Writing is freedom. The freedom to express ideas; the freedom to influence others; the freedom to explore all facets of humanity. Many authors have used this power to delve into one of our greatest unknowns: what life would be like as a member of the opposite gender. Through fiction, male and female writers get to convey what they perceive to be the feelings, emotions, and struggles of, respectively, the fairer and fouler sexes. With that in mind, let’s consider some prime examples of both genders’ attempts to inhabit the minds of the other.

The Hours­ by Michael Cunningham, 1998
Cunningham creates not one but three substantial female characters, each of them deeply effected by Virginia Woolf’s 1925 book Mrs. Dalloway. The Hours follows Ms. Woolf (a fictional portrayal of the author), Laura Brown, and Clarissa Vaughn as they grapple with mental illness, suicide, and sexual identity. Cunningham borrows not only Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness writing style, but also many themes from her life and the plot of Mrs. Dalloway. His Pulitzer Prize–winning novel (which was transformed into an Oscar-winning film) is celebrated for its realistic portrayal of how women confront major problems of human existence.

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, 1911
This novella has Wharton examining the social pressures at work on a Victorian husband who is vexed by a difficult choice: stay with his ailing shrew of a wife, or run off with their young, comely housemaid. Ethan longs to make a new life for himself with Mattie, but society imposes his obligation to honour his vows to Zeena. The male protagonist has often been called an analog for Wharton, who was experiencing a similar pressure — juggling a spouse and a lover — at the time of writing. The story ultimately ends in tragedy, as Ethan and Mattie are brutally injured in a sledding accident. Wharton’s marriage fared no better; she divorced in 1913 after suffering a nervous breakdown.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, 1993
Eugenides’ debut novel, told in flashback by a chorus of middle-aged, male narrators, is about five teenaged sisters who all kill themselves. There’s a line near the beginning, when a doctor bandages the youngest sister’s wrists after a failed suicide attempt, that speaks volumes about the pitfalls of writing the opposing gender:

“Chucking her under the chin, he said, ‘What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.’ And it was then Cecelia gave orally what was to be her only form of suicide note, and a useless one at that, because she was going to live: ‘Obviously, doctor,’ she said, ‘you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.’”

Obviously, neither was Eugenides. It’s Sofia Coppola, though, who arguably worked harder to identify with the opposite gender when she wrote and directed a film adaptation of the novel. Her script embraces the distinct, first-person plural (male) narration that had allowed Eugenides to stay out of the sisters’ heads.

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle, 1996
The Booker Prize–winning master of modern Irish fiction takes a complex and multifaceted look at abusive relationships from the perspective of an alcoholic mother of four. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors examines how such partnerships don’t always fit the victim-victimizer paradigm. Paula Spencer is physically and emotionally abused by her husband Charlo, yet finds herself adoring and despising him at various points throughout the narrative. Doyle goes to great lengths to make Paula more than a simple victim. He takes a more ambiguous stance, vacillating between love and hate, action and inaction. (A 2006 sequel, Paula Spencer, picks up her story ten years after Charlo’s death.)

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969
Winner of the 1969 Nebula and 1970 Hugo awards, Le Guin’s science fiction classic is told not only from the perspective of the opposite gender, but enters the world of the virtually sexless natives of the planet Winter (a.k.a. “Gethen”). Genly Ai, a human male, is sent to Winter by the Ekumen (an intergalactic UN) to convince its inhabitants to join their interplanetary alliance. He is often confused by what he finds on Winter: the absence of gender; the lack of technological development; the nonexistence of war. On Winter, female characteristics are perceived as negative qualities, and Gethens are always referred to by masculine pronouns. Like the best sci-fi, The Left Hand of Darkness uses its fantastical settings, characters, and environment to delve into real-world issues (sexual politics, gender imbalances, etc.) In that light, Le Guin’s novel can be seen as a pioneering work in the field of feminist science fiction.

