Climate Deniers Get Top Science Posts

Byoliveridley

Seriously, I’ve had enough of Bush North up here in Canada, he has to go and luckily, he’s only running a minority government, so it’s not 4 more years…

globeandmail.com: Global warming critics appointed to science boards

Top Canadian scientists are accusing the Harper government of politicizing science funding and jeopardizing climate research by naming global warming critics to key boards that fund science.

The government’s actions are “dreadful,” said Garry Clarke, a leading international glaciologist at the University of British Columbia, and undercut public pledges to tackle climate change.

“Their mouths are doing one thing and their hands are doing something different,” Prof. Clarke said.

Already alarmed over funding cuts to basic research, scientists say two appointments in particular are worrisome. Mark Mullins, the executive director of the conservative-leaning Fraser Institute – and a former adviser to the Canadian Alliance Party – was recently appointed to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), which funds university research projects that have included studies on climate change.

Desmogblog has more, including choice quotes from the economists and oil geologists that run this country’s science.

Mullins: “It strikes me that the science is not settled,” he said in a 2007
interview posted at BCbusinessonline. “‘Put caps on global emitters’ is
not the natural conclusion I would come to.”

Weissenberger: “To those who doubt the scientific basis of global warming theory, we
say: Don’t let a cabal of government-funded scientists, environmental
activists and journalists convince us they’re the mainstream.” — April
28, 2006″

These are the people who will be deciding who gets science money in Canada.

This has probably been the most unscientific administrations in Canada’s recent history.

I think it is time to throw the bums out, it’s time for another election!

Similar Posts

  • Rapture watch – Extremely weird weather edition

    Byoliveridley

    Via the grist blog. Apparently, there has never been a cyclone in recent memory in this area.

    What if Hurricane Katrina had hit the Persian Gulf coast? | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

    Well, we might find out, according to an exclusive from The Oil Drum and Chuck Watson of KAC/UCF, also using a weather blog, where Margie Kieper writes:

    An unusual event is happening over the next 48 hours, as the first tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds, and major hurricane-force winds at that, is approaching the Gulf of Oman, to strike the eastern coast of Oman, curve northward, and make landfall on the coast of Iran. In the tropical cyclone best tracks and the modern era of weather satellites, there is no record of such an occurrence.
    As the Oil Drum writer comments:

    Why might [Cyclone] Gonu matter? Well, that answer begins with the fact that the world production of petroleum plateauing around 85 mbbl/day, any slight blip in supply or exporting could be quite noticeable on the world markets. A sizable portion of the world’s petroleum exports go through the Gulf of Oman.
    Hmm … could global warming have something to do with it? Will global warming lead to higher oil prices and scarcer gasoline?

    Statutory Disclaimer: I do not actually believe in the concept of the rapture!

  • Lobbyist, Fed Lawyer Share Vacation Home

    Byoliveridley

    Plutocrat, meet protectionist!
    Lobbyist, Fed Lawyer Share Vacation Home | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

    Nine months before agreeing to let ConocoPhillips delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup, the government’s top environmental prosecutor bought a $1 million vacation home with the company’s top lobbyist.

    Also in on the Kiawah Island, S.C., house deal was former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official targeted for criminal prosecution in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.

    Just before resigning last month, Assistant Attorney General Sue Ellen Wooldridge signed two proposed consent decrees with ConocoPhillips: one giving the company as much as two to three more years to install $525 million in pollution controls at nine refineries and the other dealing with a Superfund toxic waste cleanup.

    I am slowly coming to the realization that the words democracy and accountability have no meaning whatsoever in the good ol’ US of A. Remember this the next time you hear a lecture from your usual American diplomat/administration lackey about democracy and corruption in other countries.

  • Energy efficiency, electricity, power plants

    Byoliveridley

    Suppose I paid you for every pound of pollution you generated and punished you for every pound you reduced. You would probably spend most of your time trying to figure out how to generate more pollution. And suppose that if you generated enough pollution, I had to pay you to build a new plant, no matter what the cost, and no matter how much cheaper it might be to not pollute in the first place.

