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Science Forum Index » Environment Forum » Kyoto: boondoggle for government employees?
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| Dr. Convection |
 Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 1:43 pm |
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Kyoto: boondoggle for government employees?
From:
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/guests/gunter.htm
Kyoto Impartiality Government-driven
by Lorne Gunter
Friday 19 December 2003
As published in the EDMONTON JOURNAL
///
Doug Whelpdale, Director, Climate Research Branch, Environment Canada's
Meteorological Service of Canada;
Doug Bancroft, director of oceanography and climate, Fisheries and Oceans
Canada;
Karen Brown, assistant deputy minister, Environment Canada;
Irwin Itzkovitch, assistant deputy minister, Natural Resources Canada;
Sue Milburn-Hopwood, Health Canada;
Gordon McBean, former assistant deputy minister, Environment Canada and
chair, Canadian Foundation for Climate
and Atmospheric Sciences (funded by a one-time, $60-million grant from
Ottawa);
Margaret McQuaig-Johnson, Finance Canada;
David Oulton, head of Ottawa's Climate Change Secretariat;
Tom Pedersen, head of earth and ocean science, University of Victoria;
Paul Sampson, Privy Council Office;
Norine Smith, assistant deputy minister, Environment Canada;
John Stone, associate director general, Environment Canada;
Richard Anthes, President, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research,
Boulder. Colo.;
Georges Beauchemin, chair, Consortium on Regional Climatology and Adaptation
to Climate Change
(OURANOS in French, a joint project of Ottawa's Meteorological Service
of Canada, the Quebec government,
and Quebec-owned Hydro-Quebec);
Don Strange, manager, Ottawa's Climate Change Action Fund;
Eric Taylor, Natural Resources Canada;
Peter Victor, chair, Science Advisory Board, Environment Canada;
Janet Walden, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada;
Greg Graham, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (a fund established
by Environment Canada and Natural
Resources Canada to invest in technologies that reduce greenhouse
gasses, now also including many industry
"stakeholders");
Andre Isabel, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
///
Last spring, Environment Canada hired a Toronto consulting firm to conduct
an "external" review of the climate science research plan of its
Meteorological Service of Canada. If I told you the above 20 persons were
the only ones interviewed, would you conclude the review had been an
"external" one? Thirteen are federal bureaucrats or advisers. Seven --
one-third -- are members of the committee which initiated the review.
Three come from foundations largely funded by government, two from an
arms-length funding body whose annual budget comes from the federal
government and two are academics who share Ottawa's view of environmental
issues.
If I also told you the three people who drafted the contract -- all
Environment Canada employees -- also instructed the consultants on whom they
could interview, might you question the objectivity and impartiality of the
review? Wouldn't you wonder what its value was? Why bother doing such a
review?
It's as if Environment Canada's senior climate-change bureaucrats decided
one morning, "We want to know if our research priorities are good ones. Hmm.
Let's ask the people who draw up and administer our research plan, the
people who used to be in charge of it, other government departments
committed to the same environmental policies we are, foundations we are
funding to do much of the research that backs up our position and
foundations that stand to benefit if we stay the course on our position, and
academics who largely agree with our position."
Ah, yes, that sounds like a good, comprehensive, unbiased assessment of
whether one's plan and overall position on the environment and Kyoto is a
good one.
Not one critic of Environment Canada's position. Few people not directly
employed by the federal government, which has made no secret about its
position on climate change and Kyoto. Fewer people, still, who are not
beneficiaries, in one form or another, of Ottawa's billions in Kyoto-based
research monies. And two academics for whom much of the question of what's
behind climate change has been settled.
I'd be surprised if there was a skeptic of big government, centrally planned
environmental and economic policies in the bunch.
Yep. Get right on that. Sounds like the right mix of interviewees.
Tim Ball, a climate science professor at the University of Winnipeg for 32
years and a doubter of the man-made global warming theory, writing in the
Calgary Herald on Thursday, asserts that this review is "convincing evidence
that Canada's climate change science is driven by a preordained political
agenda. Instead of basing policy decisions on the best available science ...
the government is clearly directing its
scientists to find the evidence the government needs to substantiate its
policy -- completely the reverse of how science-based policy should be
determined."
Using a copy of the review obtained through access to information requests,
Ball revealed that on June 12, at a meeting of senior Environment Canada
bureaucrats, the committee was reminded "that climate change science
activities in the federal government are mission-driven."
