Is A New Purge On The Horizon?

Few of us will forget the disdain with which the Harper regime regarded science, especially the science around climate change. Virtual embargoes that prevented scientists from releasing and discussing with the public their findings were commonplace; the permission that was required from a labyrinthine bureaucracy essentially ensured that no information opposed to government ideology could be released.

It would seem that a similar situation in now shaping up in the United States under the incoming Trump administration, a situation that will also likely have students of history thinking of the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950's:



The Washington Post reports that these ominous signs are not being taken lightly:

Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.

The efforts include a “guerrilla archiving” event in Toronto, where experts will copy irreplaceable public data, meetings at the University of Pennsylvania focused on how to download as much federal data as possible in the coming weeks, and a collaboration of scientists and database experts who are compiling an online site to harbor scientific information.

How justified is this precautionary movement?

Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, argued that Trump has appointed a “band of climate conspiracy theorists” to run transition efforts at various agencies, along with nominees to lead them who share similar views.

“They have been salivating at the possibility of dismantling federal climate research programs for years. It’s not unreasonable to think they would want to take down the very data that they dispute,” Halpern said in an email. “There is a fine line between being paranoid and being prepared, and scientists are doing their best to be prepared. . . .

No one, of course, is sure of what will happen under a Trump administration. But the very fact that these measures are being enacted as a precaution is surely a potent indication of how unhealthy many perceive the new American 'democracy' to be.

UPDATE: It appears that the Energy Department has shown some spine, and is refusing to name names. But will they be able to refuse once Trump is sworn in?

A Governor General To Be Proud Of

While the traditional role of the Governor General is to play the mute on any issues that may upset some, smile engagingly at state functions and mouth sanctimonious platitudes upon demand, Julie Payette has a different take on her function. I applaud her for it.

It is difficult to understand how, in the 21st century, we are supposed to acknowledge the importance of science, yet refrain from any scientific references that may offend those who are doctrinally obstinate, adhere to junk science, or demand that religious tenets be taken literally. Truths may be unpalatable to some, but they are still truths.

For that reason I am having a hard time understanding the outrage that Julie Payette's comments in the above video have provoked.

In a CBC essay, opinion columnist Robyn Urback, while agreeing with the truths Payette uttered, finds them wholly inappropriate:

This is a column, rather, on whether the Queen's representative in Canada — someone who is supposed to be uncontroversial and apolitical in her role as steward of the functioning of the government of Canada — should be deriding people for their beliefs on issues like climate change, religion and alternative medicine.

Urback's justification for polite silence goes beyond the impartial role the Governor General has historically played:

The role of the Governor General is apolitical by design; as a representative of the Crown, she is expected to use her executive powers in the interest of Canada, and not a single party, or group or administration. The integrity of the role falls apart if the governor general is perceived to be of one camp or another.

For that reason, some will argue that the Governor General should never weigh in on topics that are even remotely political. They argue that while some people have decided that, for example, the science is settled on climate change, the very fact that debate still exists on the topic should preclude the Governor General from inserting herself in the conversation, lest she appear to be of a certain allegiance.

The fact that Payette's comments can in any way be construed as political says perhaps more than we would like to admit about the state of discourse today. Have we now descended to being influenced by the lowest denominator, the schoolboy bully or the one who threatens to inform on us to the teacher? Those afflicted with benighted thinking may be offended; but that possibility must surely not be the determinant of what is considered fit for public consumption.

A race to the bottom is an easy one to win. Coming in last takes real effort, courage and integrity.

Some Days, I Truly Despair

Mendacity, the constant litany of lies that defines Donald Trump, is one thing, but when the Incompetent-In-Chief extols people who believe that illness is demon-caused and science is experimenting with hybrid human-alien DNA, the world has entered a whole new level of crazy.

Watch this video for context, then read about the viral video that Facebook, Twitter and You Tube have deleted due to the misinformation it conveys.



For Trump, the obvious allure of this group, which is called America's Frontline Doctors (whose website has suddenly disappeared), is their promotion of the now-discredited Covid-19 treatment, hydroxychloroquine, which he has so vigorously advocated for. The Incompetent-In-Chief's ego requires constant fluffing. However, there was some heavy baggage accompanying that extollment:

The video Trump shared Monday night showed a collection of doctors speaking in favor of treating COVID-19 patients with the antimalarial drug. The clip focused on the testimony of a woman named Stella Immanuel, who received a medical license in Texas last November, according to state records. The doctor did not return a request for comment.

Immanuel says she previously worked as a doctor in Nigeria and also calls herself a "Deliverance Minister" who is "God's battle axe and weapon of war." She has given sermons attacking progressive values and promoting conspiracy theories including, in her words, "the gay agenda, secular humanism, Illuminati and the demonic new world order." Another doctor shown in the video, a noted Trump supporter, called Immanuel a "warrior."

"You don't need a mask," Immanuel claimed in the video, contradicting the widely accepted medical advice that has been promoted even by the White House coronavirus task force and Trump himself. She repeatedly called studies questioning the safety and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine "fake science."

But wait. As they say, there's more:

The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Immanuel has claimed in the past that some gynecological ailments are caused by people having sex in a dream-world with demons, with the demonic semen as the origins of the afflictions.

Immanuel has also claimed that doctors used alien DNA in medical treatments, and that lizard-like “reptilian” aliens are involved in the United States government. She thanked The Daily Beast on Tuesday for “summarizing” her work. “The Daily Beast did a great job summarizing our deliverance ministry and exposing incubus and succubus. Thank you daily beast. If you need deliverance from these spirits. Contact us,” she tweeted.