She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb, 1992
Lamb missed the major literary awards with his tale of a troubled young woman. But five years after it was first published, the novel won a far more lucrative prize, when it became an early selection to Oprah’s Book Club. She’s Come Undone tracks the life of Dolores Price from age four. Lamb details her sexually violent adolescence (she is raped at thirteen), joyless years as an obese student (she overeats for comfort), and equally tumultuous early adulthood (she endures an abortion, questions of sexual identity, and emotionally abusive relationships). Some readers have complained that the character’s problems are too exaggerated to generate any real sympathy for her (I’ve personally heard Dolores described as “fulfilling every negative female stereotype”); others, however, have identified with and embraced her sorrows.

Sarah by J.T. LeRoy, 2000
Jeremiah “Terminator” LeRoy is the pen name of Laura Albert, the Brooklyn-born writer who perpetrated the greatest literary hoax of the young twenty-first century. For years, Albert presented LeRoy as a transgendered, abused, former child prostitute and drug addict who took to writing as a therapeutic process. Many readers took J.T.’s fictions as semi-autobiographical. His/her first novel, Sarah, details the travails of twelve-year-old Cherry “Sarah” Vanilla, an aspiring lot lizard who is compelled into cross-dressing, prostitution, and shoplifting by his mother. LeRoy followed Sarah with three more novels, feature articles in major magazines, and an associate producer credit on Gus Van Sant’s 2003 film Elephant. Albert concealed LeRoy’s true identity by conducting interviews via phone and email; with the author’s consent, Savannah Knoop, the half sister of Albert’s partner, Geoffrey Knoop, appeared in public as him/her. In 2006, The New York Times and New York magazine revealed the lie, and Albert confessed all to the The Paris Review. The next year, she was convicted of fraud for signing legal documents (film contracts for Sarah) as a fictional character. It’s an open question whether the value of LeRoy’s observations has been voided by the truth of Albert’s identity.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, 1985
Tyler’s tenth tome tells the story of travel writer Macon Leary. He is dispassionate and depressed, the author of a series of books for reluctant travelers. He knows where to eat Chef Boyardee pasta in Rome and whether there are Taco Bells in Mexico, should his readers ever suffer the misfortunate to visit such places. Macon’s life crumbles after his son is murdered outside of a fast food restaurant; his wife leaves him, and he devolves to become the imperfect bachelor, eating popcorn for breakfast and stomping his laundry clean in the shower. After an injury forces him to move back to his family home, which he shares with his two brothers (also divorced) and their spinster sister, what follows is a quirky comedy set against the backdrop of tragedy. With the help of his dog trainer cum girlfriend Muriel, Macon eventually learns to take charge of himself.

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, 2007
Hill’s sprawling novel (published as Someone Knows My Name in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand) takes its title from a list of 3,000 African-American slaves who fought for the British during the American Revolutionary War, and were then offered free passage to Nova Scotia in return. It is told through the life of Aminata Diallo — a character drawn in three dimensions, as fully realized a protagonist as there has been in Canadian fiction. In a 2009 interview with the CBC’s George Stromboulopoulos, Hill called his novel primarily “a woman’s story.” The author confessed that he found the process of writing from a female point of view “scary,” and joked that he was able to get into the voice “through a whole bunch of cross dressing.” In fact, he imagined Aminata as his child, and gave her the ability to love “even when she’s drawn through hell.” The Book of Negroes was met with near-universal acclaim, and Hill concluded that the process of writing it gave him a better understanding not only of the world, but also of his own daughter.

The third in a weekly series of recommended links from The Walrus Blogroll…

1. “Parliament Prorogued Until March” by Connie Crosby | Slaw
The co-operative law blog picks up one of the sharpest reactions to Stephen Harper’s facepalming of Parliament: University of Toronto political science professor Nelson Wiseman, interviewed by CBC News Now’s Carole MacNeil, shakes with the thunder of an aggrieved taxpayer.

2. “The Short Parliament” by Andrew Coyne | Capital Read
The post heard around the Canadian blogosphere. The national editor of Maclean’s suggests that “those MPs who wish to do the people’s business” should rebuke the Prime Minister’s decision by meeting with “those [MPs] with other loyalties” in absentia.

