate is about seeing weaknesses in other people’s positions, while dialogue is about searching for strength and value in our opponents’ concerns.”

Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh says, “Speak the truth, but not to punish.” While facts and reason are important, Hoggan points out, they’re not enough to change people’s minds. “Research coming from cognitive and brain science tells us if we want to be persuasive we must appeal to people’s values and speak from a moral position, rather than layering on more data and statistics.”

The world is in a precarious position. Hoggan’s book offers a path to the kind of discourse necessary to resolving our collective problems.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The UN climate talks seemed to grind to slow motion this week with the much-hyped, much-anticipated arrival of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Kerry arrived late for his scheduled talk, striding in with that celebrity dignitary air, surrounded by a posse of private security guards and long-lens photographers. An inexplicable apocalyptic plume of black smoke rose from the Marrakechi cityscape behind him.

From along the corridors of the conference venue adoring bystanders yelled, “We love you Secretary Kerry!”

I swear I saw Kerry’s teeth glisten like a Disney princess as he smiled and waved.

The moment was perfectly American, unfolding like a scene from a high-budget Hollywood film. In this conference mashup of international attendees it really did feel like the whole world was watching.

But they weren’t.

Secretary John Kerry at the UN climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco. Photo: Carol Linnitt

In fact, the whole of the giant complex making up the 22nd Conference of Parties seemed only to gaze up at the commotion before carrying on with its work.

At most international diplomatic events, the U.S. takes up a disproportionate amount of the sociopolitical bandwidth.

With the recent dramatic unfolding of the U.S. election — and the elevation of sideshow performer Donald Trump to one of the most powerful thrones in the world — this is truer than ever.

The reverberations of Trump’s win are still being felt in Marrakech where delegations from some 200 countries are deliberating the details of the Paris Agreement, a historic international treaty to limit global warming to as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible.

Trump, who said he believes climate change to be a Chinese hoax, has vowed to pull out of the Paris Agreement and unleash America’s fossil fuel corporations on the nation’s remaining hydrocarbon deposits.

Here’s Trumps 100-day energy action plan:

Trump's 100-day action plan for energy #climate #cop22 "cancel Paris Climate Agreement" and stop payments "to U.N. global warming programs." pic.twitter.com/p0BvVXzyrf

— Graham Readfearn (@readfearn) November 9, 2016

Many responded by announcing the end had come, the planet will fry and we’re all screwed.

As a Canadian watching the U.S. election furor descend into ever-deeper madness from north of the border, I’ll admit it was hard to ward off the end-times thinking.

Yet arriving in Marrakech after extracting myself from my self-referential cesspool of a Facebook feed, it was clear just how much of the world is… well… not America and preoccupied with very non-American things.

In an interview at the climate talks Erik Solheim, executive director of the UN Environment Program, said the leadership gap left in America’s wake will simply be filled by other countries.

“The small talk here in Marrakech was, of course, completely overshadowed by the U.S. election, as everyone knows,” Solheim said. “But I’m very optimistic that whatever happens in the U.S., China and others will provide the global leadership that we need.”

China, responsible for 25 per cent of the world’s emissions while also being the world’s largest solar energy market, seemed eager to wave its diplomatic finger at the U.S. It backed up the gesture by announcing a new climate partnership with the European Union.

Lutz Weischer, leader of international climate policy at Germanwatch, said the EU/China collaboration is a game changer. He suggested Trump may have inadvertently strengthened the international community’s resolve.

“The Chinese have made statements that read to me they believe this is a global challenge…indicating the EU and China can move forward on this together,” he said. “Trump was sort of a wake up call to everybody. Countries seem even more committed than in the past.”

Solar installation in China. Photo: The Climate Group via Flickr.

Australia, Pakistan, Italy, Saudi Arabia and the U.K. have all ratified the Paris Agreement since Trump’s election, putting an end to speculation the U.S. shakeup might cause a climate treaty exodus.

Mohamed Adow, climate lead from Christian Aid International, said it’s a significant sign that even a post-Brexit U.K. isn’t abandoning the agreement.

