Conservative War On Science

[Mighty AC]

Who is paying the bills, not ONT but alberta.

It has been pointed out that Ontario does generate the bulk of federal tax revenue. Still, this has little to do with my statement about your 'destroying the economy' BS. Constraining Tarsands development is expected to only have a tiny .5% impact on GDP growth between now and 2020. There is ample opportunity to more than offset revenue losses by using current oil revenue to invest in a sustainable low carbon economy for Alberta. Norway is a good example of a petro-state that is channeling fossil fuel revenues into a fund that will benefit its citizens well into the future and is aiding the clean energy transition now.

Announcing an overhaul of the fund today, the Ministry of Finance said that the amount of money invested into environmental stocks would increase from 20-30bn Norwegian kroner to ($3.34bn-$5bn) to NKr 30-50bn ($5bn-$8.4bn).

The increased finance represents a tiny portion of the fund’s total worth. Valued at around US$ 868bn, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is the largest in the world. It is made up of income from the country’s lucrative oil industry.

“Even those nations that made their fortune on oil are starting to see it’s not the future – the race to the exits is starting” -

Bill McKibben

[waldo]

Science Magazine editorial - A chance to get science right (by James L. Turk - the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada; director of the Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University; and the former executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers):

The upcoming Canadian election later this month will provide a welcome opportunity to reboot the federal government's controversial approach to science policy and research. The current Conservative government has been undermining science for the past 9 years, damaging the institutions that make scientific advancement possible and trying to ensure that political and ideological priorities dominate scientific work.

“Canada needs to reverse this damage to its scientific enterprise.”

Academic and government research play a particularly important role in Canada, because the private sector does proportionately less research than in most other industrialized countries. As a percentage of gross domestic product, business spending on R&D in the United States is twice as much as it is in Canada. Yet it is public science—in universities and in government—that is eroding under the current government. Science and technology budgets at Canada's 13 science-based federal departments and agencies have been cut by $596 million (in constant 2007 dollars) between 2008 and 2013. During that period, 2141 full-time equivalent federal scientific positions were eliminated.

Canada's three federal funding agencies for academic research have been hit hard. Allocations for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research have fallen since the present government came to power. The biggest drop has been in the humanities and social sciences, which have seen their real-dollar base funding decline more than 10%. Natural sciences and engineering have experienced a decline of more than 4%, and health sciences funding has dropped by more than 7%. To the money the government does allocate to these agencies, strings are often attached; strings that limit funding to specific political priorities set by the government. The government has also changed membership on the governing councils of these agencies. Historically, they were held primarily by scientific experts in the fields. No longer. On the social sciences and humanities council, the majority of members are from the corporate sector, economics, business, and engineering. The council for the natural sciences and engineering has no biologists, chemists, physicists, or mathematicians. Eight of its 17 members are engineers, four are corporate executives, and three are professional administrators. The result is what former University of Toronto president and distinguished medical researcher David Naylor has called a growing emphasis on “fettered” research: “match-funded, industry-facing research with an applied orientation.”

Beyond the funding agencies, there is a good deal of politically motivated defunding. The federal government's hostility to climate science ended support for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences and for the Experimental Lakes Area, the world's only living natural laboratory for freshwater research. The government also eliminated Canada's mandatory long-form census, the only source of reliable data for much social science research as well as for the development and evaluation of public policy.

The same government has systematically muzzled government scientists, preventing them from responding to media about published articles without political permission. It has transformed Canada's legendary National Research Council, formerly similar to the U.S. national laboratories, into, in the words of Gary Goodyear, then Minister of Science and Technology, a “concierge service” that offers a single phone number to connect businesses to all their R&D needs.

Canada needs to reverse this damage to its scientific enterprise. An immediate priority should be establishing a prominent role for science in government by creating a parliamentary science officer and a parliamentary research and science advisory council composed of top scientists that report directly to Parliament. Hopefully, the widespread and visible public concern about the fall of science will lead whichever party is elected on 19 October to move in a very different direction. It will take concerted action to make this happen.

[dialamah]

Science Magazine editorial - A chance to get science right (by James L. Turk - the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada; director of the Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University; and the former executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers):

Fortunately for Conservatives, they can ignore this because it comes from someone in Academia who is likely to know what he's talking about.

