The war for the woods.

• Author: Robinson, Dave
• Position: ECONOMICALLY SPEAKING - Viewpoint essay

Have you ever heard of Schrodinger's cat? It was the original high-tech zombie--alive and dead at the same time. Northern development is lot like Schrodinger' cat.

Schrodinger invented this story to show how strange quantum mechanics can be. He imagined a cat locked in a steel box with a vial of poison, a Geiger counter, and a tiny bit of some radioactive substance. If even one atom of the radioactive substance decays, the Geiger counter spills the poison, and the cat is dead. If no atom decays, the cat is alive. According to the quantum theory, the right way to describe the situation is to say the cat is both alive and dead until you open the box.

Business people in Northern Ontario are a like a whole litter of Schrodinger's cats. They can't plan because they don't know what government policy will be. If you can't plan, you may already be dead. But you can't be sure.

Government decisions have to come first in climate change policy, for example. If you believe Harper will resist carbon taxes and carbon quotas for the next 10 years, you won't invest in a green building. If you think he will suddenly accept what the vast majority of economists and scientists are saying, you should invest in a green building. Harpers' head is like the steel box in this case, and his climate policy is like Schrodinger's cat.

Or take the car industry. Does anyone really doubt it can't produce hydrogen and electric motors for cars? Workable designs have been around for years; they just can't compete with gasoline motors when petroleum is subsidized. If Ontario commits to a transportation changeover, the auto industry could meet the target in a few years. But the auto industry will not commit to zero carbon until the government commits.

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Increasing hydrogen and electric vehicle production means ramping up hydrogen and electric production. That means committing to nuclear power. It also will require a carbon tax to level the playing field. These are actions only government can undertake. Not a single Ontario politician has the guts to say this.

Government has to commit before other players can make plans. It isn't enough to promise dramatic changes in the distant future. To be credible, a policy has to be backed by irreversible commitments. Until they are, no car company will start to convert to...