At least those who destroy the environment are polite.

michael thibault photos/the ubyssey

On Friday, Greenpeace activists held a protest at Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff's UBC talk:

What started as an opportunity for Ignatieff to reach a politically apathetic generation turned into a heated demonstration held by Greenpeace activists.

During the question period, one activist asked Ignatieff about his stance on the Alberta tar sands. He was interrupted by Greenpeace protestors before he could answer.

The crowd grew restless and confused as Greenpeace continued to make its voice heard. Some students started to boo the protesters, some clapped, and others squirmed in their seats from the awkwardness of the atmosphere.

The student response has been decidedly against Greenpeace and the way they handled themselves. Much like the Blake Frederick kerfuffle over tuition policy, UBC students were too preoccupied with the crude breach of protocol to address the very real issue being raised. Most of the discussion has centered around the way Ignatieff held himself in the face of these foolish, rude and bombastic philistines. A student comments:

What was so remarkable about the situation is that Ignatieff didn’t seem phased at all, rather he gave an answer and did a remarkable job explaining his position

And a few more representative samples:

fuck greenpeace, that was just embarrassing and rude on their part, misrepresented UBC, kind of pissed me off

these tree hugging hippies definitely embarrassed UBC!

Notice the very clear evasion of the issue in favor of this meaningless discussion of image, poise, and respect. One might not agree with Greenpeace's methods, but to rally around Michael Ignatieff for the purposes of demonstrating your pompous sense of civility is simply cowardly. This nonsense about how well Ignatieff did or did not handle the situation is borderline idol worship, a poisonous trend in our political discourse. These are not personalities to psychoanalyze and revere for their gravitas, they are embodiments of actual policies (in this case, very destructive policies). Unhealthy reverence for the political elite and their etiquette is, on the whole, trivial and ruinous because it focus' political energy on the superficial and marginalizes the dissent (which is necessarily rude) needed for political change. The passion we saw on the part of these activists suggests the matter of the tar sands warrants further investigation, the protest should be used as an opportunity to speak substantively on the issue of climate change and our role in the matter.

Among the chaos, the very polite room of University students seemed not so concerned with something that I felt was much more worrisome, Ignatieff's rationale for continuing the tar sands:

“If you’re asking me to shut down the tar sands, I’ll tell you frankly, it is not in the national interest of our country to do [so].”

In the opening of the talk, Ignatieff continuously alluded to a “race against other nations” for matters of Canada's national interest. When one astute student asked Ignatieff to clarify the interesting choice of words, Ignatieff said he was referring to acquiring market share in emerging markets. This rationale is hardly out of the ordinary, it's pervasive in our political discourse. But self-serving attitudes are incredibly detrimental when addressing climate change and other matters that require international co-operation and compromise (Canada is public enemy number one here, thanks to the tar sands). The "national interest" justification--met with such thunderous applause--is nothing more than thinly veiled tribalism, hardly a just or liberal motivation. Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed exposed this insanity at the Copenhagen summit:

Every country arrives at the negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible and never to make commitments unless someone else does first. This is the logic of a mad house, a recipe for collective suicide.

The IPCC AR4 "Summary for Policy Makers" has recognized this problem:

Fossil fuel exporting nations (including annex one countries) may expect lower demand and lower GDP growth due to mitigation policies.

but...

Those in weakest economic position are often the most vulnerable to climate change.

We may be satisfied that we play the role of climate criminal number one with the appropriate level of civility, but I think those most adversely affected by climate change will hardly be impressed by our good manners.