Any politician who has studied the subject of climate change can't help but be imbued by a sense of purpose and challenge.

The likelihood of some form of "themageddon" by 2030, as the late environmental activist Bob Hunter put it, has moved from early environmental warning to mainstream scientific finding, as the man-made release of carbon dioxide and related gases warms the planet too high and too rapidly, triggering disasters for potentially millions of people.

Canada is in a special league with the United States and Australia as world-ranking heavyweight contributors to global warming, with huge per capita carbon emissions.

While the public opinion polls show a healthy concern, there is no guarantee yet there will be the farseeing and far-reaching policies required for change to offset the risk. Rather, an equal possibility could be superficial responses and delay, the easier path when so many of our fundamental assumptions have to be altered and the benefits are so far in the future.

The assumption that the environment has been mankind's to exploit has been long held, and perhaps no more so than here in Canada – a country built on the disproportionate richness of natural abundance. I grew up in a frontier logging town in northern Manitoba with the sense of Canada's infinite potential tied to supposedly infinite resources. The idea that we are subject to some other kind of constraint than the immediate advancement of human needs is still one we do not encounter in our everyday existence or public policy.

I had the opportunity last spring to view the surreal vistas of thousands of acres of pink and orange-hued trees devastated by the pine-beetle in British Columbia. The pest is proliferating in the absence of freezing temperatures required to contain their spread. Once you've seen this you know we have already turned some kind of corner.   

The fundamental moral imperative is now clear. Our relationship with the environment is about our relationship with our children and our grandchildren. As Robert Kennedy Jr. says about pollution, every time we despoil the air, the water or the land we are simply taking away from their future use by following generations.  Climate change ups the ante by giving us a deadline.

Can Canadians take this to heart? Can politicians? As we come back this summer from our docks and beaches and travels, we may be in the best state of mind to push ourselves – to begin a transition to being the best stewards of nature on the planet, rather than simply the biggest users of nature on the planet.   

The ebb and tide of altruistic environmental concern that has characterized recent decades is broken by climate change. It is no longer a seesaw of government enforcement and regulatory efforts that fade in the face of economic or social justice imperatives. It is now in everyone's interest, from Bay Street to Main Street, that we adjust how our society and industry operate to reduce our long-term dependence on carbon-based fuels. We can only maintain and pass on the benefits of the society we know today if we find the fortitude to refashion it, and we start tomorrow.   

From my view, this realization comes at a fortunate time when our economic and social policies need some shaking up anyway. Canada has been seized by complacency when it comes to our competitiveness and our social advancement. An uneasy status quo has settled over a country that has always needed to be driven forward to be a country in the first place. In the relative comfort so many of us enjoy, we have failed to notice that we are only living off of the initiative and often the sacrifices of past generations.  

It makes sense that, as the generation yet to be tasked, we take this on – that we take responsibility for a new, sustainable relationship with the environment and use it as the catalyst for social and economic changes that are also required for Canada to thrive in this century. Canada needs new champions in industries such as hydrogen fuel cells, bio-fuel, renewable energy sources and leadership in technologies such as carbon sequestration.  Canada also needs to revamp and expand housing stock and the requirement for energy effective or even "passive" housing gives new impetus to seeing all Canadians properly housed.  

In the case of today's environmental challenge politicians have to do more than jump in front of an existing parade. There is an essential, if risky, role for politicians to create the robust consensus for change that involves all citizens, groups and businesses fairly and to manage the economic and social risks intelligently. When it is all done, not only will Canada have a new environmental ethic, but the public might have respect for its politicians once again.

(Kennedy is the former Ontario Minister of Education. He is running for the Liberals in the next federal election.)