The ruling Conservative party of Canada under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper are well known for silencing scientists, cutting funding for environmental research, and gutting environmental oversight. However, their latest attempt to suppress government research on the rapid loss of sea ice in the Arctic has plunged them to a new low.
Conservative ministers are now prohibiting Canadian Ice Services (CIS) from disclosing their research findings. CIS scientists have been denied the right to hold a “strictly factual” press briefing on the catastrophic loss of northern ice. Under the Harper governments new rules CIS and other government researchers must secure nine levels of government approval. The latest attempt to share information paid for by the Canadian taxpayer has been vetoed at the sixth ministerial level.
The Ice loss in the Arctic has implications for global weather patterns. Most recently it has been linked to the drought in California.
The fact that a national government prevents its own scientists from reporting information that has grave global consequences is cynical politically motivated climate denial. The Conservative’s goal is to withhold information that can impede their efforts to recklessly extract climate change causing fossil fuels, particularly the tar sands.
As the temperature keeps climbing around and in the Arctic in particular the Harper government’s actions are represent a danger to Canadians, and the whole of human civilization.
© 2014, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.
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