We must allow scientists to be free to talk about science

There is an article by Canwest News reporter, Mike De Souza today about a newly released document from the Canadian federal government (Environment Canada)

A dramatic reduction in Canadian media coverage of climate change science issues is the result of the Harper government introducing new rules in 2007 to control interviews by Environment Canada scientists with journalists,

Scientists have noticed a major reduction in the number of requests, particularly from high profile media, who often have same-day deadlines," said the Environment Canada document. "Media coverage of climate change science, our most high-profile issue, has been reduced by over 80 per cent."

The Harper government's new policy has required senior scientists to get permission before communicating to the press. Because the press is usually working under short term deadlines, this policy practically cuts off a source of information for them. The result - less media coverage of issues like climate change, and less political pressure for action.

This is unacceptable. Scientists must be free to talk about science. The government could put restrictions on what its employees say about policy, but it should not be controlling the flow of information about what is going on in the natural world.

Maybe the politicians on the Conservative side of the House don't understand this principle. Are there any scientists sitting over there at all?

GST on poppies

I was doing the recycling when I noticed a newspaper editorial (that appeared back in November throughout the Sun Newspaper chain) by Kalvin Reid entitled, Tax on Poppies is Pure Poppycock.

Welland NDP MP Malcolm Allen introduced a private member's bill to eliminate GST on poppies and the conservative newspaper chain's columnist urged readers to lobby their MPs to support this bill.

This is all very strange to me.

We wear poppies to honour and remember those who sacrificed for Canada, and yet we are so unhappy to pay taxes to support our country, that we are willing to go to considerable expense to introduce legislation and then create an exemption for poppies?!

I say that I'm happy to wear a poppy and find it particularly appropriate to pay a tax on poppies to fund my government. I'll put in a little extra into the Royal Canadian Legion's box next time.

Can taxes be too high? Sure, but the problem is in how efficiently or effectively they are spent, not in the fact that we pay them in the first place.

And most ironic of all? That an NDP member of parliament would be the one to introduce such a bill. NDP?! Hey, NDP, it's like when folks complain about how union dues are too high! You of all political parties should know that if people do complain about high union dues, they need to be reminded about the struggles and sacrifices so many people have made in the past just so that they could have unions.

Sociology of climate denialism

I've been struggling to understand this, and a letter to the editor of the Kingston Whig Standard today is worth noting.

Local climate denier, G.F. Millar writes:

Re: Gwynne Dyer's "History will repeat itself," Nov. 2.

So the bad news is coming fast, according to the intrepid Mr. Dyer. Last year the "bad news" was: CO2 had reached the tipping point at 350 ppm, (head for the hills!). This year it seems we can live with 450 ppm. Can't wait for 2010.

In 1975, the NAS "experts" exhibited the same hysterical fears -- this time, however, asserting a "finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling would befall the Earth within the next 100 years."

In The Cooling: Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun? Can We Survive It?, published in 1975 by Prentice-Hall, its author, Lowell Ponte, captured the then prevailing mood: "The NAS report was shocking, for it represented a warning from some of the world's most conservative scientists that an Ice Age, beginning in the near future ... was not impossible." Contending that we may be on the brink of a (100,000 year) period of colder climate, the NAS urged an immediate near quadrupling of funds for research. "We simply cannot afford to be unprepared for either a natural or man-made climate catastrophe."

Mr. Ponte lectured the public: "Global cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for 110,000 years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance: the survival of ourselves, our children, our species."

Any of this sound familiar?

This is basically a cut and paste job (with some little changes for exaggeration) a May 1998 (!) letter to the editor of right-wing newspaper, the Washington Times, by noted climate change denier, S. Fred Singer.

He writes:

But this exaggerated concern about global warming contrasts sharply with an earlier NAS/NRC report, "Understanding Climate Change: A Program for Action." There, in 1975, the NAS "experts" exhibited the same hysterical fears—-this time, however, asserting a "finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the Earth within the next 100 years."

The 1975 NAS panel claimed to have good reason for their fears: Global temperatures had been in steady decline since the 1940s. They considered the preceding period of warming, between 1860 and 1940, as "unusual," following as it did the "Little Ice Age," which had lasted from 1430 to 1850.

