Climate of Paris

Opinion: An atmosphere of positive change for Canada at COP21.

First, a climate poem. 

Seeing our new Government of Canada act on climate is an impressive start. Justin Trudeau has turned the lights back on in Parliament and is showing the world that his team means business in Paris. I'm impressed with the choices for Cabinet and think they could do very well. Time will tell. Justin Trudeau has also engaged the Premiers and bonded with Elizabeth May.

Will Canada win The Fossil Fuel Awards again? Perhaps, changing government doesn't change the dirty businesses creating the problems. I'm impressed with Justin's leadership and the world is starting to notice. I see many Canadians excited to see our democracy begin healing. In many ways, this moment reminds me of post-Bush. Can Justin help Canada's dirty ways?

Watching the leadership of Barack Obama continuing to advance the conversation on climate and policy is also impressive. What Barack did, Justin now faces. The good news is that rebuilding can bring new opportunity for Canada. If Justin can boost research and development for our future green economy, Canada can begin to heal and grow again. Barack enjoyed many consecutive months of positive jobs growth and higher innovation and green manufacturing economic activity.

Should Canada continue to subsidize fossil fuels with over $34 billion per year? Who will buy this dirty energy? How can fossil fuels compete when green energy is 10 times cheaper?

Well, spoilers, until nanotechnology can extract oilsands energy with very high efficiency, and no pollution, the World Bank is correct, oilsands are stranded assets. The free market will do more for Canada than Justin Trudeau can. It's called evolution, watch and learn.

Enjoy!

Politics of Science

Opinion: In a knowledge based economy, ignoring reality is dangerous.

Listening to great speakers is a treat. The ideas fly freely, each new bit giving the discussion a new interesting direction. I have always been drawn to the ability to communicate science, well. I just listened to Star TalkRadio Podcast, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson interviewing Bill Clinton on politics and science.

It's fun listening to those that catch the science bug. Bill Clinton is a very curious man, and his impact, as President, on science and the economy is simply huge. Neil and Bill both talked about how the US should have a ?Secretary of Science? To help direct policy to make it smart policy. To invest in the science that will grow into opportunities.

Bill Clinton initiatives helped launch the World Wide Web, the Human Genome Project and launched the HubbleSpace Telescope. Sure Bill's smart, but he had a lot of help. He listened carefully to his science advisers on which knowledge would benefit America, and its citizens. 

Looking back, would a Republican America launched these projects, or just go to war to help stimulate the Dick Cheney economy? Where would America be without leadership in these areas? In my blog Freedom of Research, I talk about how science translates into things, sometimes decades later. Looking back, we can see the wisdom in Bill's decisions.

Bill Clinton just seems to keep moving. Jimmy Carter, as well. They know that real damage can be done using dumb policy. They also know how to build a winning team and a winning plan. It's a security threat and both Bill and Jimmy know it.

Science has to become a focus, fast, for Canada to flourish in on our third* industrial revolution. Jobs and security using one plan is smart. 

I hope that Kirsty Duncan, Canada's Science Minister, can help accelerate us past 2015 and Canada's dark decade.

Enjoy!

PS - I also enjoy like listening to Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and Sam Harris.

* - Green Revolution ;) 

Canadian Wind Energy

A longer winded opinion:

As most journalists, in Canada, failed to recognize the absurdity in Stephen Harper Government wind safety study, our new evidence-based Government may start to make serious changes that will help our country, and our citizens. Journalists are not well suited to science journalism. Excellent science journalists seem even more rare than investigative journalists. Publications like Nature and Scientific American have some great ones, but in reality, how many newspapers in Canada could, or would, afford such folks? 

How many knew that both Nature and Scientific American both reported on Harper Government's contempt of science? Nature even wrote about Canada's new chance to restore reality in our Great White North.

It's quite draining having to watch important science stories get fumbled, or completely missed, by the Canadian media. Canada has the highest scientific literacy in the world, but our journalism is certainly lacking. Even the journalism at CBC didn't see the blip on their "science radar".

The anti-wind groups in Canada still publish, and purport, debunked claims, and the Canadian media eats it up and publishes it. What's most wind-damaging is delaying the transition to green energy and the real consequences of ignoring the reality of both climate change and air pollution. With some predicting that 100 million people will die by 2030 from climate impacts, it seems CBC's radar needs an upgrade. 

Stephen Harper's wind study actually accepted anecdotes as scientific evidence, there were no scientific measurements taken on health impacts. They actually used stories as evidence. Wow. So, no science, no science journalism, no worries ?!?!

Our new Government will need to quickly eliminate these agnotology-based delusions and get wind energy in Canada sailing again, to help build our green future and make it healthier.

Canada's new Science Minister, Kirsty Duncan, and Safety Minister, Ralph Goodale, will need to clear these dumb-ALEC roadblocks fast. With Germany investing over US ~$66 billion in offshore wind, we see they are installing energy cheaper than nuclear, with less vertical cost. By 2020, the global offshore wind market will be worth US $40 billion. Canada needs to be part of delivering it, as well. Seems like we need to figure out What's Safe.

Canada has plenty of space for offshore wind. Ontario is still “studying” offshore wind? Seems a quick schooling from Germany should show which way the winds are blowing.

Breath deep, exhale, and enjoy!

What's Safe?

Opinion: Safety in Canada needs to be restored.

In my past few blogs: Greening Canada, Freedom of Research, and Protect Our Waters, I've been sharing some basic ideas on what Canada needs to do to restore Government, and our economy, after our Stephen Harper Government. One of the biggest targets that Stephen aimed at was science. Canada was a world leader, before it was quietly muzzled and broken. By oppressing reality, one can enable ideology. 

If we don't have the metrics to determine if something is “bad”, it must be “good”? Was that Stephens thinking? When Stephen Harper ignorantly eliminated the long form census, it wasn't to brand future libertarians on “small government” and privacy, it was to hide the truth, and nothing but the truth, from Canada.

As evidenced by Canada's blind faith in safety, and the magical self-regulating free market, there are many examples of risks our Government should not take with our future. It's troubling to see the results of this contempt of duty to protect Canada. We have unsafe infrastructure, unsafe oil trains, unsafe pipelines, unsafe mining operations, unsafe food supplements that are untested, unsafe & untested designer synthetic drugs delivered by untested e-cigarettes, unreliable population data critical to national security, etc. It's a mess. If we need safer streets, we need better science-based road designs.

Canada needs to control which companies can operate here, and which products are safe to sell. Today, I noticed a hashtag trending on twitter, #GreenEconomyON. Some corporations, touting green solutions for Ontario. The irony is that one actually polluted our Great Lakes with untested products. They themselves stopped producing the product, which is positive, but only after years of public activism. Shouldn't corporations and products be proved safe before we can let them operate or sell products? Shouldn't the Board be responsible? Shouldn't they take ownership of their activities?

Without a higher standard, and quality science to measure safety, Canada will continue to play this dangerous, sometimes deadly, sometimes toxic, game with our future. If we want a safer Canada, we need to use a scientific approach.

Enjoy!