The Harper Attack On The Environment - Part Two

Continuing the series I started the other day, here is another excerpt from Science Under Attack, a chapter in Elizabeth May's memoir Who We Are.

Much of that chapter is devoted to the science of climate change, a science that, although constantly under attack by the ignorant and the well-funded climate-change denial industry, is essentially irrefutable. The foundation of its credibility, of course, is research. It is that research that the Harper regime has been systematically hobbling since it came to office:

March 2012 marked the end of all funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (now the Canadian Climate Forum). The funds put in place in 2000, $110 million over ten years for autonomous research funding in Canada's major universities, had been spend expanding our understanding of the climate crisis in its multi-faceted disciplines of inquiry.

As reported in The Star at the time of its closure,

the Harper government promised a new program to replace the foundation. It committed itself to delivering $35 million to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada over five years...

But, for reasons that were never explained, that funding never materialized. The result?

The ensuing funding gap has caused many university-based climate and atmospheric science activities to collapse. With scientists already reeling from draconian cuts to Environment Canada, widespread layoff notices have resulted in a brain drain the like of which has not been seen for a generation. Rather than “attracting world-leading talent,” Canada is quickly divesting itself of its best and brightest.

Stay tuned for the next installment on the Harper wrecking crew.