“What are we thinking??? This is so pathetic!” So says my other half – in a reaction borne out of growing impatience with the reverse gear in which we Canadians seem to be stuck.

Sir David King, the UK’s former chief scientific adviser, yesterday accused Canada and Japan of blocking progress towards a meaningful international deal to tackle climate change…. [From Canada and Japan accused of blocking Copenhagen progress ]

So says another frustrated citizen of our planet. Apparently we are “undermining the talks” and “gung-ho about rising oil prices and want to exploit that.”

We are falling down on the front lines. What is needed is a “battlefield commission”, so that someone with vision and principle can take charge, rise up as the “champion” and move us forward.

Canada used to quietly hide behind the policies of the previous U.S. administration, but now that the U.S. has begun changing course, the Canadian Harper government is going solo and protecting its resource-based economic interests rather than balancing them with a clear vision of the problems that we leave for our children to cope with down the road.

Unfortunately, elections can change governments, but what does it take to change the electorate, the heart of the nation? I am not sure. Perhaps we are doomed to live out our mistakes.

Or, maybe the tide will turn when things get really bad. Of course, the later that happens, the more difficult the road will be. But how often in human history have clear-headed leaders seen threats and dealt with them surgically to avoid certain crisis and calamity? We seem to like the harder road. As we often tell our children, “you always seem to learn things the hard way.”