Years ago, Carl Sagan wrote The Demon-Haunted World, which in part discussed how to think skeptically and critically, explaining methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science and those that can be considered pseudoscience. A tough medicine for some, perhaps, but it would seem to be the cure for much of what ails those who lap up the twaddle dished out by the likes of Donald Trump and Stella Immanuel.

More Thoughts On Muzzled Scientists

Last week I wrote a post on David Schindler, the retired scientist who wrote about the pernicious effects of the Harper regime's muzzling of government scientists.

These letters from today's Star offer readers' thoughts on the issue:

Re: Remove the muzzle from government scientists, Opinion Sept. 20

In this incisive article Dr. David Schindler has essentially said to our governments: “J’accuse.” Is there any doubt that our federal government is actively encouraging the dumbing down of Canada by following the principle that the less the people know, the better for the government?

To paraphrase the famous two rules about moms: Rule 1. Your government is always right. Rule 2. In case your government is wrong, refer to Rule 1.

Jaggi Tandan, Hamilton

Scientists, remove your own muzzles. Find the courage to speak freely; act together. Stephen Harper can’t fire you all. He would be an international laughing stock.

Terry Watkinson, Toronto

David Schindler is correct that science is being compromised because of political and ideological opposition. Those consequences do not apply to environmental issues alone, but also to scientific facts taught in our schools in regard to evolution.

I agree with the National Centre of Science Education (Scientific American, Oct. 23), which states: “Evolution is one of the most important ideas in human intellectual history and students have the right to learn it. The common ancestry of living things and the mechanism of inheritance explain why the things are the way they are. Students and adults deprived of this knowledge are scientifically illiterate and ill prepared in a global, competitive world.”

Our world is in fatal competition among the various religions. There should be a few restrictions. Those who are intolerent creationists or those who display a specific religious garb should not teach science in our schools because of their own distorted influence on our small innocent children in Canada.

Kurt Heinze, Scarborough

The War Continues

The Harper cabal's contempt for the environment, science, transparency, and knowledge in general has become the stuff of dark legend, provoking outrage both at home and beyond our borders. That a putative democracy can be behaving in such a totalitarian manner strains credulity. And the latest salvo against science, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' closing of seven of eleven regional libraries housing a priceless accumulation of aquatic research, is being regarded as a tremendous loss by both scientists and the general public:

Peter Wells, an adjunct professor and senior research fellow at the International Ocean Institute at Dalhousie University in Halifax, has this to say:

“I see this situation as a national tragedy, done under the pretext of cost savings, which, when examined closely, will prove to be a false motive”... “A modern democratic society should value its information resources, not reduce, or worse, trash them.”

Even members of the defunct Progressive Conservative Party are speaking out. Tom Siddon, the former federal fisheries minister in Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government, had this to say:

"I call it [closing libraries] Orwellian, because some might suspect that it's driven by a notion to exterminate all unpopular scientific findings that interfere with the government's economic objectives".

Others are reportedly too afraid to speak out.

Another person piercing this veil of darkness and intimidation is The Star's Rick Salutin, whose column today addresses some of the wider implications of Harper's war against enlightenment and progress.

First he presents a poignant picture of scientists' reactions to seeing invaluable knowledge being either carted off to dumpsters or scavenged:

Scientists were practically or actually crying as they watched their beloved atlases etc. hauled away or dispatched to the shredder. The feds say it’s all been digitized but that’s evidently untrue. Postmedia unearthed a document marked secret that had no mention of digitization.

But scientists are not the only ones affected by these depredations:

For Canadians, it’s like the loss of irreplaceable family photos. This country was built on its coasts and waterways via the fishing grounds and fur trade. We are as we are — nature heavy and underpopulated — due to those patterns.

Yet, as Salutin points out, the loss is much larger:

It goes deeper though. It has to do with being human. What humans do is solve problems with intelligence, when they can, and when they fail, try to learn from that and pass it on for the next round. This gives humans their edge. ...There’s something willfully perverse in turning your back on accumulated knowledge in the name of “value for taxpayers.”

And perhaps the greatest casualty is democracy itself, something the Harper reprobates have shown such ongoing contempt for:

Democracy isn’t about everybody casting one vote. That way all you get is a sloppy aggregation of individual opinions. The whole is the sum of its parts, period. Democracy means people consult together, listen, discuss — so that some voices will weigh more than others, and everyone gets a chance to decide which those are. But that can’t happen if the most informed voices from the past and present are stifled or dropped into dumpsters.

So whether we realize it or not, the Harper war against knowledge is part of a larger battle against all of us. If that's not worth fighting, I don't know what is.

Although I featured this picture in a post yesterday, it seems appropriate to run it again:



For further reading on the Harper war against science, check out John Dupuis' piece here.

Another Disease Is Spreading

The affliction, manifesting in a steadfast refusal to wear a mask, appears to arise from a combination of idiocy, sociopathic indifference to public health, and just profound ignorance. And the fact that it is spreading in Canada (the Americans being a lost cause) pains me deeply. With our culture and history of concern for the collective, I expect better.

As discussed in an earlier post, there is almost no medical condition preventing a person from wearing a mask. That fact, however, has not stopped the proliferation of fake exemption cards that are being promoted on social media, all, of course, at the expense of public health during our current pandemic.

The cards in Canada are allegedly created by an “anti-lockdown group” that opposes mandatory mask bylaws.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is listed on the back of a card, claiming to give the holder an exemption from wearing a face mask.

“These are fake. The Commission has not and would not produce posters or cards claiming that the cardholder has an exemption from wearing a face mask in closed public places.

The card is also stamped with the Canadian Red Cross emblem, which did not approve its use.

