skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Canada's scientific and environmental leadership: are they gone now?
Canada's
scientific and environmental leadership: are they gone now? do you
think there has been enough rigorous public debate about these policies?
read and decide for yourself: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328585.900-how-canadas-green-credentials-fell-apart.html ... "Canada once enjoyed a deserved reputation for scientific and environmental leadership, but those days are now long gone.
MOST people around the world, if they think of Canada at all, think of
it as the national equivalent of the nice boy they'd like their daughter
to marry. A bit boring, perhaps, but unfailingly polite, and someone
you can always count on to do the right thing. That is a stereotype, of
course, but like most stereotypes there is some truth to it, as those of
us who live here recognise.
Lately, though, that nice boy has
turned into a bit of a bully. Last year, the Conservative Party of
Canada, led by Stephen Harper, won a parliamentary majority after being
in a minority government for five years. It has since staked out an
aggressively right-wing position on many issues, notably science and the
environment.
The Harper government has abandoned Canada's climate
commitments, cut back on science spending and muzzled government
scientists who might stray from the official line. Hardly the cuddly
Canada the world thought it knew." ..."Canada's anti-science policies
reach beyond the environment. Last year, the government did away with
its compulsory long-form census, which was sent to about 20 per cent of
households. By making this census voluntary instead of mandatory, the
government effectively destroyed its value as an unbiased baseline of
information on Canadian society and the economy.
Of course, the
government has an electoral mandate and is entitled to enact its
programme. But it should also welcome robust debate about its policies,
and the reality is that the government is stifling that debate by
restricting its scientists' ability to speak frankly about their work.
Environment Canada's media protocol, introduced in 2008, requires
scientists to get official approval before talking to the press - a
demand that often delays an interview well beyond journalists' deadlines
and results in the public never hearing from the scientist at all. It
also can lead to the scientist being forced to parrot the official line
on an issue. The protocol states: "Media relations will work with staff
on how best to deal with the call. This should include asking the
programme expert to respond with approved lines." Other departments,
such as Fisheries and Oceans Canada, have similar policies.
The
result is that Canadians - and the rest of the world - have been denied
the chance to hear from some of the most authoritative scientific voices
on important issues ranging from the Arctic ozone hole to radiation
after the Fukushima Daiichi reactor accident in Japan, and even the
effect of aquaculture on wild salmon.
What's worse, the silence
comes just when the government's environmental policies are most in need
of vigorous public debate. The effect has been stifling. According to a
leaked Environment Canada internal document, media coverage of climate
change has fallen by 80 per cent since the policy came into force."
No comments:
Post a Comment