3. “Regent Park Project” by Adam Bemma | Rabble.ca
An eight-minute audio podcast about the ten-year revitalization plan for Canada’s oldest housing project.

4. “I wish I could spare Nancy from this painful experience” by Ronald Reagan | Letters of Note
On Nov. 5, 1994, the fortieth U.S. president handwrote this open letter to America, which discloses his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease with honesty and eloquence. Three days later, the Republican party took control of the House of Representatives and Senate for the first time in forty years, kicking off an era of partisan posturing.

5. “64 Photos by 64 Photographers” by Jeff Hamada | BOOOOOOOM!
[Insert 64,000 words.]

6. “Matthew Fisher interviewed about Afstan” by Mark from Ottawa | The Torch
The Torch provides an MP3 link to a bone-chilling analysis of Canada’s Afghanistan mission by CanWest’s Middle East and South Asia bureau chief. Also discussed: a hostile Pakistan, which Fisher labels “the world’s scariest problem,” and the Afghan detainee scandal, which he calls “preposterous.”

7. “The Imaginarium of Spin-Doctor Marshall” by Ed Hollett | The Sir Robert Bond Papers
Is a bustling economy driving Newfoundland and Labrador’s rapid population growth? The province’s Minister of Finance thinks so. According to SRBP, though, “the reality is something other than what the provincial government claims and the conventional media dutifully reports.”

8. “The R3-103 Year-End Countdown!” by Craig Norris | CBC Radio 3
Do you want to hear CBC Radio 3’s favourite 103 songs of 2009? Silly question — of course you do. Click through to stream them all.

9. “Should You Drink Raw Milk?” by Sharon Astyk | ScienceBlogs
Astyk, a former academic turned food writer (Depletion and Abundance, A Nation of Farmers), delivers a well-considered essay on the ups and downs of quaffing unprocessed milk.

10. “How to Read a Book a Week in 2010” by Julien Smith | in over your head
“It feels awesome. It gives you an amazing amount of ideas. It helps you think more thoroughly. It’s better than TV and even the internet. It makes you understand the world more. It is a building block towards a habit of completion… whatever, just do it already.” Challenge accepted.

And now our holiday fun is done. The Walrus Blog will resume posting original content next week.

The second in a weekly series of recommended links from The Walrus Blogroll…

1. “2010 Olympics: Picking Team Canada” by James Mirtle | From the Rink
The Globe and Mail’s resident hockey expert scores an early goal with this meticulous analysis of what is about to become the country’s most debated topic: which NHL stars should compete for Vancouver’s goldest medal.

2. “Celebrating Saturnalia” by Ethan Siegel | ScienceBlogs
A theoretical astrophysicist traces the historic origins of the Christmas holiday to the Second Punic War (218–201 B.C.) and the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

3. “Sex and the City is Not a Feminist Boon” by Lauren Bans | The XX Factor
In Tuesday’s Guardian, Naomi Wolf made the case for Carrie Bradshaw as “the first female thinker in pop culture.” On Wednesday’s XX Factor, Bans slashed that argument to silk ribbons: “The [Sex and the City] ladies are so clichéd and one-dimensional hailing them as feminist icons is like arguing that Beavis and Butt-head define manhood in all its robust glory.”

4. “A Jersey Shore primer: what you missed while it was becoming a phenomenon” by Scott Stinson | The Ampersand
Speaking of dubious television programming, The Ampersand surveys the newest sensation in minstrelry: MTV’s Jersey Shore.

5. “Afstan: Typical Canadian reporting—balderflippingdash” by Mark From Ottawa | The Torch
The group blog about our national military fact-checks Canadian Press reporting about Canadian Forces activities in the Afghanistan battle zone: “…no wonder so many Canadians — public, pundits, and politicians — are so ignorant of Afghan realities when this is the sort of stuff that appears in our major media. Fie.”