[Wilber]

It has been pointed out that Ontario does generate the bulk of federal tax revenue. Still, this has little to do with my statement about your 'destroying the economy' BS. Constraining Tarsands development is expected to only have a tiny .5% impact on GDP growth between now and 2020. There is ample opportunity to more than offset revenue losses by using current oil revenue to invest in a sustainable low carbon economy for Alberta. Norway is a good example of a petro-state that is channeling fossil fuel revenues into a fund that will benefit its citizens well into the future and is aiding the clean energy transition now.

Would Canadians in general and Albertans in particular put up with Norwegian tax rates in order to do so?

[bush_cheney2004]

Fortunately for Conservatives, they can ignore this because it comes from someone in Academia who is likely to know what he's talking about.

Plus the publication comes from the AAAS....American Association for the Advancement of Science. "American style" doesn't always play well in Canadian politics, best to get a domestic Minister of Science, like Zaius from Planet of the Apes.

[On Guard for Thee]

Plus the publication comes from the AAAS....American Association for the Advancement of Science. "American style" doesn't always play well in Canadian politics, best to get a domestic Minister of Science, like Zaius from Planet of the Apes.

I don't think science adheres to any sort of "style", that ca be ascribed to any particular nationality. But we always appreciate you attempts to make most everything somehow to do with Canada.

[waldo]

Plus the publication comes from the AAAS....American Association for the Advancement of Science. "American style" doesn't always play well in Canadian politics, best to get a domestic Minister of Science, like Zaius from Planet of the Apes.

it appears you have little to nothing to offer other than to play out your tired meme... you've done it now 3 4 separate times, in 3 4 separate posts within the last hour or so; again: is this one of your, as you've defined it, "useful microcosms for the CanAm relationship at many levels."... where you have openly asserted that your intent here on MLW is to reinforce that, "Canadian's define their identity by/with everything that is American". Is this one of those/your examples?

oh wait... AAAS declares itself as "an international non-profit organization"... why it even groups membership by 'American', 'Canadian' or 'Europe/Rest of World'. Are you sure this is one of those/your "useful microcosm" examples? I mean... they let a lil' ole Canadian contribute to the editorial page of Science Magazine.

oh wait, again... Science Magazine is a part of the AAAS umbrella groupings. Is all that world-wide sciency stuff in the magazine "American Style"?

on edit: updated to reflect 4... not 3... occurences - missed the most recent one provided while writing the initial version of this post

Edited October 11, 2015 by waldo

[bush_cheney2004]

I don't think it's so much a conservative war on science, but a general lack of public and private R&D investment by Canada overall. Like so many links to American sources, it's just far easier to go "south of the border"...because they actually exist and are accessible. Canadians may express their disdain for America and its government, but certainly have no qualms about gobbling up the research and applied "science" coming from the USA, and the media that communicates same.

Edited October 11, 2015 by bush_cheney2004

[waldo]

I don't think it's so much a conservative war on science, but a general lack of public and private R&D investment by Canada overall.

this thread has been most equal opportunity... certainly no need for you to focus on Canada here... there has been much to say about the conservative U.S. Republican war on science within this thread.

Like so many links to American sources, it's just far easier to go "south of the border"...because they actually exist and are accessible. Canadians may express their disdain for America and its government, but certainly have no qualms about gobbling up the research and applied "science" coming from the USA.

like so many of your ad nauseum posts where you continue to draw notice to MLW members using American sources (what you've declared as, "useful microcosms for the CanAm relationship at many levels."... where you have openly asserted that your intent here on MLW is to reinforce that, "Canadian's define their identity by/with everything that is American"), why would you equate MLW member views on American foreign or domestic policy/governance with views on, as you say, "research and applied "science"? Why would you draw equivalencies between them, at all?

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[bush_cheney2004]

We saw an example of the "it's just easier" to use American academic and science resources, ironically, in the recent "Leap Manifesto" associated with Naomi Klein and the NDP's federal election campaign. It is both funny and pathetic at the same time....condemning PM Harper and his "conservative war on science" while depending so much on resources from the hated regimes "south of the border".

Edited October 11, 2015 by bush_cheney2004

[waldo]

It is both funny and pathetic at the same time....condemning PM Harper and his "conservative war on science" while depending so much on resources from the hated regimes "south of the border".

it is both funny and pathetic at the same time... in your declared intent here on MLW is to reinforce that, "Canadian's define their identity by/with everything that is American"... you rarely (if ever?) point your declared intent toward MLW members of the conservative/right-wing persuasion when they reference a U.S., as you say, "resource". Apparently, as I perceive, your declared intent seems quite targeted to MLW members you draw a political/ideological distinction to - go figure.

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