http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/21453-scientists-speak-out-against-canadas-war-on-science
[Multiple links in on-line article.]
Scientists Speak Out Against Canada's "War on Science"
Sunday, 26 January 2014 12:00 By Peter Rugh, Waging Nonviolence | News
Analysis
Seven of Canada’s most prized scientific libraries are being shut down
and some of their contents have already been burned, thrown away or
carted off by fossil fuel consultancy firms. This development is part of
a Harper administration plan to slash more than $160 million in the
coming years from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO — an
agency charged with protecting the country’s vast waterways.
The Harper government has portrayed the move as necessary in order to
reduce the country’s deficit and provide Canadians with greater access
to scientific information through the Internet. But alongside the cuts,
the Harper administration has doled out billions in subsidies to the
fossil fuel-dominated energy sector — $26 billion in 2011, according to
a recent International Monetary Fund report. As for accessing the
information at the shuttered libraries, an internal DFO document labeled
“secret” obtained by Postmedia News in late December, along with the
scientists who utilize the research facilities, tell a different story.
The once-secret DFO document speaks of “culling” materials in the
libraries, a term that critics believe to be far more devastating than
it sounds. Much like its original meaning — the killing of animals with
undesired genetic traits — they see the budget cuts as a way to do away
with undesirable science.
“The Harper government is not simply influenced by the fossil fuel
industry, it is the fossil fuel industry,” said Brad Hornick, a lead
organizer with of the Vancouver Ecosocialist Group.
The Harper administration has long been known for its anti-environment
stance. Harper’s environment minister, for instance, has publicly cast
doubt on research documenting Arctic sea ice melt. Observers have also
complained of a revolving door between the government and industry that
has effectively placed Canada’s natural resources at the disposal of
fossil fuel corporations supporting hydraulic fracturing, carbon-rich
tar sands extraction and pipeline projects. In the process, a host of
conservation laws and sovereignty treaties with Canada’s First Nations
population have been unwound at the behest of oil and gas lobby groups.
The Center for Global Development ranks Canada last among wealthy
nations in terms of environmental protection.
Meanwhile, 2,000 government scientists have been fired over the past
five years and hundreds of environmental programs that monitor food,
water and air quality, study and prevent oil spills, as well as track
atmospheric changes have been shut down for lack of funds.
Dr. Katie Gibbs with Evidence for Democracy, a grassroots organization
composed of scientists mobilizing against the culling, said it is only
the latest development in a “long trend.”
“Over the past few years we’ve seen huge cuts in funding for science,
layoffs for scientists who work for the government and reduced funding
for academic scientists,” Gibbs said. “Some are calling it a war on
science.”
British Columbia’s independent online news magazine The Tyee detailed
the scope of the latest assault, citing several research hubs where
scientific literature has been trashed, burned or picked apart.
According to The Tyee, they include, “[The] Maurice-Lamontagne
Institute, which housed 61,000 French language documents on Quebec’s
waterways, as well as the newly renovated $62-million library serving
the historic St. Andrews Biological Station in St. Andrews, New
Brunswick.” Also shut down, were “the famous Freshwater Institute
library in Winnipeg and one of the world’s finest ocean collections at
the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland.”
In a fitting addendum to this assault on science, the magazine noted
that Rachel Carson — a founder of the modern environmental movement —
corresponded with researchers at St. Andrews while writing her
pioneering book on environmental contamination, Silent Spring, half a
century ago.
According to Gibbs, whose group is circulating a petition against the
cuts, “There’s no way this information was digitized. Many scientists
have spoken out and said that everything is being done in a huge rush,
completely disorganized. Private companies came and picked up truck
loads of this material. They saw the value in it.”
The gas and dam powered-utility, Manitoba Hydro, plus North/South
Consultants — a firm that counts oil and gas corporations among its
clients in the heavily-fracked Manitoba province — obtained troves of
research documents pertaining to water treatment and aquatic habitats
from Winnipeg’s Freshwater Institute. Scientists have also reported
witnessing the incineration of literature at DFO libraries and one
researcher at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute in Mont Joli, Quebec
posted a photo online of a dumpster full of discarded books and
journals. Although, scientists have done their best to salvage the
research, more federal libraries are slated for culling.
Like the indigenous-led Idle No More movement and the climate activists
who raised a sign that read “climate justice” over the prime minister’s
head at a Vancouver Board of Trade meeting earlier this month,
scientists are increasingly standing up to Harper, though doing so comes
with great risk to their careers.
Last fall, Evidence for Democracy staged “Stand Up for Science” rallies
in 17 Canadian cities against legal restrictions to their ability to
share research and communicate with the public — one of the first steps
in the so-called war on science taken by the Harper administration upon
its ascent to power in 2006.
“The restrictions play into the library closures,” said Gibbs. “When
scientists have spoken out they’ve had to do so anonymously because they
fear for their jobs.”
According to critics of the Harper administration, such attacks on
science are part of the prime minister’s small government, big business
ideology, which assigns a negative value to any science that adversely
impacts the production of fossil fuels.
“If you are going to be in favor of fossil fuel expansion, and tar sands
in particular, and you are going to try to sell that to the Canadian
public — part of doing that means dulling the awareness and importance
of science,” said Rodger Annis, a Vancouver-based environmental activist
and writer. “Science tells us in stark terms that if we want to prevent
the very serious consequences of climate change then we have to leave
the tar sands in the ground.”
While the Harper administration may be able to dull, or even subvert the
science behind such a message, it’s the scientists who are proving
difficult to silence. And perhaps that’s just what’s needed. After all,
science is only as strong as the scientists behind it.
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