6. “A heartwarming work of edifying genius” by Morgan Clendaniel | GOOD
A Q&A with Valentino Achak Deng, the real-life “Lost Boy of Sudan” cum visionary educator who inspired Dave Eggers’ novel What Is the What, a 2006 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

7. “Interview: B.C.’s ‘Prince of Pot,’ Marc Emery” by Paul McLaughlin | This Magazine
Weeks before reporting to U.S. prison, where he’s now serving a five-year sentence for selling marijuana seeds by mail order across North America, Canada’s premier pot activist gave an interview to one of the country’s premier questioners. Their conversation appeared this week on This.org.

8. “A Very Special Sedaris Christmas” | This American Life
It’s already Boxing Day, but never too late to unpack this radio gem, originally aired in 1997. Click through to hear fifty-six minutes worth of side-splitting holiday comedy.

9. “The responsible communication defence: What’s in it for journalists” by Dean Jobb | J-Source
The author of Media Law for Canadian Journalists explains the Supreme Court of Canada rulings that give reporters and editors “the right to be wrong” — and why that’s a good thing.

10. “Can non-profit journalism make it in Canada?” by Bilbo Poynter | J-Source
The executive director and founder of The Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting poses the question that stymies our masthead’s collective sleep. His answer? “What we need are funders who share our vision, are willing to partner with us long-term, and can see the value in funding independent investigative reporting as a part of their legacy of giving back to Canadians.” Amen, brother.

More than a year after the world’s economy teetered on the edge of collapse, it’s difficult to read a magazine or newspaper without being reminded that we’re still in trouble. But for those longing to ditch the bulletin of the apocalypse in favor of a more hopeful headline, something winsome this way comes: Papirmasse, an art magazine cum old world broadsheet cum boho time capsule founded by Albertan painter Kirsten McCrea. Last January marked the beginning of McCrea’s “grand art experiment,” an art-by-mail monthly that arrives unbound and uncomplicated, just a folio of limited-edition prints with stories, poems, and interviews on their backsides. When I ask McCrea for a simpler description of her very ambitious project, she fails beautifully: “It’s a meeting point between a book of fine art prints, a magazine, a gallery visit, and a pulp novel. It engages in multiple ways.”

The genesis of Papirmasse dates to the spring of 2008, when McCrea graduated from the art program at Montreal’s Concordia University and returned to her native Edmonton to save enough money to paint full time. While working in a restaurant, she noticed that the walls were covered with paintings by an artist she knew. They were beautiful — and each one had a price tag of $2,000. Then McCrea thought back to her previous job, going door-to-door soliciting donations for Amnesty International. There, she recalled, it was amazing to see how many homes had completely bare walls. From this collision of unsatisfying circumstances — exorbitant art or no art at all — Papirmasse was born.

Right away, McCrea knew what she wanted: to make art for everyone. She chose the name Papirmasse after stumbling across the term in a printmaking class — in Dutch, it means “pulp,” calling to mind both the soft wet fibers used as the base material for paper and the mass culture art for which she hopes to cultivate a taste, a demand, and an audience. In keeping with her mission, McCrea knew she’d have to expand her repertoire of art-making techniques in order to produce the project. “I started thinking about offset lithography,” she says. “It seemed to be a good alternative to paintings and prints. If I could get machines involved, I knew I could keep the price down.” And while she clearly understands the importance of web publishing (she hosts much of Papirmasse’s content on her own impressive website, www.hellokirsten.com), McCrea has no plans to downsize her print production: “People who subscribe are really excited about getting something like this in the mail.”

Low production costs are vital to Papirmasse, she insists. Despite its dreamy feel, every detail of the magazine is curated in the name of accessibility — to wit, most of the art thus far has been McCrea’s own (“Free content,” she quips). Early plans to mail Papirmasse in cardboard tubes were scrapped when postage quotes outstripped her working budget. A twelve-issue subscription was originally $72; now it’s $60. “The less the magazine costs,” she says, “the more people have access to it. And so many people are shut out of the art world already.”