The use of such cards brought a sharp rebuke from Ontario Premier Doug Ford:

“This isn’t the time to use fraudulent cards and to get away and be able to go into a store, don’t be a scammer. To say you can’t wear a mask and make up some fraudulent cards, it’s unacceptable. Everyone else is wearing a mask, wear a mask,” Ford said.

As well, medical opinion on the use of masks is unequivocal.

Are there any valid reasons not to wear a mask? One of the most abusive shoppers recently caught on camera was yelling about how masks make people sick. “It’s science,” he said, referring, we presume, to the “science” offered up on social media about Co2 building up in masks.

“This is nonsense,” says Dr. Ken Chapman, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. “There is no evidence whatsoever that wearing a mask will cause your carbon dioxide level to build up and certainly there’s no relationship between wearing a mask and damaging your immune system and other nonsense you read online.”

The Canadian Thoracic Society recently issued a statement similarly claiming there’s no evidence that wearing a mask will exacerbate an underlying lung condition.

Then there is Dr. Maitiu O Tuathail, a general practitioner in Dublin, Ireland, who made a video that even the most obtuse should be able to understand:



None of this, of course, will deter the true (dis)believers, those who maniacally worship at the altar of toxic egoism, junk science and bizarre conspiracy theories.

A pity, though, that Canadians aren't more resistant to such virulent, destructive ways.

And Speaking of Disappearances...

It seems like the silence over the disappearing Environment Canada committee discussed in my previous post may have had its precedent set back in 2012, when another strange silence was orchestrated over another disappearance.

Margaret Munro, in The Ottawa Citizen, reports new evidence of the Harper regime suppressing information Canadians have a right to by muzzling our federal scientists. In 2012, the amount of Arctic ice hit its lowest level ever, and Canadian Ice Service scientists wanted to tell us about it, to warn us of its implications.

[Leah] Braithwaite and her colleagues — aware of the national and international interest in the shrinking polar ice — wanted to hold a “strictly factual” technical briefing for the media to inform Canadians how the ice had disappeared from not only the Northwest Passage but many normally ice-choked parts of the Arctic.

Having to go through nine approval levels before they could impart the information doomed the effort. Newly-released documents reveal the following:

“Ministerial services” — the sixth layer — cancelled the briefing, the documents say. And the ice service scientists ended up watching as the Canadian media and public got most of their information from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC ), where scientists were quick to give interviews, hold briefings and issue press releases as the ice shattered records as it melted from Baffin Island to the Beaufort Sea.

Observers say the case is further evidence of the way the Conservative government is silencing scientists.

“It’s suppression through bureaucracy,” said Katie Gibbs, executive director of Evidence for Democracy (E4D ), an Ottawa-based non-profit pushing for open communication of government science.

“Why is it that we need nine levels of approval for this sort of thing, what’s the justification,” said biologist Scott Findlay, a co-founder of E4D and member of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at the University of Ottawa.

He said the government’s “Byzantine message control” is not only wasting time, money and resources, but having a “corrosive” effect on the public service.

Perhaps naively, Findley also suggested that

federal scientists are professionals and the government should trust them to interact with the media and release information that is in the public interest, such as conditions and changes in the Arctic ice.

The development of trust requires a degree of integrity and good mental health on the part of both parties, qualities that, sadly, we have come to discover, Mr. Harper and his minions are deeply deficient in.

The Invasion Of The Idiots

 

For a while I have been trying to cobble together a post on that virulent breed of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers that are currently blighting our social and political landscape, While attempting to write about this often-execrable horde, in all honesty I've wondered whether I have the psychic reserves to do justice to the topic. Therefore, today I am taking the easy way out by reproducing the thoughts of a number of letter-writers who manage to address it with incisiveness and conciseness.

Protesters force Trudeau to cancel rally, Aug. 28

Shame on all those who prevented our prime minister from speaking about issues facing Canada while on the campaign trail!

We need leaders who will take enact policies to protect us all.

A pandemic is a community’s problem and not an intrusion in individual liberty. 

Judy Cathcart, Collingwood, Ont.

I thought Canadians were smarter than this. What has the social media wrought when people cannot now understand the role of science in our society?

I was a government scientist for 36 years. We are the only scientists paid to look after the citizens of our country. We aren’t there to make money for industry or scramble for grants to promote our own research interests at universities.

This is the foundation of the support the government has to look after the well being of our citizens.

Science works. Canada has contributed to the arsenal that medicine has to combat disease for decades.

Vaccines work. Some statistics suggest you may be more than 100 times more likely to die from COVID-19 if you are unvaccinated.

From smallpox to ebola, vaccines have reduced the impact of infectious diseases.

And scientific knowledge has reduced the degree to which ailments have affected citizens in many areas.

These same protesters will go to their doctors to get relief from many things, all based on the results of scientific studies and analysis.

Are we stupid? It certainly looks like it.

I fear we are entering a new dark age.

Tom McElroy, Professor Emeritus, York University

 It’s time to talk about the hate facing Trudeau, Aug. 29

When you want to motivate people to hate a person or an ethnic group you use dehumanizing or universally rejected words.

In Rwanda the targeted group was referred to as cockroaches. They obviously were not.

Here, in Canada, a popular posting and a popular phrase people have used to start or end political discussions is to say Trudeau is a communist. He obviously is not.

Susan Delacourt is correct; it is time to talk about the hate facing Trudeau.

Social media is now being used to whip up emotions and get people to stage public temper tantrums.

It is not the end of the world if Trudeau, O’Toole, Singh or Paul become prime minister.

