Re-Think Priorities, Please

If it appears to have all the symbols attached to it of government pumping itself up publicly to appear as though its actions fairly and honestly represent the wishes of the electorate, while stealthily practising deceit - so it's hypocrisy, plain and simple. Worse, its a serious dereliction of responsibility under the guise of duty done.

Does Canada's current Conservative government believe we face danger in the not too distant future as a result of environmental degradation or does it not?

Coming into office as declared non-believers in the urgency with which climate change is occurring and whether or not human activities are mostly to blame for the acceleration in environmental degradation, the Conservative government under prime Minister Stephen Harper did a reality check, understanding finally, we thought, the imminence and seriousness of climate change.

Regardless of how much human activities are impacting deleteriously on the environment or whether what we're seeing is the results of naturally-occurring patterns on an upswing, there is a need to understand more fully what is occurring and why, and what can conceivably be done to counteract, or slow the process.

And we can only do that successfully by encouraging and funding expert environmental research. All agreed? Why then, has it become government policy to look the other way and drop the ball? Research that produces a better understanding of events which can lead to the development of systems to be undertaken to remedy or at least stabilize degradation is in all our interests.

Yet this government is in the process of closing a federal climate research network, insisting its mandate has been completed - in the assessment of impacts of global warming within Canada. Nothing could be further from the truth; indeed, researchers still do not fully understand the causes of global warming simply because of a paucity of scientific studies.

The obvious remedy for this is to encourage and fund additional studies. "I don't think they know what the Canadian impacts and adaptation research network has done. To say that it has completed its mandate is truly ridiculous", according to climatologist Andrew Weaver from University of Victoria's school of earth and ocean sciences.

He, among many other Canadian climate specialists receiving federal grants through the federal climate network, or the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science is truly puzzled by the government's withdrawal of support. The results of their studies to date have been reviewed by the United Nation's 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change and incorporated into the assessment report that was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

What additional value considerations must be optioned to persuade this government of the vital importance of carrying on and expanding research efforts? Yet at the very time that the government has decided to stop funding the foundation, it has launched a $2-million federal publicity campaign trumpeting "the real action that their government is taking to fight climate change and protect the environment".

Gordon McBean, a climate scientist and the volunteer chairman of the foundation avers that the government doesn't understand process and value: "I'm quite concerned because they never ask us. They have never allowed us to give them a briefing on what we do... They don't acknowledge our requests." Doesn't that speak volumes in terms of neglectful dereliction?

To dedicate $10 to $20 million yearly to climate change research may sound like a sizeable dollar commitment, but it is not. Not in the face of impending climate change and the very serious impacts it will make on every facet of our lives. When the government can see fit to returning billions of dollars of taxpayer money for tax "relief" and still have a huge surplus, that amount of funding is almost irrelevant.

We have a deficit here of practical understanding and political commitment, one that should be corrected as soon as possible.