But — perhaps in an ironic gesture — Papirmasse is subscription only, and each issue has a limited run of 1,000 copies. It’s a question of productive exclusivity, according to McCrea. “I wanted the magazine to feel special,” she says. What she doesn’t want is to feed the contemporary art-world trend. Even in the slipstream following a decade-long march of art as spectacle — with jeweled skulls and shambolic bedroom scenes leading the way — McCrea says the art world still commands a steep cost of entry. In a way, she says, Papirmasse has the potential to capitalize on the same force of nature that slowed the acquisition and sale of most other art in 2009. While the recession certainly highlighted the difference between luxury and necessity, McCrea aims to shift the general perception of art away from the former and toward the latter. “I’m an artist,” she says. “I’m obsessed with art. I need it in my life. But you walk into a gallery and a starter painting by an emerging artist is $2,000, and most people find it alienating to be around something that expensive.”

As she attempted to understand and resolve that alienation, McCrea was drawn to artistic manifestos, ranging from “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” to the Crude Art Manifesto to the Cheap Art Manifesto to Stuckism. She began to see these statements as central to her magazine’s identity, but the relation was unexpected. “It’s kind of tongue and cheek, what I’ve done with these classic manifestos,” she says. “It was really interesting to find my own thoughts echoed back at me from the past. I found a mission statement ready for me, one that was voiced really, really beautifully.” And it is this amalgamation of high and low taste (one imagines Frankfurt School Marxist Walter Benjamin and Medway punk poet Charles Thomson, arm in arm and smiling) that gives Papirmasse its shape and direction.

In her dream scenario, McCrea says, more contributors would get involved. She’d love to see her magazine filled with the work of a new artist every month, someone she’d entrust with addressing the question of accessible art however they wanted. Ultimately, she says, she hopes her subscribers don’t automatically love every print she sends them. Instead, she craves a deeper, more critical engagement. McCrea hopes that in the course of a year-long subscription, “everyone gets a piece they love and a piece they hate. Give the parts you don’t like to your friends.” Spoken like a true revolutionary.

(Papirmasse images courtesy of Kirsten McCrea)

The first in a weekly series of recommended links from The Walrus Blogroll…

1. “The ten most irritating politicians of 2009” by Jane Taber | Ottawa Notebook
In the spirit of end-of-year lists, Globeandmail.com presents the least likeable politicians of 2009. Michael Ignatieff, the subject of our January/February 2010 cover story, tops the rankings.

2. “The top ten stories of the last 4.5 billion years” by The Onion staff | The Onion
Speaking of list journalism, America’s finest news source presents the year-end summary to end all year-end summaries. Number one with a man-made bullet: an interview with a trilobite, who reports, “Yup, this evolution thing is going great.”

3. “Proof that goats cannot be trusted” by Maggie Koerth-Baker | Boing Boing
Research by “Professor Eustace P. Toffeynuts III, Ph.D., D.D.T., L.S.D.” on the subject of goat eyes and their association with the Dark Lord Satan. Read at your own peril: you’ll never be able to look at a goat the same way again.

4. “It’s  down to dollars” by Alice Klein | Rabble.ca
The co-founder, editor, and CEO of NOW Magazine presents a primer on the issues facing delegates at the close of the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen.

5. “The Simpsons turns twenty; next year, it can play its own drinking games” by Linda Holmes |Monkey See
Everyone’s favourite cartoon family celebrated two decades of airtime (in series form) this week. Readers are encouraged to share their favourite character or phrase from the series, as well as which “Simpson-ism” they would like to see banished from Earth.

6. “The end of handwriting, finally!” by Jeff Severns Guntzel | Utne Daily
Commentary and links to an article by Anne Trubek, an associate professor at Oberlin College who’s on a crusade against teaching handwriting in schools. Guntzel and Trubek both argue that teaching typing would have a “democratizing effect” on learning — rather than the “robotic” method by which students are currently taught cursive.

7. “Uganda’s gay genocide in the making” by Cate Simpson | This
Simpson, writing for This’s “Queerly Canadian” blog, explains how North America’s “ex-gay” movement is at least partly responsible for Uganda’s move to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death.