“During a week in which the international climate negotiations have experienced the shock of the U.S. elections, this backing by America’s oldest and strongest ally shows that support for global action to tackle climate change remains resolute,” he said.

“If the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States can’t shake countries’ resolve then nothing will.”

Beyond pure political and economic leadership, many have expressed concern that the real loss will be felt in the absence of America’s moral leadership. But Weischer doesn’t see it that way.

“The strongest moral leadership in this process has always come from the vulnerable countries,” he said. “And not just in providing that leadership but in actually committing to do more.”

Bill Hare, climate scientist and director of Berlin-based Climate Analytics, said Trump’s surprise victory did dampen the mood in Marrakech — for a day.

“People bounced back quickly, thinking ‘well, okay, we can also do tough.’ “

New climate possibilities are opening up in new ways, Hare said, “because the geopolitical and technological dynamics have changed.”

Slowing emissions in China are the most obvious example.  

“From our technical analysis, we’re beginning to think China has peaked its carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels,” Hare said.

“It’s the second or third year in a row where carbon dioxide emissions have reduced and new policies announced by China should continue that trend.”

Earth to America: Trump’s Not the Centre of the Universe (Or the Climate) https://t.co/hNspoMRXIx #cdnpoli #ClimateAction

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 18, 2016

But Hare said the real news story is coming out of India, which is responsible for 6.96 per cent of the world’s total emissions and has millions of residents still without power.

For several years the world has been left to wonder if India’s solution to its energy poverty would be coal or cleaner alternatives.

Hare said news that India cancelled four ultra, mega coal plants —“which are as bad as they sound” — is a positive sign, as is the country’s massive growth rate in renewable energy.

“I think that’s the biggest story on the planet right now: will India make that transformation away from coal towards renewables bringing hundreds of millions of people out of energy poverty in a clean and sustainable way?”

“That would be the biggest transformation the world has seen should it come about,” Hare said.

“So despite the depression that many people feel about the Trump election, and rightly so, in the climate policy space we see a lot of potential for things to move forward rapidly despite the turbulence from the U.S. political system.”

Liz Gallagher, senior associate with the UK-based climate analysis group, E3G said Secretary Kerry’s remarks to conference attendees may have provided some measure of comfort by emphasizing the role of pure market forces in deciding the fate of the climate.

Over 360 businesses and investors have also called on Trump to stick with the fight against global warming, saying it simply makes good business sense.

The Paris Agreement calls for a worldwide decarbonization by 2050, something that is going to require what Trump might term ‘tremendous’ amounts of renewable investment dollars.

“That’s the paradox of what president-elect Trump is proposing: he’s going backwards on policy that could make it harder for the U.S. to retain or grow its place in the world,” Hare said. “The economic benefits will be lost to the United States.”

Weischer had a similar sentiment: “This is the first time the federal U.S. government has actively decided to take the U.S. out of an emerging industrial revolution.”

Emissions in the U.S. will likely be affected by Trump’s victory but it’s not yet game over for the universe.

So maybe all that apocalypse talk emanating from the U.S. is really about something more specific: in the coming clean energy rapture, America is the one who risks being left behind.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

I was in my last year of high school when U.S. President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq. Driven by grief and a sense of helplessness (I couldn’t even vote, let alone in America) I did the only thing I could: I joined protest marches. During that spring in 2003, I watched the crowds grow beyond anything I’ve seen before or since in Vancouver: 10,000 at a rally in January, then 40,000 in February as millions of people across the globe cried out for the President to stop.

It wasn’t enough. The war went ahead, and the whole world is still suffering the consequences. But the outpouring from Canadians was enough to cement the Chretien government’s position against the invasion, despite support from the Canadian Alliance party, led by Stephen Harper. The Alliance subsequently lost the 2004 election.

Today Harper was on Twitter, congratulating President-elect Donald J. Trump:

Congratulations to Donald Trump on his impressive victory. Canada/US partnership is strong. There is much to do, incl moving ahead with KXL.

