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  • BC Election Reflection
    election

    by Lauren Kaljur

    As I walked through Yaletown on election night, peering through a restaurant seated with well to-do clientele smiling as they sipped their fine victory wine, I was reminded that we are divided. With a popular vote split between 47.5% for progressive left parties and 49.2 % for the right we indeed are. Resisting the temptation to storm out of province in frustration, I'd like to propose we look past the divisions and instead take responsibility: This is our journey, our future, and our man-made climate trajectory. While its easy to blame the 'other,' this was our democratic election. So with...

  • Protecting Marine Species
    Feature, Fish, marine, Oceans, science, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3

    mako sharkby Jeff Hutchings
    PHOTO CREDIT: Bill Fisher

    What do Atlantic cod and BC’s canary rockfish have in common with the burrowing owl and Vancouver Island marmot? They have all declined by more than 80 or 90%. And they are all considered to be at increased risk of extinction by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). COSEWIC is the national science body, arms-length from government, responsible for advising the federal Minister of the Environment on species at risk.

    Despite similar declines, these species part company when it...

  • Environmental Science Axed by Harper 2012-2013
    Feature, Fish, Harper, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Water, Society

    Compiled by Joyce Nelson

    Fisheries & Oceans
    Discontinued: Species-at-Risk Program, Ocean Contaminants & Marine Toxicology Program, Habitat Management, Experimental Lakes Area (Northern Ontario), DFO Marine Science Libraries, Centre for Offshore Oil & Gas Energy Research
     

  • Harper's War on Science
    Feature, Climate change, Fish, Harper, Natural gas, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Tar sands, Water, Society

    by Joyce Nelson

    Canada’s Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, agreed at the end of March to launch an investigation into the extensive muzzling of federally-funded scientists at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and other federal agencies. Her decision comes after a February 20th complaint formally filed by Democracy Watch in partnership with the Environmental Law Clinic of the University of Victoria, which called for a full investigation and was accompanied by a 128-page report, Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy.

    That report documents systematic silencing since 2007 of

  • The Canada Foundation for Innovation - War on Science
    Feature, Fish, Harper, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Water, Society

    Excerpt from Joyce Nelson's WS article, "Harper's War on Science"

    Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, has consistently defended the Harper government from accusations of a War on Science by emphasizing the $5.5 billion that the Feds have provided to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), including another $225 million to the CFI in Economic Action Plan 2013 released on March 21.   

    The CFI – the key decision-maker for all science funding in

  • Save Ocean Science - Fighting the War on Science
    Feature, Fish, Harper, Oceans, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Water

    save ocean science, harper's war on scienceby Susan MacVittie

    Photo credit: John Gardner, Timothy Foulkes

    When residents in St. Andrews, New Brunswick heard that the federal government was going to close the St. Andrews Biological Station (SABS) Library, discontinue the Contaminants and Toxicology (CT) program, and reduce the Habitat program as part of its cost cutting measures, they formed Save Ocean Science (SOS) to raise awareness about the impact of lost jobs and lost science.

    Since 1908, the SABS Library has provided resources to

  • Syria: Chemical Weapons or Media of Mass Destruction

    Here we go again -- the media howls for war, trotting out the same old variations on a theme to justify war against Syria, and, by all accounts, it will turn out just as well as Iraq and Libya, arming and empowering religious fundamentalists completely opposed to western interests. One really wonders if these "strategies" in the west -- USA and Britain in particular -- are being writen by the ghost of Osama Bin Laden?

  • Dr. Thierry Vrain on What's Wrong with Genetically Engineered Foods
    GMO Food

    Dr. Thierry Vrain, formerly a head of research science at Agriculture Canada, shares his understanding of why the science behind genetic engineering is flawed -- the assumption that one gene makes one protein has been outdated since 2002 and the actions of foreign proteins in the genome are unpredictable and unknown.

  • Green Energy - Green Illusion
    Economy, green energy

    Here's a critical piece that is well worth a few minutes to read - a discussion of the current trend in environmentalism to boosting green energy and green tech as THE solution, instead of looking at the longer term implications and searching for real solutions to the human ecological problem.

    This interview by Steve Horn, Power Shift Away from Green Illusions, in truthout explores the paradigm.

    "Things aren’t as simple as they seem, and "there's actually no such thing as a free lunch" when it comes to energy

  • Elizabeth May Nails It in Her Discussion of Pipelines West, East, and South
    Energy, Pipelines, Tar sands

    Writing for Island Tides, Elizabeth May discusses the issues around all the pipeline proposals, eastern Canada's reliance on foreign oil, and comes to the only sensible solution -- slow down the expansion of the tar sands to a managable and steady 2 million barrels a day, which would cool inflation, and construct the refineries needed so that Alberta is shipping conventional oil and gas to eastern Canada instead of dilbert. May says this would be thinking like a country.

    Sounds like a plan to me.

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"This is it. It's done!" was the message in Alaska in 2008, 19 years after the Exxon Valdes oil spill.  Dave Janka, who runs Auklet Charters in Prince William Sound, ran his boat over to Smith Island to snap this photo.  Dave says, "It's far from done!"

W.L.M. (Bill) Wilson writes: 'Attached is my rewrite of Anne Feeney’s “Have You Been To Jail for Justice”. Anne granted permission to do non-profit performances of this Enbridge version.' Video by Ester Strijbos.