In "The Cooling: Has the next ice age already begun? Can we survive it?", published in 1975 by Prentice--Hall, its author Lowell Ponte captures the then prevailing mood: "The NAS report was shocking, for it represented a warning from some of the world's most conservative scientists that an Ice Age beginning in the near future . . . was not impossible." Contending that we may be "on the brink of a [10,000 year] period of colder climate," the NAS urged an immediate near-quadrupling of funds for research. "We simply cannot afford to be unprepared for either a natural or man-made climatic catastrophe [of global cooling]."

At about the: same time, as Mr. Ponte relates, a group of "leading climatologists," meeting in Bonn, Germany, warned that "the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near-certainty to major crop failures within a decade [because of global cooling]. If national and international policies do not take these near-certain failures into account, they win result in mass deaths by starvation and probably in anarchy and violence that could exact a still more terrible toll . . . ."

By 1975, the climate had indeed been cooling for about 35 years and many scientists were becoming increasingly convinced that another Ice Age was imminent. These experts included climatologist Stephen H. Schneider, who later demonstrated his intellectual flexibility by becoming one of the strongest proponents of global warming. Lester R. Brown, head of the Worldwatch Institute, was then a major enthusiast for cooling, crop failures and famine. Whether freeze or fry, he is still predicting global famine.

Mr. Ponte's book claims that "since 1970, half a million human beings in Northern Africa and Asia have starved because of floods and droughts caused by the cooling climate. . . .In the continental United States severe floods have destroyed billions of dollars' worth of property in the Mississippi Basin, the Great Lakes region, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. . . . Parts of the nation were hit with what the National Weather Service called 'record cold.'. . . Rain and floods described as 'the worst in a century' struck large areas of Washington state."

In Europe, the 1960s were years of unusual cold, but the "odd warmth" of the 1970s was also considered a feature of global cooling. Warned British climatologist Hubert H. Lamb, "Like chills and fever, these are an signs of a planet catching climatic cold."

Mr. Ponte lectures the public: "Global cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for 10,000 years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance: the survival of ourselves, our children, our species."

Any of this sound familiar?

I've marked the places where they diverge with a different colour. Mr. Millar, it appears, wasn't satisfied with the misinformation of Fred Singer. He had to make up some more with his little changes. His changing "could" to "would" and round brackets to square brackets are pretty significant changes.

I wonder how much of global warming denialism is really just copying and pasting of old S. Fred Singer stuff that has been thoroughly debunked.

As for the question of global cooling "hysteria", it is well documented that
in the 1970's only the popular press was pushing the notion of an imminent
ice age. Climate scientists were not. The 1975 National Academy of Sciences
report, that Millar refers to, simply says that scientists of the time did not
think they had a good quantitative understanding of the earth's climate.
They could not predict how the climate would change in the future and
therefore they had to admit a finite (a technical term used by scientists to
mean non-infinitesimal, that is, non-zero) probability of global cooling -
and lots of other possibilities.

Nowadays we do have climate models and immensely better historical climate
data to check them against. These models all show that, unless some serious
changes take place, we are headed for a hotter earth.

Must see video on ocean acidification

This video has wonderful production values (I had never seen a school of rays before) and introduces the issue of ocean acidification.

M. Coderre is not really the problem

I believe that there is a deeper cause for the unrest in the federal Liberal party leading up to Denis Coderre's unfortunate resignation as Quebec Lieutenant and ill-considered words. The deeper cause is an insufficient focus on vision, principles and policies, and too much focus on people, political tactics, and the shortcomings of other parties.

Why do for-profit corporations invest resources to craft mission and vision statements? Couldn't they save some money by skipping that exercise? Couldn't "Let's maximize profits" be good enough?

It's not good enough. The corporation that does not have a mission and vision is more likely to fail, even at making a profit. There are always difficult decisions to be made when running a business. For example, there are compromises between quality and price. Or, managers must decide between investing in the research division or investing in sales and advertising. In such cases different stakeholders have competing interests and you need unifying ideas and a road map to help get everybody to pull in the same direction and build a winning team.

Back to the federal Liberal party. I believe that it's all too easy to focus on personalities and power structures inside the organization and external threats from other parties (and the press is happy to help with these) when we're not sufficiently focused on our vision for Canada, the principles our party stands for, and our policy proposals to serve the people of Canada. We have all of these. Let's work on presenting them to the people of Canada.