— Stephen Harper (@stephenharper) November 9, 2016

“KXL” is shorthand for Keystone XL, the oil sands pipeline blocked by the Obama administration amid backlash from Nebraska ranchers, U.S. climate activists and Native American tribes.

Keystone is not the only fossil fuel mega-project supported by President-elect Trump, who famously believes that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government to undermine the U.S. economy. Trump has given his blanket support to fracking, drilling, coal mining and oil transport, vowing to cut regulations, roll back climate action and walk away from the Paris Accord.

That’s not something we have control over in Canada. But in their grief and helplessness, I predict Canadian voters will inflict heavy consequences on politicians who align themselves with Trump’s policies, including his apocalyptic vision of a fossil-fueled future.

There are other lessons from Trump’s victory — and Hillary Clinton’s defeat — that should give Canadian politicians pause. Last night was a stark repudiation of old-school establishment politics. Anyone still relying on big-ticket fundraisers, pork-barrel cronyism, traditional polling or friendly media outlets should be very worried. There’s a backlash building, and it transcends the traditional political spectrum.

Justin Trudeau and Christy Clark’s cash-for-access dinner parties, friends in high places and we-know-best approach to policy are reminiscent of the Democratic Party when it was riding high. That puts Canadian liberals in a tough spot. If they alienate grassroots conservatives with their lavish spending and elitist ways — but also alienate progressives by aligning their pipeline plans with Trump’s pro-oil, anti-science administration — they’re in big trouble.

I don’t want to diminish the tragedy of what happened in the United States last night. My American friends and many Canadians are in tears today, fearful for how a Trump presidency will hurt women, the LGBTQ community, Black, Indigenous and Latino communities, Muslims, Jews, veterans, people with disabilities. Sadly, even the downwardly mobile white people who gave Trump the win are likely to suffer further once he takes power.

But the same combination of disenfranchisement and cheap digital technology harnessed by Trump’s campaign also gave us Bernie Sanders and Standing Rock.

.@JustinTrudeau & @ChristyClarkBC’s cash-for-access is reminiscent of the Democratic Party https://t.co/J82ZdY7pDD #bcpoli #bcelxn17

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 14, 2016

We’re entering an era of populist, mobile-driven movement politics. As Trump toured the “Rust Belt” of America in the final days of the campaign, he told workers in each factory how many jobs they had lost. It was another reminder that all politics is local. If we can find a way to use communications tools to harness that ground-level feeling of having your home destroyed by faraway elites, I think we stand a fighting chance.

After all, there’s a reason Mr. Harper is cheering on Trump from the sidelines rather than the Prime Minister’s office. His policies created an existential threat for thousands of voters — First Nations families living in grinding poverty, students and young workers with no economic future, British Columbians defending their health and safety from the global oil and coal industry. Those people rose up and tossed him out.

The key is to tap into that emotional reality without scapegoating our neighbours. We need to direct what are legitimate feelings of fear and anger toward the people who hold real power over our lives.

Unlike the Iraq War, we actually can slow down the destructive force of climate change with local action. That’s what threatens coal plants in China as people lash out against an authoritarian regime that is choking their children with toxic ash. On the supply side, Trump’s emergence as the pro-coal, Big Oil boogeyman could spur a lockdown on carbon exports, especially in the Pacific Northwest.

Reducing dangerous climate pollution means keeping coal, oil and methane in the ground. That will come down to local resistance — political, legal, maybe physical. And the more President Trump cracks down on protesters, the harder he pushes to build pipelines through tribal land, the more I think he will galvanize opposition around the world.

The storms are coming. As our glaciers deteriorate, drought and wildfires intensify, we face a tipping point every bit as dangerous as that spring in 2003. We can’t afford to get this wrong. Having a monster in the White House does not absolve us of the moral obligation to keep fighting, wherever we call home.

This article originally appeared on Dogwood's website.

Photo via Alex Hansen on Flickr

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Political Propaganda employs the ideals of liberal democracy to undermine those very ideals, the dangers of which, not even its architects fully understand.