"Shouldn't the federal government's environmental mission be
science-driven?" instead, Ball wondered correctly.
Environment Minister David Anderson -- newly reappointed to that position by
Friend-of-the-West Prime Minister Paul Martin -- insists the science of
Kyoto and climate change is "settled," that there is no doubt human beings
are causing the planet to warm dangerously and that human activities must be
curtailed to prevent catastrophe, especially activities near and dear to
western Canadians and their economy.
And Anderson and his officials seem to have devised a convenient way to
convince themselves the issue is "settled."
Make an imaginary tent. Place in that tent only those ideas and people who
reinforce your views. Close the flaps tight against any opposing ideas or
zephyrs of doubt. Then claim the inside of the tent comprises the entire
known universe. Pretend there is nothing outside and periodically fund
studies to confirm that view.
_______________________
Lorne Gunter
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Editorial Board Member, National Post
tele: (780) 916-0719
fax: (780) 481-4735
e-mail: lgunter@shaw.ca
132 Quesnell Cres NW
Edmonton AB T5R 5P2 |
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| Vendicar Decarian |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 5:55 pm |
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"Dr. Convection" <Convection@convection.net> wrote in message
news:Hq9DCz.B98@campus-news-reading.utoronto.ca...
Quote: Last spring, Environment Canada hired a Toronto consulting firm to conduct
an "external" review of the climate science research plan of its
Meteorological Service of Canada. If I told you the above 20 persons were
the only ones interviewed, would you conclude the review had been an
"external" one?
Is there any wonder why the Right Wing National Post is the laughing stock
of Canada?
Here the National Post author tries to complain about the nature of and
external review of policy when he doesn't even know what an external review
is.
An external review of policy is of course a review of policy conducted by an
investigative body that is external to the parties being reviewed.
The National post author thinks that an external review si a review of the
opinions of people <not belonging> to the party being reviewed.
Not much sense there.
And not much sense from NeoCon rags like the National Post.
bahahahahahahahh |
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| James |
| Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 11:15 am |
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"Vendicar Decarian" <VD@Pyro.net> wrote in message
news:wypFb.22645$mV5.5155@read1.cgocable.net...
Quote:
"Dr. Convection" <Convection@convection.net> wrote in message
news:Hq9DCz.B98@campus-news-reading.utoronto.ca...
Last spring, Environment Canada hired a Toronto consulting firm to
conduct
an "external" review of the climate science research plan of its
Meteorological Service of Canada. If I told you the above 20 persons
were
the only ones interviewed, would you conclude the review had been an
"external" one?
Is there any wonder why the Right Wing National Post is the laughing stock
of Canada?
Here the National Post author tries to complain about the nature of and
external review of policy when he doesn't even know what an external
review
is.
An external review of policy is of course a review of policy conducted by
an
investigative body that is external to the parties being reviewed.
The National post author thinks that an external review si a review of the
opinions of people <not belonging> to the party being reviewed.
Not much sense there.
And not much sense from NeoCon rags like the National Post.
And you'd rather hear from that bastion of truth, the NY Times. ROTFL |
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| Vendicar Decarian |
| Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2003 12:25 am |
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Guest
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Quote: "Vendicar Decarian" <VD@Pyro.net> wrote in message
news:wypFb.22645$mV5.5155@read1.cgocable.net...
Is there any wonder why the Right Wing National Post is the laughing
stock
of Canada?
Here the National Post author tries to complain about the nature of and
external review of policy when he doesn't even know what an external
review
is.
An external review of policy is of course a review of policy conducted
by
an
investigative body that is external to the parties being reviewed.
The National post author thinks that an external review si a review of
the
opinions of people <not belonging> to the party being reviewed.
Not much sense there.
And not much sense from NeoCon rags like the National Post.
"James" <jrapier@dcr.net> wrote in message news:PPEFb.35$X%3.19@fe01...
Quote: And you'd rather hear from that bastion of truth, the NY Times. ROTFL
Of course. I always prefer sources of news that are more credible than
sources that are not.
Seeing the Editorial written by the NeoCon working for the National Post,
one can only wonder if he was too ignorant to know what the term "external
review" means or if he was knowingly lying in his editorial.
Do you think he was lying, James? Or do you think he is just another
example of NeoCon ignorance? |
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