Editorial
Time will tell if Baird is good for the environment

If nothing else, Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week demonstrated he can smell the coffee as well as the next man.

It didn't take any particular gift of intuition for the PM to realize that Canadians are very concerned about their environment these days. Small wonder, considering the the recent green Christmas and unseasonably warm temperatures we've experienced this winter.

Thus it was important for Harper not only to act, but to be seen to be acting, and switching environment ministers is a pretty visible move.

But we will have to wait and see if it's effective.

The environment is not that easy to understand, either in terms of its mechanics or the philosophy many of us have regarding it.

With the exception of a few very foolish people, we are all concerned about the environment, and want to see things done to protect it. The problem is, of course, that there is often disagreement on the best way to accomplish that. As well, with such disagreement, there is room for arrogance, with too many people taking the attitude that since they care so much about the environment, everyone should agree with them. Those who dare to disagree can often expect to have all sorts of nasty things said to and about them.

It requires no great environmental knowledge or even concern to call one's self an environmentalist, to put one's name down as a member of an environmental organization, to wear snazzy green T-shirts at a political convention or to sit as minister of the environment.

Baird, thus far, has demonstrated only his ability to run government ministries at the federal and provincial level, and come to the attention of the current prime minister in a positive way.

His former caucus colleague Garth Turner made an interesting observation about him in his famous blog earlier this week: "I never heard the word 'environment' come out of his mouth before the cabinet shuffle last week."

Who knows? Baird might turn out to be just the thing that is needed to do the environment some good. But what could be more useful would be more people doing what they can for the environment (and by that, we mean the proverbial walking the walk rather than talking the talk), as opposed to expecting the government to act.