In the early years of DeSmog’s research into environmental propaganda, I thought of industry PR campaigns like “junk science,” “clean coal,” and “ethical oil” as misinformation strategies designed to dupe the public about the real issues.

Although there is obvious truth to that view, I now understand that propaganda is far more complex and problematic than lying about the facts. Certainly propaganda is designed to look like facts that are true and right, but not in a way we might think. What’s more, the consequences are far worse than most people consuming and even producing it realize.

Much of my new understanding comes from conversations with Jason Stanley, an American philosopher and professor at Yale University and author of an important new book How Propaganda Works. According to Jason Stanley, the danger for a democracy “raided by propaganda” is the possibility that the vocabulary of liberal democracy is being used to mask an undemocratic reality.

In a democracy where propaganda is common, you have a state that appears to be a liberal democracy, its citizens believe it is a liberal democracy (they have free speech) but the appearance of liberal democracy masks an illiberal, undemocratic reality.

In this rich and thoughtful book Stanley defines political propaganda as “the employment of a political ideal against itself.” DeSmog stories about groups presenting ideologies or financial interests as objective and scientific evidence are paradigm examples of this type of propaganda.

“Propaganda that is presented as embodying an ideal governing political speech, but in fact runs counter to it, is antidemocratic …  because it wears down the possibility of democratic deliberation,” Stanley writes.

He dismisses the idea that it’s deception that makes propaganda effective. Instead, Stanley argues what makes propaganda effective is that it “exploits and strengthens flawed ideology.”

It sometimes involves outright lies, but Stanley points to a bigger problem, which is that “sincere, well-meaning people under the grip of flawed ideology unknowingly produce and consume propaganda.”

My worry, alongside Stanley’s, is that when we can’t spot propaganda or don’t understand how it works, its detriment to democracy will grow to a point where it can’t be reversed.

Propaganda blazes a reckless path in politics 

The best example of this dangerous form of propaganda is currently playing out in the race for a leader of the Republican Party in the U.S., with its surprising frontrunner, real-estate tycoon and reality TV star Donald Trump.

In his campaign, Trump has described Latino immigrants as criminals and rapists and proposed to build a wall across the U.S. border to keep Mexicans out of the country. He’s also called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S. as an attempt to crack down on terrorism and believes those already in his country should be registered on a special government database and required to carry special identification cards.

While it may sound like bluster to some, Trump’s efforts to build support by whipping up fear and anger about race and religion is unfortunately working, at least where popularity contests are concerned.

That’s even though people in his own party see him as reckless and dangerous for the country. Trump is now being regularly characterized as a demagogue in mainstream media, with parallels to Joe McCarthy, the Republican senator who is known for stoking anti-communist fears in the 1950s.

Canada isn’t immune to this propaganda-guided campaign strategy. Consider the Conservative-driven debate during last fall’s federal election around whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear the niqab during the citizenship oath. The former Harper government’s “Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act” also pandered to fears of immigrants, while claiming to address issues such as forced marriages and honour killings, which many pundits were quick to point out are already illegal under existing laws.

Understanding propaganda is key to stopping its spread 

Obviously these examples of propaganda feed into negative stereotypes, but blatant bigotry is only part of the problem.

This style of rhetoric is not as much an attempt to persuade, as it is an act of cultural tribalism: the creation of a team divided against other teams in a manner that shuts down open-minded thinking.

Stanley writes that a democratic society is one that values liberty and political equality. It is a society suffused with a tolerance of difference. It rests on the view that collective reasoning is superior, “that genuine liberty is having one’s interests decided by the result of deliberation with peers about the common good.”

These examples of propaganda pose a challenge for liberal democracy because they sabotage joint deliberations of this sort. They are touted as free speech but in fact undermine public reason by excluding certain groups.

Such ad hominem name-calling undermines our ability to question our perspectives, or respectfully consider the perspectives of others, Stanley says. It undermines the inclusive, rational debate at the core of liberal democracy.

