It must be galling for Canadian celebrities to be bombarded with images of their world-famous and very wealthy American colleagues -- Woody Harrelson, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, to name a few -- denouncing U.S. foreign policy, picketing power plants or swaddling themselves in hemp for the greater good. Hollywood activists have the whole American empire to rail against. Here, by contrast, there's only Ralph Klein.

Perhaps that explains why a small flotilla of prominent Canadian artists, including writers Pierre Berton, Michael Ondaatje and Farley Mowat, as well as musicians from the Tragically Hip and Barenaked Ladies, lent their names this week to the Sierra Club of Canada's petition urging quick ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which Mr. Klein, the Alberta Premier, has sworn to scuttle.

It couldn't be, after all, that these luminaries have studied the text of the 1997 protocol itself, or the 1992 Convention on Climate Change that preceded it or the many independent analyses of climate change done since.

If they had, they'd surely know the protocol was deliberately skewed by the Europeans and developing nations in their favour; that Kyoto won't reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to affect the global climate, either in Canada or anywhere else; that Canada will bear greater economic costs per capita than any other OECD country; and that a credible minority of climate scientists continue to question whether human activity is actually changing the climate at all.

They'd also know, presumably, that Mr. Klein has a very potent political problem on his hands, which is that major Canadian corporations, such as Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and Husky Energy Inc., are delaying billion-dollar projects in Alberta's oil sands, because of uncertainty about Kyoto's costs and consequences.

Upon further study, our artists might then realize that Mr. Klein hasn't actually opposed cutting greenhouse emissions at all, but rather Ottawa's lack of an implementation plan. And they'd know that Alberta has a detailed greenhouse gas reduction strategy of its own, as do most of the major industrial players in the oil patch, that sensibly views reductions as a percentage of total gross domestic product, rather than on an absolute basis. Knowing those things, the Sierra signatories -- independent thinkers all, who'd never flinch from questioning any orthodoxy -- would accept that there are two legitimate sides to the Kyoto debate.

Instead, Mr. Berton et al made common cause with fellow Sierra campaigner and Greenpeace co-founder Bob Hunter, who at a press conference Monday branded Mr. Klein and Ontario Premier Ernie Eves -- who also opposes Kyoto -- "ecological criminals."

This tells us two things: First, the Kyoto debate has morphed far beyond mere economics, or indeed the future of the planet. It's become an emotional lodestone, a yardstick by which thinking Canadians measure their place on the political spectrum. Second, it's therefore likely that many of those who now support ratification -- and nearly 80 per cent of Canadians do, according to two of three recent polls -- do so out of an instinctive sense that we must act to preserve the planet, whatever the cost. It's difficult to argue with gut feelings.

But to suggest that anyone who opposes the Kyoto Protocol is de facto an enemy of the Earth is simply idiotic. It's also intellectually dishonest. It ignores many nagging facts -- such as, for example, that neither of the two main greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane) causes smog. Rather, the main links between climate change and smog are temperature -- heat -- and auto pollution. But Ottawa's Kyoto plan, as now conceived, will have only a minimal impact on auto use. Industry is to bear the brunt of emission targets -- up to 40 per cent, compared with only 8 per cent for consumers. And the consumer portion is probably overstated, because it is to be voluntary.

At the same time, if greenhouse gases really are making the Earth hotter, U.S., Russian, Chinese, Indian, Brazilian and Mexican emissions -- none of which are limited by Kyoto -- will ensure the warming continues apace. Taken together, that means smog will be virtually unaffected. Riding a bike at rush hour in Toronto, for example, won't get any easier. Is that the kind of environmental rescue plan we want?

These matters should be debated, openly and fully, not minimized and rushed along, as Ottawa is trying to do. That's why Mr. Klein is right, and his opponents, earnest though they may be, are wrong.
mdentandt@globeandmail.ca