Trust in science falls—due to global warming?

Greta Thunberg made a statement to the U.S. Congress the other day that, like most of what she says, was simple, profound and obvious at the same time. Simple (only four words), profound (it holds the key to dealing with humanity's greatest challenge) and obvious (ask advice from those who have the answers).

After charming Congress with a speech, she was asked by one member what advice she had for them. She replied, "I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the scientists."

Unfortunately, many of our leaders are not listening. Nor are a great many of us. We are not taking Greta's obvious advice; we are not listening to the scientists. Indeed, a recent survey indicates that Canadians' trust in science is falling. The survey, conducted by Ipsos Group S.A., found that 32 per cent of respondents were skeptical about science, up from 25 per cent the year before, a huge increase.

A lack of trust in science is a strange thing. The only way we can know the truth is through science, i.e. through "a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe." Everything else is conjecture. Why would anyone not want to know the truth?

Scientists make mistakes of course. And we can never know the absolute truth, but science gets us closest to it. Unfortunately, often people don't want to get too close. The truth can be, as Al Gore put it, inconvenient. Or worse. It can shatter your worldview. Such was the case when Copernicus suggested that we weren't the centre of the universe after all, or when Darwin pointed out that we are not all that different from other animals, just one species in a long evolutionary line from pond scum to apes. Those discoveries shook up people's sense of where they stood in the world.

Climate change is one of those big ideas. And if that's not enough to absorb, there is species extinction and the exhaustion of the Earth's resources. We are not just mucking up our civilization, we are mucking up life on this planet. For many perhaps it's just too much, too much guilt, too much sacrifice required to deal with it, so they reject it and retreat to a prettier picture.

The timing is particularly unfortunate. Never before in all our history has it been as important to deal with reality, to follow Greta's advice. Never before has rejecting the truth threatened such tragic consequences, for us and for our fellow species.

Media waking up on climate crisis

I have long been puzzled why the growing climate crisis has not been better covered in the media. For the greatest threat facing humanity it seemed to get few column inches in the press or minutes on the telly. The only newspaper that has consistently provided front page news on the crisis is the Guardian. The Guardian is also the only medium that has adopted appropriate terminology (such as "climate crisis" rather than "climate change") and even included carbon dioxide levels in its daily weather forecast.

But the media are now waking up. In a major new initiative founded earlier this year by the Columbia Journalism Review and the Nation newspaper, termed Covering Climate Now, more than 300 news outlets from around the world are addressing the urgent need for stronger climate coverage. The media include print and digital, TV and radio, with a combined audience of well over one billion people. The lead partner is, who else, the Guardian. I noticed The Toronto Star in the list of partners but not, disappointingly, the CBC.

Covering Climate Now has geared up for the UN Climate Action Summit now underway (September 21-23) in New York, pledging to increase the volume and visibility of their climate coverage. This will be the partners' first large-scale collaboration. The Guardian will make some of its climate coverage available free to partners to help smaller publications serve their audiences.

At the launch of the partnership in May, co-founders Mark Hertsgaard of the Nation and Kyle Pope, editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journalism Review, called for change in how the media covers the climate crisis. In an op-ed in the Review, they observed, "Spun by the fossil-fuel industry and vexed by their own business problems, media outlets often leaned on a false balance between the views of genuine scientists and those of paid corporate mouthpieces. The media’s minimization of the looming disaster is one of our great journalistic failures." It is indeed, and we have seen much of the false balance they refer to in the Canadian media.

The climate crisis is, as the Columbia Journalism Review has written, the defining story of our time. Perhaps the world's media is finally recognizing that fact.

It will be lonely when the birds are gone

I live deep in the city yet I enjoy visits from a number of our feathered friends. In the winter I am occasionally honoured by the visit of a wee chickadee. A bashful fellow, he flits half-hidden among the branches of a tall spruce that towers over my apartment.

Frequently a magpie visits me on my balcony. He throws dirt out of my flower posts, scolds me fiercely to let me know who's boss, and then goes on his way. He’s a nuisance but I love the little rascal. I’d miss his visits if he were not there. And the way things are going, one day he, and all his kind, may not be.

According to a new study, "Decline of the North American avifauna," published in the journal Science, there are almost three billion fewer birds in Canada and the United States than there were 50 years ago, a decline of 29 per cent. Birds that migrate long distances have been particularly hard hit, but even species that do well in cities are disappearing. They face a variety of threats: increased pesticide use, domestic cats, collisions with windows, fragmentation of forests, and habitat degradation by intensifying agriculture, urban sprawl, and fragmentation of forests. In other words, it's all our doing.