“…flawed ideologies rob groups of knowledge of their own mental states by systematically concealing their interests from them,” he says.

Understanding what makes propaganda effective is at the heart of understanding political inaction on issues that scream out for action. Stanley is most worried about demagogic speech, saying it “both exploits and spreads flawed ideologies,” creating barriers to democratic deliberation. “It attempts to unify opinion without attempting to appeal to our rational will at all,” he says.

Stanley describes propaganda as a method to bypass the rational will of others. The consequences are widespread and can be long-lasting. Accumulated over time, propaganda becomes a turn off that discourages citizens from participating in democratic responsibilities, such as voting, the participation level of which is already embarrassingly low in free societies like Canada and the U.S.

Propaganda’s attempt to silence critics 

The propaganda problem goes way beyond terrorism, impacting the entire world around us. Consider the harm being done to the planet by those who deny climate change is a reality or label Canadian oil as “ethical” and coal from West Virginia as “clean” to justify its aggressive expansion and government subsidies.

According to Stanley, it’s difficult to have a real discussion about the pros and cons of an issue when they’re slapped with these types of spin. He believes assertions like these, where words are misappropriated and meanings twisted, are often less about making substantive claims and more about silencing critics.

In his words, they are “linguistic strategies for stealing the voices of others.” Groups are silenced by attempts to paint them as grossly insincere, which in turn undermine the public’s trust in them. Consider the former Harper government’s labeling of environmentalists who opposed their aggressive oil sands expansion policies as “radical groups” funded by foreign interests trying to block trade and undermine Canada’s economy.

When I first met Stanley in Harlem, he used the example of Fox News, which he says is silencing when it describes itself as ‘fair and balanced’ to an audience that is perfectly aware that it is neither. “The effect is to suggest there is no such thing as fair and balanced. There is no possibility of balanced news only propaganda,” Stanley says.

This style of propaganda pollutes the public square with a toxic form of rhetoric that insinuates there are no facts, there is no objectivity and that everyone is trying to manipulate you for their own interests.

Can the battle against propaganda be won?

So when facts are being spun and people mislabeled and it appears that you can’t trust what anyone says, why bother paying attention at all? American linguist Deborah Tannen puts the problem this way, “when you hear a ruckus outside your house you open the window to see what’s going on. But if you hear a ruckus every night you close the shutters and ignore it.”

Propaganda makes it difficult for citizens to weigh facts honestly and think things through collectively. What’s more, it’s convinced many of us to disengage.

That, is the exact opposite reaction we should have at this time. Instead, we need to ensure the conditions for reasonable conversations about serious problems that impact society are made possible.

Stanley cites a tradition in political philosophy, dating back to Aristotle, called “defending rhetoric.” He argues there is a kind of propaganda that is necessary to help overcome obstacles to realize democratic ideals. That is speech that brings empathy and appeals to emotion, to bring reasonableness back into public discourse.  In other words, fighting propaganda with propaganda that elicits empathy can help to reinforce the liberal democratic ideals of autonomy, equality and reason.

“The demand of reasonableness requires those deliberating about policy to take into account the perspective of anyone who may be subjected to those laws,” Stanley writes.

The antidote to demagogic propaganda is what Stanley calls civic rhetoric. It’s an attempt to share the perspectives of a group who have been silenced, or what he describes as “the tool required in the service of repairing the rupture.“

One of the most striking lessons in his book, How Propaganda Works, is a piece of advice on what we can do personally, about the dark art of propaganda.

Stanley writes: “In the face of the complexities we’ve discussed, perhaps a reasonable way to adhere to ideal deliberative norms, for example, the norm of objectivity, may be to adopt systematic openness to the possibility that one has been unknowingly swayed by bias.”

To me, the best way to fight propaganda is to become savvier about how it manipulates, how it actually works, as Stanley does in his work. It’s not just because we don’t want to become a victim of propaganda, we also don’t want to inadvertently contribute to its dark purpose.

As George Orwell wrote: “One defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself.”

Blog image credit: Ads targeting clean coal propaganda, via Flickr CC. 

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