A growing minority is mimicking the fanaticism we saw play out on Jan. 6 in the U.S. insurrection.

 Canadians need to make sure we are different by not letting animosity, antagonism and lame internet lies decide our country’s future.

Russell Pangborn, Keswick, Ont.

Province to bring in vaccine passport, Aug. 28; Protesters force Trudeau to cancel rally, Aug. 28

The idea of insisting on vaccine passports is obviously a no-brainer for any organization that wishes to operate in a safe and healthy environment that is free from most if not all COVID-19 restrictions.

What must be astonishing to the vast majority of Canadians are all these decision-makers who appear to be wilfully risking the health and lives of their constituents by wilfully allowing vaccines to be an option within their sphere of influence.

Whether it’s Ontario’s Ford government, Erin O’Toole’s federal Conservatives or any of the umpteen organizations across the country who insist on “respecting” people who insist on the “right” to choose whether to serve and infect, rather than keeping those in their care safe and healthy.

The result will be more COVID-19 sickness and death within our communities, accompanied by renewed restrictions that will, once again, hurt the marginalized and small businesses the most.

What’s becoming clear is that there’s also a straight line that can be drawn from these half-baked decisions to that small, loud and wild eyed subsector of self-entitled Canadians following politicians around the country who somehow have got it into their heads that they have the right to infect anyone they please.

It’s quite clear that Canada does not offer that right to anyone and I hope it never will.

Vaccine passports are a good start, but why are there so many leaders in Canada continuing to offer nonvaccination as a choice for anyone who is eligible?

Jack Bergmans, Toronto 

For those who subscribe to the Toronto Star, there is quite good a article by Hugh Segal that draws clear distinctions between political heckling and bullying, the latter, of course, the only apparent strategy of  the anti-vax rabble.

 

When It Serves Economic Interests, Ignorance Is A National Policy

Burying their heads in rapidly disappearing sand is something of a national characteristic of Americans when it comes to climate change. However, when it is aided, abetted and promoted by monied interests, all should be concerned.

I think it is reasonably well-known that several states have banned any references to climate change or global warming in official government documents. Florida, recently pummeled by monster Hurricane Irma, was one of the first to take such measures back in 2011, when current governor Rick Scott took office. Earlier this year, the state of Idaho stripped any references to it in its revised K-12 science standards. In 2012, North Carolina banned the state from basing coastal policies on the latest scientific predictions of how much the sea level will rise.

Of course, on the federal level, since Trump took office, intensive scrubbing worthy of Mr. Clean has taken place on the White House website. Predictably, that ardour has infected many federal departments. Even those researchers seeking grants from the US Department of Energy are being asked (?} to excise references to 'climate change' and 'global warming' from their proposals.

The mechanism behind this censorship is fascinating and worthy of deep study, but I will offer only a brief overview of the influence being wielded by powerful interests to suppress scientific fact. Not surprisingly, lobbyists for the real estate and housing development industries are leading the charge, striving to keep as quiet as possible some very, very inconvenient truths:

... a storm of scientific information about sea-level rise that threatens the most lucrative, commission-boosting properties ... warn[s] that Florida, the Carolinas and other southeastern states face the nation’s fastest-growing rates of sea-level rise and coastal erosion — as much as three feet by the year 2100, depending on how quickly Antarctic ice sheets melt. In a recent report, researchers for Zillow estimated that nearly two million U.S. homes could be literally underwater by 2100.

Given the rapid progression of climate change, I suspect the 2100 date is far too optimistic. I believe I may see some of the worst within my own lifetime, even though I am admittedly getting a tad long in the tooth.

Truth is frequently unpalatable, and realtors and developers are proving especially resistant to it:

Some are teaming up with climate-change skeptics and small government advocates to block public release of sea-level rise predictions and ensure that coastal planning is not based on them.

And they are getting some assistance from the top:

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump rescinded an Obama-era executive order that required the federal government to account for climate change and sea-level rise when building infrastructure, such as highways, levees and floodwalls. Trump’s move came after lobbying from the National Association of Home Builders, which called the Obama directive “an overreaching environmental rule that needlessly hurt housing affordability.”

Back in North Carolina, Willo Kelly, who represents both the Outer Banks Home Builders Association and the Outer Banks Association of Realtors

... teamed up with homebuilders and realtors to pass state legislation in 2012 that prevented coastal planners from basing policies on a benchmark of a 39-inch sea-level rise by 2100.

The legislation, authored by Republican Rep. Pat McElraft, a coastal realtor, banned the state from using scientific projections of future sea-level rise for a period of four years. It resulted in the state later adopting a 30-year forecast, which projects the sea rising a mere eight inches.

In South Carolina, the state Department of Natural Resources in 2013 was accused of keeping secret a draft report on climate-change impacts. In Texas, the 2016 platform of the state Republican Party states that climate change “is a political agenda promoted to control every aspect of our lives.”

Fortunately, not everyone is wallowing in, and extolling, ignorance:

In eastern North Carolina, geologist Riggs resigned from the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission’s science panel in 2016, citing legislative interference. He has since teamed up with local governments on the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds to address problems of flooding, windblown tides and saltwater intrusion, a threat to local farming.

Further east, the Hyde County town of Swan Quarter has built a 27-kilometre dike around homes and farms to protect $62 million in flood-threatened property. The dike helped prevent windblown flooding during recent storms, but county officials have some concerns about the future.

Climate change is growing increasingly dire, and it is clearly not the time for citizens to cede control and authority to those whose only interest seems to be squeezing out as much profit as possible in the finite time ahead.

Indeed, some might call such massive venality a massive crime against humanity.