8. “Judge rules on grammar, syntax” by Simon Fodden | Slaw.ca
We here at The Walrus are naturally quite concerned with proper use of grammar, punctuation, and syntax — and are delighted to see that U.S. bankruptcy judge Robert Kressel shares our interest. (Note: any grammatical or syntactical errors in this post are purposeful and satirical ;))

9. “The art of the interview” by Marc Pachter | TED.com
In this video clip, the former director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery shares a wealth of trade secrets, as learned through his “Living Self-Portrait” series of public interviews with famous figures.

10. “Blogger ticks off The Walrus for not linking to the source of his quote” by D.B. Scott | Canadian Magazines
The “civilized” discussion of The Walrus’s unattributed use of a blogger’s quote in a magazine article — read about it here, here, and here — continues on Scott’s catch-all blog for happenings in the domestic mag industry. (Who’s afraid of hyperlinks? Not us!)

Over at eaves.ca, David Eaves raises some interesting and important questions about journalistic citation, after The Walrus quoted his blog in Gil Shochat’s “The Dark Country” (January/February 2010) without noting the exact source in the piece. In his post, David mentions his perception that journalism operates collaboratively, and cites our oversight as an exception to this rule. As the editor of the piece, I saw the decision a bit differently.

First, my personal experience is that most media enterprises jealously emphasize their original contributions to stories, and try to mask the fact that a sizable chunk of their content originates with competitors (even ones working in other media entirely). I’ve always found that mindset a little craven, mind you, and I do think it’s changing in the Internet/death-of-print-media age.

In this case, it wasn’t a question of being proprietary. As a monthly magazine, we don’t face the same competitive pressures as, say, a daily paper that doesn’t want to highlight that it has been scooped. Plus, we’re fans of eaves.ca, and would generally want to drive traffic there. (Disclosure: David and I know each other a little bit.) It was more a question of how including that information would affect the flow of the narrative, and what readers needed to know for the quotation to have its intended effect.

Going back to reporting classes in j-school, I’ve always tended to think of citation in journalism, by contrast with academic work or blogging, as primarily a question of relevant detail, more than of fair dealing or reader enrichment, as David casts it. Note that expert commentary of the kind David’s quotation was providing often appears without much context, partly because many stories would otherwise get bogged down in dreary repetitions of “reached by phone in her office, Professor X said…”

Insofar as I was making a conscious decision as an editor, I would have been asking myself whether mentioning eaves.ca bolstered the authority of the quotation or added narrative value. Ultimately, I concluded that David’s credentials were all readers needed to know. In hindsight, I might have chosen otherwise, in part because the quotation wasn’t a spoken one, and in part because this is a rare instance where the source actually ended up caring.

David also asks in his post why The Walrus hasn’t linked to his blog in the online version of the story. “When The Walrus doesn’t link to others, it is a policy decision,” he writes. “They believe in the myth that they need to keep people on their website — which means they also believe in keeping their readers away from the very material that makes their stories interesting.”

Ouch! We definitely don’t believe in that myth. We’re simply a monthly magazine first. We don’t go in and insert links into our magazine pieces because we don’t have the resources, and because the decisions about what and where to link would be difficult and time-consuming to navigate, especially given that we rely on freelance writers, who might have opinions about what should be linked to or not. It’s certainly not policy.

Generally speaking, we want to do anything that will help us be part of the public conversation on the issues we cover — in fact, doing so is part of our mandate as an educational publication. And we’re well aware of the value of linking to and from other publications. We do plenty of linking on our blogs, and the magazine’s Twitter feed (not to mention my own) is generally abuzz with links to and from other media.

It’s more that until a literary journalism–loving Web 2.0 billionaire shows up to bestow an endowment upon us, we’re limited in what we can accomplish. (If you are said billionaire, please click here.)

(Illustration by Tamara Shopsin)

Few people these days can still excite my interest on climate change. The topic has been excessively reported, argued to death, and converted into more than a few apocalyptic box office hits. This week we’ve been hearing about it even more, throughout the fifteenth United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen. Many observers expect this round of climate talks will be different, with U.S. support influencing China and India to join an accord — at last overcoming the three powers’ notorious reluctance to engage on such issues. The anticipated result of the eleven-day conference will be a new climate treaty to enhance the Kyoto Protocol that’s been in force since 2005.

