The Nathanson Centre is hosting a talk by it's visiting scholar Alessandro Spena, University of Palermo
Date: December 12
Time: 12:30
Location: 2028, Ignat Kaneff Building, Osgoode Hall Law School
Blogs
“Climate Change is NOT a hoax” (B. Obama) blog #5: Introducing York’s UNFCCC delegates
It's that time of year again: the annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This year, UNFCCC COP 18, is being held at Doha, Qatar, and meetings began yesterday, Monday, November 26th. This year, York's delegation is made up of professors from quite different disciplines: Professor Muhammad Yousaf (Chemistry - at left) and Professor Idil Boran (Philosophy - below right). Sadly, Professor Ian Garrett from the Department of Theatre, who received accreditation as part of the delegation, was unable to attend the COP in person, but plans to blog about it from afar.
Professor Boran is carrying out SSHRC-funded research which re-examines climate change policy, with a special focus on the challenges for decision-making, both at the individual and the societal level. She is interested in understanding the extent to which recent research in the social sciences that pertains to the effect of social and cognitive factors on our decision-making processes can help to develop new approaches to climate change policy. Professor Boran seeks to articulate the implications of this research for international debates and negotiations toward a global agreement.
Her participation at COP18, will, she hopes, allow her to assess whether the strategies and arguments used in international debates are compatible or incompatible with the latest social scientific developments, and whether they can mutually learn from one another. In light of these observations, she will be able to draw implications both for theory and policy practice. She will set targets, for her own research, on how to analyze the new scholarly advances on decision-making on climate change policy, in light of insights from actual decision-making and negotiation processes. This in turn can potentially contribute to a more refined theoretical analysis and help bridge the gap between theory and practice in scholarly research.
Although Professor Yousaf is newly arrived at York's Chemistry Department (in 2011), which he chairs, from the Chemistry Department at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, he is no stranger to the campus. He is a York alumnus, having graduated with a Chemistry and Biology B.Sc. degree in 1994!
Professor Yousaf has wide-ranging research interests that span from chemistry to biology, and he also has an interest in understanding how science informs policy. He will be bringing his science-perspective to the COP, as he seeks to understand exactly how the science of climate change is regarded by the policy makers, and politicians.
We wish Professors Boran and Yousaf all the best in Doha. They will be sending updates and mini-blogs as time permits. Professor Ian Garrett (at left), who attended COP 15, is a veteran blogger and co-founder of the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. He is the recently arrived Professor of Sustainability and Design in the Faculty of Fine Arts, and he will be casting his critical artist's eye on the Doha meetings, from Toronto.
This is the fourth delegation that York University is sending to the annual meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change, since 2009, when we applied for, and received Civil Society Observer Status for York University in time for COP 15 in Copenhagen. Past York delegations have included staff, students and faculty from areas as diverse as Political Science, Nursing, and the Faculty of Environmental Studies. Outcomes from delegates have included experiences that informed a book, Climate Change - Who's Carrying the Burden, edited by Professor Anders Sandberg and his son, Tor, and blogs by Jacquie Medalye, as well as extensive national and international networking.
Dawn R. Bazely
“Climate Change is NOT a hoax” (B. Obama) blog #4: David Miller lectures to students in Climate Change Science & Policy (ENVS 3400)
While it's possible for university students to spend all of their time outside of scheduled classes, so as to be learning even more (perish the thought!), by attending additional guest research seminars and lectures, most students don't take advantage of opportunities to hear well-known speakers who come to campus.
Realizing this, Annette Dubreuil, the IRIS co-ordinator, spearheaded an effort to bring invited speakers, who will be of interest to the broader community, into the classroom, and to open up these lectures as IRIS events. Last Thursday, former mayor of Toronto, David Miller spoke to students in Dr. Kaz Higuchi's course, Climate Change Science and Policy (ENVS 3400).
Originally, Kaz had discussed convening a panel to debate opposing views on climate change, but David categorically dismissed this option; as he put it - the climate skeptics funded by corporate interests don't need another platform. In case you're wondering, Dr. Higuchi is a climate scientist who recently retired from Environment Canada's Adaptation and Impacts Research Group. He has been teaching in the Faculty of Environmental Studies for several years, and he is very concerned that academics from all disciplines learn how to debate and handle arguments for and against climate change.