Never Letting Go

The uproar over the Greenbelt theft has died down to a seething anger, despite Doug Ford's promise to restore it. There is ongoing anger over the fact that he lied to us, anger over his apology for having made "a mistake," anger that he was willing to overlook the environmental depredation that his theft would have enabled, anger over his clumsy attempt to reward wealthy developers, and anger over the still extant Bill 23, which, among other things, saddles municipalities with the development charges formerly paid by those rich developers.

People know that Ford will do anything he can get away with. He has lost their trust. And, as the following letters attest, they intend on never letting go of the lessons learned about the nature of this government.

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Doug Ford cancels controversial $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap: ‘It was a mistake,’ Sept. 21

Now that Premier Doug Ford is on the road to redemption, he should seriously consider completing the journey and resign his position, not only for himself, but for the benefit of his party and also the people of Ontario.

Patricia Steward, East York

Ford made a number of mistakes that require correction

Mistakes are made by honest, well-intentioned people. Ignorant, selfish Premier Doug Ford hasn’t an honest bone in his body.

This government wastes everyone’s energy trying to undo his destructive decisions. Next task: stop the sell-off of Ontario Place and the destruction of our Science Centre.

Douglas Buck, Toronto

Do you believe Ford?

Doug Ford cancels controversial $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap: ‘It was a mistake,’ Sept. 21

Now that Premier Doug Ford is on the road to redemption, he should seriously consider completing the journey and resign his position, not only for himself, but for the benefit of his party and also the people of Ontario.

Patricia Steward, East York

Ford made a number of mistakes that require correction

Mistakes are made by honest, well-intentioned people. Ignorant, selfish Premier Doug Ford hasn’t an honest bone in his body.

This government wastes everyone’s energy trying to undo his destructive decisions. Next task: stop the sell-off of Ontario Place and the destruction of our Science Centre.

Douglas Buck, Toronto

Do you believe Ford?

It was NOT a mistake. It was a gambit.

Premier Doug Ford tried to get the land out for development, hoping to get away with it, thus opening the door for more removals and other donor-developer-friendly activity.

He backed down, as he has done before, because — and only because — there was press coverage, resistance, criticism, and negative polling results.

Ford has had to promise — again — to leave the Greenbelt alone. Kind of like the kid who promises this time, for sure, to keep his hands out of the cookie jar.

Do you believe him?

Keep an eye on Ford. Look around to see what else has been done in the background while this was going on in front of our eyes.

Graeme Elliott, Toronto

Are health-care privatization and highway schemes mistakes too?

There is no mistake about it, Premier Doug Ford’s scheme on the Greenbelt was deliberate not an inadvertent mistake. Just like his scheme to privatize health care and his scheme to still greatly benefit his developer friends by building highways 413 and the Bradford bypass both going through Greenbelt lands and waterways.

Ford would be well advised to reverse himself again and cancel both of these schemes.

Paul Kahnert, Markham

Bill 23 is just a new taxpayer subsidy to development companies

As Doug Ford’s Greenbelt reversal is celebrated, other ‘misguided’ planning policies remain concerns, Sept. 22

The Star rightly lists development charges supported by municipalities as “misguided.”

Development charges for roads, sewers, schools, libraries etc. were paid by developers for growth related infrastructure. Now under Bill 23 there is a $1 billion hole in municipalities’ cash flow according to the Association of Municipalities Ontario.

If municipalities and boards of education cannot pay this extra cost, development is compromised.

Bill 23 is a barrier to orderly land use planning.

Clearly this is a new subsidy paid by taxpayers to development companies.

This shows where Premier Doug Ford’s interest is allowing “folks” to pay for future growth. The development sector has the means to pay for growth related infrastructure.

David Godley, retired land use planner, Mississauga

Tim Speaketh Again

The only trouble is, everytime he does, he affirms his incompetence. Yes, young Tim Hudak, the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, has weighed in on yet another 'obstruction' that he believes can be remediated through his simplistic prism. This time it is that pesky perennial problem of those darned endangered species, or more specifically, [g]overnment regulations protecting endangered species [which] are throttling business:

In a speech Tuesday to the Rural Ontario Municipalities’ Association (ROMA) conference at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, ... Hudak told 700 rural municipal politicians he would slash “the more than 300,000 regulations, outdated rules, and runaround that you have to cope with just to get something done.”

To drive home his point for those listeners whose thoughts might have wandered away from the prattling stripling in their midst, the lad who would be Ontario premier pronounced:

“The problem is that these rules are ... not allowing our agriculture and business sectors to grow.”

As an illustration of the evil obstructionism of government, Hudak tartly observed: In 2003, there were exactly 19 species listed — today, well over 121” - clearly a sign of government regulation run amok, and surely not an indication of a deteriorating ecosystem, a concept I doubt that young Tim subscribes to.

Unaware of his irony, he vowed to use “verifiable science not political science” to determine what animals to protect. This, despite the fact that, as pointed out by Natural Resources Minister David Orazietti, the assessment and classification of endangered species is conducted by experts on the arms-length Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario.

But then again, I doubt that the hapless Hudak ever lets facts get in the way of a good ideological rant, and would seem to prefer this as the only sign of real progress:

UPDATED:The News Keeps Gettting Worse

In a column on Tuesday, environmental blogger Robert Scribbler noted that the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream had merged with the Southern Hemisphere Jet Stream.

“It’s the very picture of weather weirding due to climate change. Something that would absolutely not happen in a normal world,” he wrote. “Something, that if it continues, basically threatens seasonal integrity.”

