I had a fleeting moment of elation a couple of weeks ago in the aftermath of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s big scientific report pinning down global warming once and for all. Having warned for some 35 years that we’re going to hell in a handbasket with our environmental destruction, here were all my eco-enemies — George W. Bush, Stephen Harper, the world’s most influential CEOs, and so on — prostrate at my feet, saying “You were right, Ralph. Sorry. Forgive us. We’ll go green.”

My reverie popped all too quickly. It wasn’t just that winning the argument 35 years late may be the same as losing the argument, but the idea of tackling the problem with these insincere converts in charge is akin to saying that the way to deal with terrorism is to make Osama bin Laden president of the United States.

President Bush was first off the mark with a glowing account of how his ethanol policy would be topped up to solve climate change. Since ethanol is fool’s oil, that takes at least as much fossil fuel energy to create as it gives back, this is virtually a declaration that nothing will be done — at least while he’s around.

And in Ottawa, any urge to do something useful quickly devolved into a circus of spin and counter-spin. The Harper government, which sees environmental concern as a fad at best and a hoax at worst, is hoping to get the issue off the news so it can run an election on its pet projects — tax cuts, law and order, and whatnot. Fishing out old Liberal programs from the garbage can, and presenting them as new to get the pressure off, is the depth of its environmental commitment.

And in Nova Scotia, we’re caught more flat-footed than most. Per capita, we’re among the worst emitters of greenhouse gases in the country because of Nova Scotia Power’s coal-fired plants, and our political capacity to deal with this is in deep doubt.

The problem was illustrated by the revelation last week that NSP has a business-as-usual scenario in which its emissions will rise by 84 per cent by 2030, from 1990 levels. Continued dependency on coal, however, puts us at financial risk: Either NSP shareholders or customers — or more likely, both — will have to pay the price when the clampdown comes on coal-fired plants through national and international pressure. When that happens, electricity rates could go through the roof. Some financial advisers are warning investors already that “carbon liabilities” will soon have to be taken into account for companies such as Emera, parent company of NSP.

What the rising-emissions scenario illustrates is that NSP and the Nova Scotia government, like the Harper government and George W. Bush — and, admittedly, perhaps like most of the general public as well — are incapable of getting their minds around what’s really happening: We have to start reducing fossil-fuel use, not increasing it, no matter how tough it is.

It was just three weeks ago that the government set a target of boosting green electricity usage to 20 per cent, complete with threats of fines for NSP for failure to comply. Is that in a muddle already?

Also, in order to increase wind power and other alternatives, NSP will call for bids from contractors. This method has already been identified as second-best worldwide. It results in concentrated big-business wind farms and other facilities that local operators can’t compete against.

What really works in the most progressive jurisdictions are fixed-price contracts available to anyone who can produce power, and that encourages farmers, co-ops, municipalities and others to produce their own and sell the surplus to the grid. Germany and Spain have pioneered this, and other places — including Ontario — are jumping on. Are we politically capable of contemplating such a thing? If not, why not?

Premier Rodney MacDonald, at the recent PC annual reunion, was given a new sendoff after a disastrous first eight months, and the gist of his new start is to go green. He intends to set up a high-level committee to screen all government initiatives for their environmental impact. In principle, this is a good idea — a long overdue one, in fact. The test is in the government’s capacity to make it work. So far, the only political virtue the premier has exhibited is his capacity to make good speeches. It’s going to take more than that.