For example, the ice-breakers were promised in 2005 and again in 2008, and have been delayed once again. China, with no Arctic coastline at all, now has icebreakers in Canada’s waters while our Coast Guard’s Amundsen is in dry dock.

The construction of the deepwater port naval port in Nanisivik promised in 2007 has yet to be begun, despite promises it would begin two years ago. Also two years ago, the Prime Minister announced a major new satellite project, the Radarstat Constellation Mission. It now appears to be mired in budgetary delays.

In one of the more recent bizarre announcements, Stephen Harper promised the creation of a new Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) to be built in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. It was first pledged in the 2007 Speech from the Throne claiming the government would “build a world-class Arctic research station that will be on the cutting edge of Arctic issues, including environmental science and resource development.”

It is bizarre because at the same time that the Harper Conservatives are pledging millions to build a new research facility from the ground up, they are shutting down the internationally renowned PEARL (Polar Environmental and Atmospheric Research Laboratory). PEARL recently had $10-million invested in state of the art equipment to monitor ozone depletion and the build up of greenhouse gases. Closing it down is a scandal.

Part of Harper’s vision is clearly the exploitation of fossil fuel resources in the Arctic. Last spring, licences were opened up to start the planning for prospecting and exploration to tap into the oil and gas now increasingly accessible as the ice shrinks.

A quite different view of the Arctic comes from the scientific community. The Arctic faces new pressures for resource exploitation, from fisheries to oil and gas. Far from being an economic bonanza, the rapidly disappearing summer ice is a disaster. On Aug. 26, we reached an all-time loss of Arctic Sea ice. The melt represents a loss of more than 40 per cent of summer ice extent in the past decade alone. The melting of Arctic ice had been an anticipated climate change impact for decades, but the pace at which the ice is melting exceeds earlier projections. The explanation lies in the impact of positive feed-back loops. The loss of ice compromises the albedo effect, a cooling effect. The white ice bounces the sun’s heat back to space, whereas the dark ocean water absorbs it, speeding the warming. Less ice equals warmer waters, melting more ice.

The loss of Arctic ice has devastating impacts on the entire planet. Research at Rutgers University identified the mechanism by which the melting Arctic is impacting areas far to the south through increasingly serious extreme weather events. It turns out the difference between Arctic cold and Equatorial heat has kept the jet stream moving fast and relatively horizontally over mid-latitudes.

With the warming Arctic, the difference has gone wobbly and so has the jet stream. Fires, floods, and droughts have increased globally as the jet stream slows down due to a warming Arctic. Moving more slowly it lies in lazy loops, leaving high pressure and low pressure zones in place for unusually long periods of time. It is too early to diagnose the causes of the ferocity of Hurricane Sandy, but clearly the melting of the Arctic is implicated.

Yet, on the Prime Minister’s Arctic visits, climate change is never mentioned. Of course, moving to open up the Arctic to oil and gas is to throw fuel on the fire that is warming the Earth and melting the Arctic. Last spring, the federal government moved to boost offshore petroleum development in Arctic waters. The National Energy Board announced it would weaken its policy requiring proof of an ability to build a relief well in the same season prior to drilling. This creates unacceptable levels of risk for the Arctic. Norway requires proven capability to initiate a relief well within 12 days of any accident. It seems the industry has more concerns for safety than the Conservative government. Total SA, the French oil giant, withdrew from its planned oil exploitation in Greenland, noting that the costs of any accident outweighed any benefit.

Similarly, Royal Dutch Shell abandoned its plans to drill off Alaska after a $4.5-billion investment continued to fail technologically. The reality is that drilling for oil in the Arctic is highly dangerous as, for much of the year, any response to an emergency will be impossible. Industry experts confirm that the private sector would not be interested in the Arctic at all—if not for subsidies.

As Canada takes the chair in the Arctic Council, it is my hope that Aglukkaq will champion a vision for a sustainable Arctic.

We need to work for an oil spill prevention strategy, for affordable food and Inuit rights, and a fisheries management strategy, within a precautionary and stewardship approach. And we have to stop ignoring the threat of a rapidly-warming climate.