“Historically, the Tropics — which produce the tallest and thickest air mass in the world — have served as a mostly impenetrable barrier to upper level winds moving from one Hemisphere to another. But as the Poles have warmed due to human-forced climate change, the Hemispherical Jet Streams have moved out of the Middle Latitudes more and more. ”

“That’s bad news for seasonality,” he continued. “You get this weather-destabilizing and extreme weather generating mixing of seasons that is all part of a very difficult to deal with ‘Death of Winter’ type scenario.”

If you watch the accompanying video, you will be struck by the interconnectedness of climate systems. Changes in those system thanks to climate change threaten to become catastrophic.

In the following YouTube video, Beckwith says

that the jet stream behavior signaled “massive hits to the food supply” and “massive geopolitical unrest.”

UPDATE: Thanks to the dogged determination of The Mound to find out more about the above-described situation, I am happy (though a bit chastened) to report that the dire news presented above is based on poor science. The Washington Post offers this rebuttal:

The claims are unsupported and unscientific, and they demonstrate the danger of wild assertions made by non-experts reaching and misleading the masses.

The Post reporter

reached out to several atmospheric scientists, who have graduate degrees and are trusted sources in the profession, for their reaction to these claims. Without exception, they said air flow between the hemispheres is not at all uncommon.

“This is total nonsense,” said Cliff Mass, a professor of meteorology at the University of Washington. “Flow often crosses the equator.”

Mass added that the cross-equator flow identified by Scribbler and Beckwith is not between mid-latitude jet streams, as claimed. “The analysis is making mistakes that even one of my junior undergrads would not make,” Mass said.

Ryan Maue, a senior meteorologist with a doctoral degree who works at WeatherBell Analytics, agreed with Mass that the cross-equator flow is totally normal and not evidence of a joint hemispheric jet stream. “Cross-equatorial flow at both upper and lower levels is part of the seasonal transition of the Western Pacific monsoon through boreal summer,” he said.

“Sometimes the flows connect up with each other and make it look like a larger flow structure is causing the jet stream to flow from one hemisphere to the other, but it’s in no way unprecedented,” Roy Spencer, a professor of atmospheric science at University of Alabama-Huntsville, explained on his blog.

My apologies for so readily accepting Beckworth's claims. It was an obvious failure in critical thinking.

UPDATED: Carnac The Magnificent Stephen Harper Is Not

Readers of a certain age will remember with fondness the Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson. A staple in my youth and throughout my adult life, Carson was a peerless entertainer who would often go to considerable lengths for laughs; like all comedic endeavours, some worked better than others.

One of Carson's enduring creations was Carnac The Magnificent, a 'psychic' who would hold up an unopened envelope, discern its contents, and give an answer to the question posed within. Sometimes it worked well, other times it bombed.

It appears that Stephen Harper is our own version of Carnac, discerning answers from some etheric realm that is not accessible to mere mortals, answers that seem at odds with secular polling results and science. One such instance occurred the other day, when Stephen the Magnificent pronounced on Canadians' views on marijuana:

How well do Harper's assertions stand up? CTV News investigated, and came up with these results:

“Most Canadians (when) you actually ask them, do not want the full legalization of marijuana.”

A 2014 survey by Angus Reid Global found that 59 per cent of the 1,510 Canadians surveyed supported legalizing marijuana and 41 per cent were opposed.

“I think the statistics in places like Colorado are very clear on this. When you go down that route, marijuana becomes more readily available to children.”

Marijuana has only been legal in Colorado since Jan. 1, 2014, so extensive research has not been conducted. However, drugs have been decriminalized in the Netherlands since 1976, and past-year cannabis use among young Dutch citizens appears to be declining. Among those aged 15 to 24, past-year use dropped from 14 per cent in 1997 to 11 per cent in 2005, according to a study in the journal Addiction.

“Marijuana use has actually been declining (in Canada).”

A recently-published report by Statistics Canada noted that about 12 per cent of Canadians surveyed in 2012 said they had smoked marijuana in the previous year – the same proportion the agency found when it did the same survey in 2002. However, the results did vary by age. Past-year marijuana use declined over the decade by nearly one-third among those between the ages of 15 and 17, was stable among those aged 18 to 24 and went up among those 25 or older.

While the issue of marijuana legalization may not be uppermost in most people's minds, Harper's stance and his frequently fanciful assertions on the topic do serve to remind us of something none of us should forget as we prepare to cast our ballots. The Harper regime has shown a consistent aversion to empirical data, an aversion that has led to the muzzling of scientists, the end of the mandatory long-form census, egregious contempt for the implications of climate change, and the passing of punitive criminal laws in a time of steadily declining crime, just four consequences among many of a government bent on governing almost exclusively through the narrow lens of ideology.

Unlike the Carnac skits, there is nothing to laugh about in Stephen Harper's pronouncements.

UPDATE: the Toronto-based International Centre for Science in Drug Policy is now weighing in on the prime minister's Pinocchio proclivities. M. J. Milloy, an infectious-disease epidemiologist,

said his group’s research proves that recent use by teens in Colorado has gone down from 22 per cent to 20 per cent in the first year that the U.S. state regulated recreational pot sales. The Conservative Party did not respond to calls for comment on the report.

“It’s not a sort of a ‘push a button, get the result’ type thing,” Dr. Milloy said. “We’ve had, what, 40 years of doing things Mr. Harper’s way, both under his government and under previous governments, which have enacted a very stringent cannabis prohibition model.

“Where are we after billions of dollars and thousands of arrests? We are at a place where Canadian teens lead the world in marijuana use.”

You can read the report, and the debunking of the kinds of myths Mr. Harper likes to perpetuate, here.

