Sarah: Hi Pauline, Nik

While it's been difficult to stay focused on national politics when much of the world is in such apparent crisis, enough worrisome Canadian news has surfaced to make me think that while we can consider ourselves lucky to live in this country, we have plenty to be concerned about here as well.

Certainly our commitment to fairness, equality and democracy are wavering. I'm thinking of the federal government shutting down elements of the freedom of information database, its hands-off approach to Omar Khadr, the overzealous use of Tasers and the threats to close the safe-injection site Insite in Vancouver. Am I being paranoid or should we be worried?

Nik: I find the coincidental timing of events like these can incite feelings of concern in the public around certain issues and then things turn more to a "normal" cycle (if there ever is such a thing).

Beyond what you've identified, Sarah, I think the bigger factor driving unease today is the concern about jobs and the economy. Research shows that Canadians are increasingly worried about the strength of our economy. When they see the price of gas jump, fluctuations in the stock market and talk of a potential recession, they get "grumpy," so to speak.

We might at this time be in a psychological as opposed to a real recession but it has a huge impact on the public mood.

Pauline: Is part of this unease the sense that Canada has coasted above the fray for the last while, but that this state cannot continue?

Nik: Canadians look at the U.S. and see the real estate meltdown there and other problems and wonder, "How long can we not be affected?"

Of course, when we read, as we did this week, about automotive plant closures in Windsor, it sends a message that the U.S. is retrenching and the Canadian economy will likely feel some sort of negative impact.

Pauline: Everyone is affected by the price of oil, whether it's at the gas pump or in the increased cost of everything you buy, from California produce to Chinese textiles.

It seems to me that people are beginning to link the idea of individual behaviour to larger environmental and economic issues.

In this sense, the rumblings around Stéphane Dion's carbon tax idea are very interesting.

How is it playing in B.C., Sarah, where your provincial government has just announced a "revenue-neutral" carbon tax?

Sarah: I guess I would have to say the impending carbon tax is tolerated in Vancouver and the surrounding area, probably because we have adequate public transit and such high density. In fact, many seem relieved that something is being done.

However, in northern parts of the province where people are much more reliant on their cars and trucks and need to heat their homes for 6 or more months of the year, the tax is not popular at all.

It is interesting though that Canadians seem to be viewing their own personal environmental habits as a larger part of the problem than what industry is doing. This certainly is a shift from a few years ago and opens up, I think, more opportunities to address the problem.

Nik: What is also interesting in Dion's musings on a federal carbon tax is his plan to offset the effect of any increase in gas prices by tax cuts elsewhere in order to make the overall impact revenue neutral.

Persuading Canadians on the merits of this will be a classic heart over pocketbook battle. Canadians do want action on the environment. The question remains, however, how much are they willing to pay themselves for that?

Sarah: Canadians might be willing to pay more for gasoline out of a sense of guilt, I suppose. But the other question is: We are accustomed to being taxed, will adding a carbon tax change our behaviour in the long term? We might just get used to paying more without altering our habits.

I think the carbon tax is but one piece of the puzzle. Industry needs to clean up its act and governments need to provide the funds to green our infrastructure, which means increasing public transit, regulating the building industry and diversifying our energy production.

Pauline: That brings us back, I think, to complexity. Sarah, what you are talking about is big, complex stuff. Solving these kinds of problems requires deep thinking among experts from all sectors of society, including the public service.

Unless you are in a benign dictatorship, to deal with these problems requires listening, synthesizing, good functional relationships and genuine dialogue — the kinds of things that are hard to develop when there is hot, partisan noise from all sides streaming at you.

If we can't move forward on big files like greening our infrastructure, increasing public transit and diversifying energy production, Canadians will do what they can in small, concrete individual ways: They will (gradually) buy more energy-efficient appliances, produce less garbage, turn lights off.

They will know this is not enough, but they will likely feel a little better about themselves.

I think Canadians think of themselves as world leaders in quality of life, but an inability to move forward with a societal consensus on these big issues could make a real dent in our self-image.

That would be too bad, because the record shows that biting the bullet on this kind of change actually makes economies more prosperous, not less.

Sarah: I couldn't agree more. I wonder where we would be if we had begun to implement these changes 20 years ago when the environment was said to be foremost in everyone's minds. There is a Chinese proverb that says: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now."