Why even the debate? First and foremost, because we remain far from any pervasive agreement about the immediacy and impact of climate change. While some scientists argue that environmental catastrophe will soon result from carbon dioxide emissions, others believe that this has been drastically overstated. Moral and political discussion is another hot topic. Supporters of climate change resolutions often approach the topic with moral indignation and a doom-and-gloom mentality, but also the firm belief in a worldwide commitment to curbing carbon emissions. The opposition posits that the costs of climate change policies far outweigh their environmental benefits, and may reallocate resources away from more immediate global concerns such as poverty and health.

Last Tuesday, four well-informed and passionate experts had it out on this very subject — i.e., whether “climate change is mankind’s defining crisis and demands a commensurate response” — during the fourth instalment of Toronto’s Munk Debates. Their lively discussion focused on policy priorities and public will.

The pros, Elizabeth May and George Monbiot, began the debate with a decided advantage. Among the 1,100 people in attendance at the Royal Conservatory of Music, a pre-debate poll showed that 61 percent of the audience supported the resolution, while the remaining 39 percent voted against. However, 79 percent were open to changing their vote. Lord Nigel Lawson and Bjørn Lomborg argued the con position.

Below is a summary of the speakers’ arguments, followed by a list of major themes and accompanying arguments from the three-hour event.

SPEAKERS

» Lawson (former Chancellor to the Exchequer and the immediate past president of the British Institute of Energy Economics) argued that climate change has become a new secular religion where dissent is neither tolerated nor heard. He opposed the notion that it is the most important issue of our time by citing a survey which shows that only 8 percent of climate change scientists believe that claim to be true. He then debunked the credibility of a widely cited report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by referring to the recent “Climategate” scandal, in which hacked emails provided evidence that scientists had doctored data for the sake of the report. Lawson argued that even in the future worst-case scenario, as presented by the IPCC report, changes in living standards for the developing world by 2100 will be marginal — thus, the cost of drastically de-carbonizing the economy would exceed any benefits. He said that in developing countries where poverty is an overriding concern, economic development should be the higher priority. Since the carbon energy is the cheapest, it is immoral to impose anything else. Lawson spoke against the carbon trade bill in U.S. Congress that aims to impose punitive taxes on imports from countries that refuse to cooperate, such as India and China. He declared that mankind has adapted to climate changes over time, and will continue to do so, especially aided by technology. To behave otherwise, he concluded, would be scientifically unfounded, economically damaging, and immoral.

» May (environmentalist, writer, activist, lawyer, and leader of the Green Party of Canada) provided evidence that climate change is the top threat of our day — followed by the freshwater crisis, which will be exacerbated by climate change. Her fatalistic presentation argued that the change is demonstrated over generations, not individual years, and dramatic scientific evidence is found in melting glaciers and rising sea levels. The biggest threat, she said, is rising carbon dioxide levels — they are 30 percent higher today than at any time in the past million years — that will change the chemistry of our atmosphere. She claimed that we need to reduce fossil fuel use and protect and expand our forests. Finally, she emphasized that our political will has thus far failed to deliver on what we’ve been told by scientists, and that fact must change. (Shorter version: We need to act now!)

» Lomborg (director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist) argued that superlatives  — i.e., whether this is the greatest challenge of our century — lead to a poor, reactionary way of thinking about helping the world. He suggested that we have many global pressing crises, like poverty, hunger, access to clean water and sanitation, and death from curable and infectious diseases. Economists, Lomborg continued, have said the greatest good that can be done for the world can be achieved through simple solutions like micro-nutrients, agricultural R&D, immunization, and the schooling of girls. He argued that though climate change is important, obsession with an immediate reaction neglects these issues and overlooks smarter environmental solutions. The costs of curbing global warming outweigh the benefits, he said, and the better response is to invest in research and development in order to cheapen environmental technology until it becomes ubiquitously accessible.