    Well, that’s pretty much how we have run the U.S. electric grid for nearly a century. The more electricity a utility sells, the more money it makes. If it’s able to boost electricity demand enough, the utility is allowed to build a new power plant with a guaranteed profit. The only way a typical utility can lose money is if demand drops. So the last thing most utilities want to do is seriously push strategies that save energy, strategies that do not pollute in the first place.

    Energy efficiency, electricity, power plants | Salon News

    There are some things you wish you could have written, and the first paragraph is one of those. Romm nails it. Clearly, the most efficient MW of electricity is the one that was never used. But unless utilities are paid to conserve, not paid to produce, they will always build, build build.

    Excellent summary of arguments he makes all the time over at the gristmill. Now to find out what BC does. Canada is one of the worst in terms of energy use per capita. Some of it can be linked to the cold climate, but Germany is plenty cold too, and uses a third less per person.

    This article compares BC and California and finds BCHydro lacking in its incentives to save. The key is “decoupling”

    Significantly, California adopted regulations so that utility company profits are not tied to how much electricity they sell. This is called “decoupling.”

    BC’s per capita energy consumption is 0.26, well below the Canadian average and on the decline as Canada as a whole is getting worse. But more can be done.

    The key value judgment to be made here is that reducing energy use benefits all of us. The system should be set up in such a way that it benefits the utility as well. This way, they’re on the same side.

    Also, while a carbon tax is all well and good, it is not sufficient. Energy efficiency requires investment up front and people would rather pay 50 bucks a year in carbon tax than pay 300 bucks up front to insulate their homes better and save a 100 bucks a year in energy costs. Rebates only work if you have money up front. Giving people a $100 check is nice, but only if they spend it on improving energy efficiency. But, it’sjust money and we all know that money gets spent (beer, beer beer!) Subsidies work better as they reduce the cost of things. I would rather buy 10 compact fluorescent lamps for a buck each with the government chipping in the extra 10 bucks than get it back at the end of the year as a rebate, or pay 20c extra per incandescent lamp as a carbon tax.

    All rambling aside, a really good article on the value of energy efficiency.

  • Sethusamudram – A typical Indian development project

    Byoliveridley

    The Sethusamudram (bridge sea – for the transliterators) project has the classic development plot lines that I’ve seen play out many times in India. Here’s a rationale from the official site…

    Currently the ships coming from the west coast of India and other western countries with destination in the east coast of India and also in Bangladesh, China etc have to navigate around Srilankan coast. The existing water way is shallow and not sufficient for the movement of ships. This is due to the presence of a shallow region known as Adam’s bridge, located southeast of Rameswaram near Pamban, which connects the Talimannar Coast of Srilanka

    What? They are going to destroy the bridge that rama and the vanaras built? Look at that picture, (thanks Manitham), can’t you see all the “Vanaras” (this has always struck me as racist – folks showing up from the North and calling the darker skinned Southerners Monkeys! But that is a different rant) running across the very clearly delineated land bridge – It’s fascinating, almost makes me believe that the Ramayana happened as narrated!

    Manitham has a good rundown of the project from an activist standpoint.

    A few points

    • The secrecy and lack of transparency are classic government techniques to control the flow of information and discourse. Every government does it, and the Indian government is no exception.
    • Environmental Impact Assessments are bought and paid for by the funding agency, and are hence essentially unreliable and untrustworthy. I had first hand experience of this when I was a student at IIT Bombay 10 years back.
    • There is a lot of politics involved, the port of Tuthukudi (Tuticorin as the damn Brits say) in Tamil Nadu is a clear winner and Colombo in SriLanka stands to lose revenue. There is also a great deal of Tamil Pride involved
    • Read this excellent article from the climate.lk clearinghouse of articles : There is a security dimension here for India that may have been the actual motivation.
    • The area, due to its sheltering and shallow waters, has a lot of marine life. From a 2004 Deccan Herald Article

    The series of meetings called by the Tuticorin Port Trust chairman in the coastal districts have turned out to be stormy with representatives of political parties shouting down objections from fishermen, who fear the loss of livelihood, and environmentalists who say the project threatens to destroy the Gulf of Mannar Marine Reserve. This reserve is one of India’s most biologically diverse coastal regions.
    Over 3,600 species of plants and animals are found here. It is the first marine biosphere reserve in the South and South-East Asia and is believed to have the highest concentration of seagrass species along India’s coast. It is also among the largest remaining feeding grounds for the globally endangered species dugong. Five different species of endangered marine turtles, innumerable fish, molluscs and crustaceans are also found here. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), the largest NGO working in the field of bio-diversity and environmental conservation, has said the rapid Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report prepared by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) is insufficient and a detailed study should be conducted in all seasons for at least a year.