A Very Small Victory

In a seemingly endless battle, even small victories deserve to be noted. And it is indeed a small victory on the climate-change front that The Star's public editor, Kathy English, reports on in today's edition.

In dismissing a complaint against the Toronto Star’s publication of a New York Times report about repercussions of climate change on the Louisiana coast, Canada’s National NewsMedia Council has affirmed two important principles.

First, the council indicated that fair and accurate reporting on some subjects — most importantly, climate change — need not engage in what is known in journalism as “false balance” – that is, a perceived need for journalists to seek out “the other side” of a controversial issue when the overwhelming scientific consensus strongly supports one side.

False balance wrongly seeks to provide equal weight to two sides of an argument when in fact the evidence-based information indicates there is no real argument.

In adjudicating the complaint, brought by Georgetown resident Pav Penna in response to a New York Times article attributing climate change as a reason for the relocation of residents of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, the Council told Penna

... it is a journalistic standards organization, not “an arena for assessment of or debate on deep science” and pointed out that the article did not say that climate change is the sole reason for changes on Isle de Jean Charles.

“Journalistic standards related to fairness and balance has been satisfied in the article’s noting of factors such as subsidence and channel cutting,” it stated. “Council finds this is a reasonable balance considering the weight of scientific and expert views.”

In the greater scheme of things, this victory perhaps means very little, but at least it establishes the principle that fair and balanced reporting does not require the inclusion of those that hew to 'junk science' and other similar crackpot ideas that seek to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is not simply 'a theory among theories,' but rather an established fact.

Those who take exception are, of course, free to read the favourite organs of the far right, including The Sun and The National Post, both of whom rarely let facts get in the way of a good screed.

Looking Toward Liberation

I have regular telephone conversations with my friend Dave, who lives in Winnipeg. Like me, he has a very jaundiced view of those elected to 'serve' us, and part of our routine is to compare and bemoan the atrocities committed by our respective provincial governments. While things are bad under the 'leadership' of Brian Pallister, I always maintain that our suffering under the Ford government is more acute and embarrassing. Ontario's shame in electing a bully and blowhard ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of life today is one we must collectively bear, at least until the next election.

The latest cause for cringing comes from our Energy Minister, Greg Rickford, who recently had a very peculiar justification for the cancellation of almost 800 green energy project in the province, a cancellation that could ultimately cost the taxpayer well in excess of $231 million (with some suggesting it could top $1 billion).

Ontario Energy Minister Greg Rickford is taking heat for quoting from an online magazine — which denies the scientific consensus on climate change — to justify scrapping more than 750 renewable energy projects at a cost to taxpayers of $231 million.

For the second day in a row, Rickford referred Tuesday to an article in the U.S.-based Climate Change Dispatch headlined “Germany pulls plug on wind energy as industry suffers severe crisis,” as the NDP raised concerns about the Ontario government’s cancellation of wind turbine and solar projects.

Rickford claimed the periodical is one of his favourities, and that as a well-educated person, it is incumbent upon him to always look at both sides of an issue, an assertion that drew derision from the Opposition:

Opposition parties jumped on Rickford for relying on the magazine, whose website says it “does not believe in consensus science” and describes “global warming alarmists” as “those who believe man is wholly or largely responsible for any fluctuation in the planet’s overall surface temperature.”

“It’s shocking,” said New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath, slamming the Ford government for cancelling the Liberal cap-and-trade program aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, firing the independent environmental commissioner and scrapping programs to promote electric vehicles.

“Everything they’re doing is falling in line with people who would be denying climate change.”

Happily, outrage is not confined to the legislature, as the following letter to the editor make abundantly clear:

Ontario’s minister of energy, Greg Rickford, characterizes himself as a “well-studied man” and a lawyer, yet he quotes from a fringe climate change denier website. Perhaps Rickford is not as well studied as he purports to be.

Neither is he employing logic, a mode of thinking which is to be expected of a lawyer. While it is commendable to hear both sides of any issue, sometimes, when there is overwhelming scientific proof, as is the case with the anthropogenic climate change position, the “other side” does not stand up to scrutiny at all. Climate change is not a matter of opinion any more than the fact that gravity is keeping us from flying off into space is an opinion. Perhaps the minister would seriously entertain arguments from flat-earthers, anti-vaxers and Creationists as well, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding? Science is evidence based, not opinion based. Facts are facts. No amount of posturing or proselytizing can change that. To paraphrase astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson, it’s your prerogative to think what you like about the world around you, but that doesn’t change the facts. Climate change is cited as the single most urgent issue facing our planet.

While Minister Rickford claims he is not a climate change denier, his behaviour says just the opposite. To have a minister of energy who rolls back green energy initiatives, tries to stop the federal carbon levy and quotes from fringe websites is just beyond the pale and highly irresponsible.

Pandering to his voter base, rather than pursuing positive action to reduce greenhouse gases, does all of us a huge disservice. We should all expect better from our elected officials.

Jonathan O’Mara, Whitby

I, and I am sure countless others, look forward to the day we will be liberated from this rambling, ridiculous and retrograde regime. It cannot come quickly enough.

On Harper's Hateful Hypocricsy

There is little doubt that Alana Westwood will now be joining that ever-growing pantheon of proud Canadians inscribed on Harper's Enemies List. The PhD Candidate at Dalhousie University and volunteer coordinator at Evidence for Democracy has written a fine piece in today's Toronto Star entitled Stephen Harper’s blatant hypocrisy on science which merits reading.

