We'll know that we're winning the climate change battle when the debate starts looking more like genuine public discourse and less like an AA meeting. Take the following exchange between Al Gore and outgoing Alberta premiere Ralph Klein:

Al Gore: For every barrel of oil they extract there, they have to use enough natural gas to heat a family's home for four days. And they have to tear up four tons of landscape, all for one barrel of oil.

Ralph Klein: I don't watch movies that much and I don't listen to Al Gore in particular because he's a Democrat, and not only that, he's about as far left as you can go."

AG: But you know, junkies find veins in their toes. It seems reasonable to them because they've lost sight of the rest of their lives

RK: I don't know what he (Gore) proposes the world run on. Maybe hot air.

On our 'left' we have a well reasoned, scientifically defensible, and factual characterization of climate change and the impact of tar sands development. On our 'right' we have a so called free market champion who is incapable of responding to the same issue without sounding like an addict himself.

Through a range of political arenas, from Washington to Fort MacMurray, this is a style of discourse that too often is credited as 'leadership' and too rarely called out for its arrogance and absurdity.

What should the world run on? The enormous power of our collective will and ingenuity, not on tax breaks and hand outs to the oil industry; a tax structure that favours green power and conservation, rather than a corporate welfare system that props up polluting industries; and an understanding that our fate is tied to the fate of the planet, and that no amount of oil is going to change that fact.

The world is addicted to oil, and our biggest junkies are the people who profit the most from its extraction and the governments who protect their interests above all others. Breaking the cycle will be painful and involve some hard knocks, but when the gloves come off the safe money is on the sober fighter....not the guy still holding his drink.