Elizabeth May is the Leader of the Green Party of Canada and the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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It is no secret that Stephen Harper is uninterested in science.  One of his first decisions was to unburden himself of the Science Advisor to the Prime Minister. Dr. Arthur Carty held the position when Harper came to power.  When his term ended, it was not continued, and the position dissolved.

Cuts to climate science have been clear for more than a year.  March 2012 marked the end of all funding, put in place in 2000 under Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien, for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. The Harper Conservatives announced last year there was no intention to continue the programme.  $110 million over ten years for autonomous research funding in Canada’s major universities has been spent expanding our understanding of the climate crisis in its multi-faceted disciplines of inquiry. There will be no more federal funding.

Also last year, cuts in Environment Canada seemed directed to anything with the word climate attached.  The entire group of term scientists working on research for adaptation to climate change, calculating the required changes in building codes, for example, to handle the altered climate, were laid off.  The entire Adaptation to Climate Change Research Group was disbanded. So too was the group within Natural Resources Canada maintaining work on Arctic ice cores.  An 80,000 year climate record in ice cores is to be abandoned (the minister said he hoped a university with a big freezer would take them) And the nine glaciologists who did the work are to focus on other issues. 

This year, the cuts are coming thick and fast. Climate is still a target, but so also are water quality and toxicology.

The PEARL facility (the Polar Environmental and Atmospheric Research Laboratory) on Ellesemere Island is to close.  Recent investments of $10 million on state of the art equipment is to be wasted.  At 80 degrees north latitude, PEARL was the closest lab on the planet to the North Pole.  Running costs are only $1.5 million annually, but, despite having $8 million to enhance Canada Revenue Agency’s ability to audit environmental groups, there is no money to maintain critical research.  The world’s scientific community is stunned.  The loss of measurements from PEARL increase the risk that we are flying blind into climate change.

Then came the announcement that the Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora, Ontario is to close.  This facility is unique in the world.  Fifty-eight fresh water lakes 250 kilometres east of Winnipeg have been the testing ground for freshwater science research since the late 1960s.  Ground-breaking work on acid rain, the link between phosphates in detergents and eutrophication, the connection between higher UV levels and penetration at depths, with the additional factor of climate change – all of these findings were made possible because the Government of Canada maintained this real world laboratory of fresh water wilderness lakes.  Just a few years ago, when Stephen Harper was already Prime Minister, $3 million in new investments were made to upgrade the labs. The running cost per year? $600,000. In the House last Friday, the Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Fisheries announced that it will be sold to private interests.

Next up, cuts at NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) mean that the Yukon Research Lab at Yukon College in Whitehorse is also to close.  The $2.7 million facility only opened last fall – October 2011. But the Harper 2012 budget calls for NSERC to re-focus on research that is “business-led and industry-relevant.”  So much for studying the Yukon’s changing environment.

Then there are the personnel cuts.  The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is ending its national contaminants programme. Nearly all of the DFO scientists studying marine toxicology across Canada are being laid off – 75 scientists. That includes nine marine biologists specializing in marine toxicology in the Institute for Ocean Sciences on the West Saanich Road. According to Dr. Peter Ross, recently dismissed from IOS, “The entire pollution file for the government of Canada, and marine environment in Canada’s three oceans, will be overseen by five junior biologists scattered across Canada – one of which will be in BC.”  (quoted in Times Colonist, “Ottawa sinks pollution checks,” May 20, 2012)

We do not know where the axe will fall next. The cuts are secretive and un-announced.  We learn of them one blow at a time. At the same time as we cut climate science, we are driving up greenhouse gas emissions.  As we shut down research into the effects of toxic chemicals in Arctic marine mammals, the federal government has opened up a huge area of the Beaufort Sea for leases for oil drilling.

What is clear is that the cuts are not about fighting the deficit. If you have to lay off a certain amount of staff in deficit cutting, the priority is to keep key programmes functional – to maintain operations with less.  Setting out to render ourselves deaf, dumb and blind to the impact our resource-mad mania, called the Harper economic strategy, will visit on the natural world, and our own future, is so short-sighted that language is inadequate. Words fail.

Please help spread awareness of this anti-science agenda.  Write friends and family across Canada.  Demand the cuts be reversed.

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