    • The EIA actually says that since the seaway is 20 km away from the reserve, there will be no effect on the reserve, um, that seems highly unlikely to me…
    • The other major dimension is the usual utter lack of care for the people displaced. previous instances like the Sardar Sarovar project indicate that there will be no fair compensation for the displaced people, or for lost livelihood, which I guess is perfectly fine because it serves the greater good of the country?

    Most of these big projects have resulted in overstated gains, understated losses, and huge wastes of taxpayer money. I don’t trust this to be any different. The facts look fudged, the project seems unnecessary (where’s my tamil pride?) and the effect on the wildlife and the crazy complex current system around Sri Lanka may change significantly leading to unforseen micro climate effects.

    Two thumbs down…

  • | |

    Chemical Warfare

    Byoliveridley

    This story from a local Chicago TV station does an excellent job of documenting the chemical weapons dropped on Vietnam by the United States in the 1960s, the effects they still have on Vietnam, and the Americans who handled these so called “defoliants”.

    cbs2chicago.com – Agent Orange: A View From Vietnam

    During the eight years of the Vietnam War that the U.S. Military dusted the Vietnamese landscape with Agent Orange, it was only intended to kill vegetation. It was a combination of two herbicides 2,4D and 2,4,5T mixed together into the most potent plant killer ever made. It was spread over 3 1/2 million acres of forests and crops to kill the trees and vegetation so the United States troops could see the enemy. The Armed Forces were told it was harmless. But in March 1978, Bill Kurtis broke the story on CBS 2 that American veterans of Vietnam who had been exposed to Agent Orange were complaining of illnesses, birth defects among their children, skin rashes, cancer, nervous problems and respiratory problems.

    orange3_small.jpgPeople tend to blame dioxins for all the health effects. But 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, constituents of Agent Orange, are no spring chickens. Exposure during spraying, especially of the grossly excessive amounts that rained down upon Vietnam, can cause various health effects as well, not to mention long-term devastation of entire ecosystems.

    Side note: New Zealand, in 2004, apologized to New Zealand’s “veterans” for their exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Not a word to the Vietnamese, of course.

    Side note 2: A US Federal court, in 2005, dismissed the first claims brought by Vietnamese plaintiffs against Dow Chemicals and Monsanto, here was the government’s  reasoning:

    In a brief filed in January, it said opening the courts to cases brought by former enemies would be a dangerous threat to presidential powers to wage war.

    Translation: We reserve the right to drop chemical weapons on our “enemies”, and doing anything to abrogate this right is “dangerous”.

    Image courtesy of Reuters shows a Vietnamese child, one of many with birth defects associated with Agent Orange exposure.

  • The Waxman cometh for Alberta Oil Sands

    Byoliveridley

    Representative Henry A. Waxman of California ousted Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan from his post as chairman of the influential Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday, giving President-elect Barack Obama an advantage in his plans to promote efforts to combat global warming.

    via Longtime Head of House Energy Panel Is Ousted – NYTimes.com

    Why is this big news for Canada? Because Waxman would like to ensure that the US not allow any alternative fuel that has a bigger CO2 lifecycle impact than the conventional fuel it replaces to be used by the US government, as enshrined in US law.

    I don’t foresee a bright future for this dirty Oil Sands, with oil now dipping below $50 a barrel, and money short, even the economics (without any carbon pricing) do not make sense. We are probably 4-5 years away from commercial plugin hybrids. In the medium term, gasoline consumption is going to decline, and there’s nowhere we can sell this oil to if the US drops out as a buyer.