Angus Reid has conducted a new poll asking Canadians who they believe when it comes to the economic impact of global warming - Conservative Environment Minister John Baird or former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern.

Baird has recently been touring Canada scaring voters with doom and gloom predictions for the Canadian economy should we meet our Kyoto commitments (I thought environmentalists were supposed to be the doom sayers). His recently unveiled climate change plan has also been heavily criticized by David Suzuki and Al Gore.

By comparison, Sir Nicholas Stern wrote what is widely held as the world's most authoritative assessment of the economic impact of climate change, and places the cost of NOT stopping global warming at $7 trillion or 20% of the world's economy. Oh yeah, Stern also happens to be a knight.

The Angus Reid poll sums up the opinions of Canadians in two questions:

As you may know, environment minister John Baird released a report which claims that committing to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would drive Canada into a deep economic recession, lead to job losses, and increase gas prices. Do you agree or disagree with Baird’s assessment?

Agree	32%
Disagree	55%
Not sure	14%

Last year, a report written by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern warned that global warming could end up shrinking the world’s economy by up to 20 per cent, which would make it a more costly crisis than either of the 20th century’s world wars. Do you agree or disagree with Stern’s assessment?

Agree	55%
Disagree	31%
Not sure	15%

The margin of error for the total sample is + or -3.1%, 19 times out of 20.

In layman's terms this means that the number of Canadians who believe John Baird is about exactly the same as the number that plan on voting Conservative. Funny, that.

The margin of error for my opinions is a hell of a lot better than John Bairds, + or - 3.1%.