» Monbiot (columnist for the Guardian, and author of the best-selling Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning) began by contradicting the notion that climate change supporters purport inaccurate and optimistic scenarios. He presented the evidence that eight out of ten of the warmest years on record have taken place between 2001 and now. He drew on the largest study commissioned by the U.K., the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, which shows there are minimal costs to preventing climate change — as compared to the tremendous costs of living with it. Monbiot dispelled the idea that humankind can adapt to our changing environment, because in regions like sub-Saharan Africa, droughts have often lead to desperation and killing. He then argued that climate change versus foreign aid is a false dichotomy, because foreign aid budgets are very small, and will not be affected by increased spending on climate change. He finished by averring that Copenhagen is a historic moment which requires us to recognize our responsibility and do something about the environment.

THEMES AND ARGUMENTS

» IPCC Report: Both teams debated its credibility in the wake of Climategate.

» The Stern Review: Lawson reminded the audience that it’s never been peer reviewed, and is commonly disregarded as justification for governmental policies. Monbiot replied that there was no need for a peer review, because the Stern document is an “uber” review — a review of all other reviews.

» Scientific basis for climate change: This topic was surprisingly under-debated — except by May, who reiterated all the major points from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

» Impact of climate change: May dominated this discussion with simplified explanations about how carbon dioxide in our atmosphere acidifies our oceans, and that the effect of losing permafrost is the release of more carbon dioxide into the environment. The debaters also discussed the effect of temperature change on global food production. Health concerns were briefly addressed when Lawson suggested that the only projected negative health outcome is the reduction of deaths from cold exposure.

» Global priorities: Whereas the pro debaters argued that climate change exacerbates problems in the developing world like drought, poverty, and HIV/AIDS and other diseases, the con side declared that there are smarter methods to help developing countries than by expecting them to cut carbon emissions. May and Monbiot argued that development agencies prioritize climate change above all, but Lomborg brought the contradictory point home when he suggested that OXFAM would never choose to negligibly slow climate change by end of the century over saving thousands of lives today.

» Global energy choices: This discussion centered on the costs of energy. Monbiot spoke about our current reliance on oil and the future need to rid ourselves of fossil fuel dependence for our own economic well-being. Lawson dismissed the notion that oil will peak soon, or that we are presently running out of it. He suggested that developing countries especially will continue to rely on oil for years to come because it is the cheapest energy, and they have already invested significant amounts of money in its use. Monbiot made the great point that it is often cheaper to implement new energy technologies in developing countries.

» Solutions: The pro side held that the Copenhagen convention is moving us in the right direction, and that cutting carbons is key. The con side recommended economic development as the most efficient way to protect humans and species. Focus should therefore be placed on immediate concerns, and energy solutions should be made cheaper in order to be implemented worldwide.

*

Monbiot was the most thorough debater, holding strong opinions and citing sources on every topic. Unfortunately, his melodrama about his experiences in Africa (and his overindulgent repetition of the phrase, “How lucky do you feel?”) detracted from the strength of his arguments. May emerged as perhaps the weakest speaker of the evening, with an overly defensive and defiant personality. This was especially clear when her opponents denigrated her for using enormous exaggerations as truths, such as her proclamation that climate change is humankind’s most immediate problem because it aggravates the incidence of HIV/AIDS.

Lawson was very comprehensive and perhaps the most calm contender, though sometimes it appeared as if he had checked out halfway through the event. There is no question that Lomborg was the evening’s most persuasive and charismatic speaker, although he was derided for creating false dichotomies. Unfortunately, at times he seemed to slip into May’s cheap-shot trap, such as when he claimed that both opponents were actually standing on his and Lawson’s side. But in all honesty, he was the one who won my support.

In the end, the audience voted once again, with 53 percent still believing that climate change is humankind’s defining crisis and demands a commensurate response. The con side scored a marginal increase in agreement, with 47 percent now doubting that claim. No one position ever seemed to dominate the debate, and I was left eager to learn more.

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