Sometimes I think we are like a fungus upon the Earth, spreading across and devouring, and often ruining even for our own species, more and more space. When we exterminate large numbers of our own species, which we do regularly, we call it a holocaust. Should we not then call it a holocaust when we exterminate all of another species? If so, then we are committing holocaust after holocaust after holocaust—thousands of holocausts. According to a comprehensive UN report on biodiversity, one million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction, half of them due to "insufficient habitat for long-term survival."

There are things each of us can do to save the birds, including keeping kitty indoors (after habitat loss, cats are the biggest reason for the decline), replacing grass with native plants (native plants can provide shelter, nesting areas and food for birds—grass doesn't), avoiding pesticides, and watching birds and helping track them (there's even an app—eBird).

Perhaps we can still halt the decline, but being the rapacious species we are the odds are not good. Birds are our most delightful neighbours. How like us to repay them for the delight they provide by systematically driving them into extinction.

"For 'tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard"

Accusing Justin Trudeau of being racist is ridiculous. This is a prime minister who formed the most ethnically diverse cabinet in history, welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees, condemned a proposed niqab ban, supported a parliamentary study of Islamophobia, launched a federal anti-racism strategy, funded a new "Centre for Gender, Diversity and Inclusion Statistics," and who has apologized for every historical slight against an ethnic group he can dredge up. The man doesn't have a racist bone in his body.

So what about the face painting? Well, he has a bit of his old man in him, the flamboyance. He's the life of the party, the guy who would go all out for an Arabian Nights theme—the costume, the makeup, the works. We saw this side of him during his infamous visit to India.

Nonetheless, this will go hard on Trudeau because he is so damn self-righteous. He tolerates no such faux pas from his MPs. His demotion of my MP, Kent Hehr, comes to mind. When he gets on the subject of human rights he turns pedantic; he lectures; the school teacher emerges. Remember him instructing the woman at one of his town hall meetings that she should say "personkind," not "mankind." If you are going to be self-righteous you had best be righteous. But if you get caught out, you must suffer the accusations of hypocrisy, and Trudeau's opponents will make sure he suffers.

Mind you, watching Andrew Scheer accuse Trudeau of racism is a bit much given the neanderthals he has lurking in his party. Yet Trudeau deserves it. The Liberals kicked off their campaign by denouncing Scheer for remarks he made about gay marriage years ago, so now Andrew gets his turn. Tit for tat. Sauce for the goose and all that.

Perhaps the former school teacher will take this as a teachable moment. He may learn a little humility. And he may learn to be a little less self-righteous with his candidates and MPs who sin along these lines. Now that his misdeeds have been exposed, perhaps he can be a little more forgiving of theirs.

And, oh, one more thing. A personal message, Justin. You have apologized profusely and sincerely for your antics. Good for you. Now when am I getting my apology for your betrayal on voting reform?

The ghost of Bible Bill Haunts us still

In the late '30s and early '40s Alberta's premier was the colourful William Aberhart, known as "Bible Bill" for his bible studies classes and radio sermons. Founder of the Social Credit Party, Bible Bill introduced a variety of legislation during his term, some good, some not so much. An example of the latter was his Accurate News and Information Act which would have forced newspapers to print government rebuttals to stories the provincial cabinet deemed inaccurate. Needless to say, the Supreme Court deemed the Act unconstitutional.

I thought of Bible Bill when reading about Jason Kenney's Public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns. Premier Kenney and his colleagues are mighty angry about Canadian environmental groups receiving donations from Americans. The inquiry has come as a surprise to many. In a democracy one does not expect the government to use the powers of the state to harass those citizens who challenge its policies. But this is Alberta, Bible Bill country even today.

Many may also wonder just what the issue is. So some Americans are donating to some Canadian charities. So? The donations are legal and quite appropriate—after all, greenhouse gasses produced from Alberta fossil fuels don't stay in Alberta. They affect the lives of Americans and everyone else, so all have a right to be involved.

Both donors and charities are environmentalists so naturally they support dramatically reducing the burning of fossil fuels, as do all people with good sense in the face of global warming. And, needless to say, the country's fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, the tar sands, catches their particular attention, as it should.

It's not as if the anti-fossil fuel groups are alone in enjoying American largesse. Pro-fossil fuel organizations such as the Fraser Institute are heavily funded by American companies, including oil interests. Not that I'm creating an equivalence. The Tides Foundation's  donations to the Pembina Institute promote its interest in a cleaner, greener world. Koch Industries' donations to the Fraser Institute promote its interest in an industry that's fouling the planet but which makes Koch large sums of money.

And then there's the oil industry itself. In an act of monumental hypocrisy, Premier Kenney attacks environmentalists for accepting foreign money while actively encouraging foreign investment in the industry.

The commissioner of the inquiry, Steve Allen, is a man of substantial achievement and integrity. Why he has chosen to chair this folly is a puzzle. Perhaps he simply believes in public service and when the premier calls it his duty to serve. I only hope his reputation survives the witch hunt.