Her starting point is what she describes as a rare one-on-one interview this past Thursday with the CBC (surely an act of hypocrisy in itself, given his abiding contempt for and constant cost-cutting of the public broadcaster). Out of deference to those delicately constituted, I shall provide no link to the interview - that are certain things no one should have to subject him or herself to, and watching Dear Leader is one of them, in my view. From past exposure, I know that I always have, shall we say, a Pavlovian response to him that is not pleasant to behold.

During said interview, in which Harper espoused his enthusiasm for vaccines, he chided Canadians, “Don’t indulge your theories; think of your children and listen to the experts.”

He added, for good effect, that “it’s a tragedy when people start to go off on their own theories and not listen to scientific evidence.”

The irony, as she calls it, is not lost on Ms. Westwood:

The PM’s sudden endorsement of science is a peculiar turn in the wake of systemic and sustained affronts to Canadian scientists, statisticians and record keepers. Just recently, we have seen announcements of cuts to research funding for the Department of Justice, massive closures of libraries (including consolidation and loss of collections from Health Canada) and even restrictions on the ability of meteorologists to say the words “climate change.”

She goes on to enumerate other examples of Harper's manifest hypocrisy and unfitness to lead the country:

- over 2,000 federal scientists dismissed since 2009

- the cut/closure of about 200 scientific research and monitoring institutions, many dealing with issues of monitoring food safety, environmental contaminants and other domains directly affecting the health of Canadians.

While Harper apparently extolled the crucial role of good baseline data during the interview, Westwood reminds us of this inconsistent and inconvenient truth:

How long after the axing of the mandatory long-form census will Canada hit the wall? From the drastically insufficient national household survey, we won’t even have appropriate baseline data about the basic demographics of our own country to plan hospital locations.

And of course, as has been noted previously, the avidity with which the Harper regime muzzles its scientists is behaviour worthy only of a third-world martinent.

To be sure, none of this is new or shocking to those of us who follow the downward trajectory of our country. It is only the latest reminder of the urgency with which each of us must convey, in whatever means are at our disposal, the truth of this autocratic regime so that as many as possbile are as engaged as possible, in 2015.

Understanding Climate Change And Its Impacts In Two Minutes

This two-minute primer shows us how the science of climate change is not, well, rocket science.

On The Dyspeptic Rona Ambrose

In a post last week, I explained the basis for my outrage over Health Minister Rona Ambrose's manufactured rant at the Supreme Court's decision permitting medical marijuana users to ingest their medicine in any form they wish. Reading this morning's Star letters to the editor, I was pleased to see that I am not alone in my reaction to Ms Ambrose and the regime she is a mouthpiece for.

Here are but a few of many excellent missives:

Re: Chill out, minister, Editorial June 14

How ironic is this? Rona Ambrose, health minister in the Harper government, infamous for their disdain for science, invokes science in her rejection of the Supreme Court decision on medical marijuana.

While I happen to agree that much of the medical use of marijuana is not evidence based, the Harper government shows their cynicism in challenging medical marijuana. It’s not a good fit with their popular tough-on-crime agenda, which the evidence shows is expensive, ineffective and cruel.

When this government revitalizes StatsCan, environmental research and protection and evidence based justice then they can legitimately pronounce on marijuana use.

Peter Crosby, Toronto

Kudos to the Supreme Court for legalizing the use of medical marijuana through oils and foods; it is a common-sense decision that will benefit patients across Canada, and have a profound effect on the lives of individuals with the most extreme forms of epilepsy.

For years, too many of our members have been unable to control their seizures with conventional therapies. Medical marijuana has provided seizure control for adults and children, some of whom have gone from having dozens of seizures every day to none. While more research is needed, these anecdotal cases are having a real impact on the lives of many people with epilepsy.

Providing families with the option to use oils and foods to take their medical marijuana instead of being forced to smoke or inhale it gives individuals already living with medical challenges an easier and more sensible way of getting the medication they need.

Drew Woodley, Director of Communications, Epilepsy Toronto

Perhaps Health Minister Rona Ambrose’s sense of outrage about the Supreme Court decision regarding medical marijuana could have been better directed at her boss. If she had done her homework she would have discovered that the Harper government itself cancelled the research component of the medical marijuana program shortly after he took office.

Since he wasn’t able to obliterate the program entirely he quickly began the process of enacting barriers and demonizing users. Ironically if he had known then that he would later learn to muzzle scientific communications at will, he could have let the research go on, comfortable that any unwanted positive findings would never be heard.

It is so like this government to be so easily outraged when frustrated, much like a toddler.

Steven Gaber, Toronto

Health Minister Rona Ambrose is “outraged” that the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that marijuana can be legally consumed in forms other than smoking. “This is not a drug,” she said. “This is not medicine.”

Such breathtakingly ill-informed statements coming out of the mouth of a so-called health minister is appalling. I wonder if she would be willing to repeat such canards to all of the children with debilitating forms of epilepsy who are helped through the ingestion of small amounts of various cannabis preparations? Perhaps she could embrace one of these children in her motherly arms as they suffer yet another seizure, maybe offer them a joint?

Strains of low or no THC marijuana that are high in cannabidiol (CBD) have been developed and have proven remarkably effective at controlling not only seizures, but providing relief from neuropathic pain, PTSD, Crohn’s disease, and nausea as a result of chemotherapy, to name but a few. The loving minister, however, appears to be wantonly ignorant of such developments to the point of unmitigated callousness.

Ambrose goes on to say “There’s very harmful effects of marijuana, especially on our youth.” Really? Would the good madame care to list them?

I applaud the Supreme Court and the wisdom of its decision. If only such sage reasoning could be instilled elsewhere, beginning with the health minister’s office.

Walter Ross, West Richland, Wash.