David Miller, who has been teaching at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University based in Brooklyn, showcased his oratorical skills in a tour-de-force lecture about how Toronto and other cities are mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change.
It was a text book lesson in how to explain, very clearly, evidence-based policy that leads to actions which are beneficial for people, the planet and, profits. Citing many statistics and studies, as he laid out the challenges facing cities, David described and explained the steps that Toronto took while he was mayor. He described Change is in the Air, the 2007 Climate Change, Clean Air and Sustainable Energy Action Plan, as well as other Toronto city plans, and how they are driving action on combatting climate change.
David also explained some fascinating, green jobs technologies, including one in which heat is extracted from sewage - this also has a high "ick" factor. He challenged the audience of students, faculty and staff to come up with a snappier name for the company and product - International Wastewater Heat Exchange Systems (IWHES)! (Check out the awesome video on their site).
We filled one of the gorgeous new lecture halls in the recently opened Life Sciences Building which is built to LEED silver rating standards, on the Keele Campus. After a 45-minute lecture, students lined up to ask David questions, for 45 minutes, about all kinds of sustainability, climate change and social justice issues. After the talk, I asked Roger Keil, director of York's CITY Institute, who was sitting behind me, why he hadn't asked a question, he quipped "what for? the students did a great job!"
And, after all the questions were finished, David stayed for a bit longer, and chatted informally with students, many of whom were keen to have their photos snapped with him. Enrique Miranda (Student Engagement co-ordinator) and Ramsen Yousif (President) of the Undergraduate Political Science Council executive, a co-sponsor of the event, are shown above left, with the former mayor.
At the end of the day:
Score one for a brilliantly delivered explanation of evidence-based policy.
Score two for articulate speakers who can explain the science and connect the dots for making the social justice case clear, when it comes to climate change.
Score three for former politicians who live on in more ways than in old fridge magnets (that's my super-duper green fridge at right, on which we have a collection of old magnets, including one from when David Miller was our city councillor - back in 1995). One student remarked after the lecture "I just learned more about municipal planning in this lecture than I did all year!"
The lecture will soon be available on the IRIS website, in case you missed it and want to hear what David had to tell the students.
Dawn R. Bazely
Mobilizing around Campus Food
On November 7th the York Federation of Students (YFS) Task Force on Campus Food hosted a Town Hall on Campus Food to try and address the concerns that many students have about campus food options (see the latest edition of Excalibur for an update on that meeting – Vol. 47 Iss.13). There is growing concern about a lack of easily accessible healthy options for students to eat whether they just come to campus for classes or whether they live on campus.
In 2009 IRIS conducted an extensive survey on the availability of these food services and the kinds of options available for consumption on campus, and published its findings in a report titled “Examining Campus Food Sustainability at York University”. The aim of this report was to generate some recommendations for creating a more healthy and sustainable food system here on campus. Some of the recommendations that this report delivered included more student-run independent vendors that are supported by University subsidies, a coordinated business plan for all of the separate food delivery agencies, and the improvement of outreach and communication to the York community regarding the range of food services on campus.
The York Federation of Students is also conducting a survey to put together a list of recommendations that will be delivered to the York University administration. These recommendations will no doubt be of a similar nature. While it is great to see students engaging in food issues on campus, and wanting to define their own food landscape, this work has been done already in a comprehensive and efficient fashion. Perhaps YFS should be focusing their resources on an assessment of whether the recommendations made by IRIS have been addressed by the administration and how we can move forward together.
In fact York has tried to improve on their outreach to students about healthy options on campus by adopting the Eat Smart guidelines produced by Toronto Public Health and by creating a guide to eating healthy on campus. As well, Food Services has recently launched a new website with a directory that is easy to search. While many food types can be found in the search (including Halal, vegan, etc.), some remain harder to find (gluten free, Kosher). They have also implemented a Freshii location, as well as some homemade ethnic options at some cafeteria locations (including Indian, Mexican and Asian), as well as a host of other changes to improve the food experience on campus.
York University has a history of alternative food vendors that have had a presence on campus. Unfortunately none of them seem to last very long due to fiscal constraints, heavy competition from fast food vendors, or terminated contracts. York had a short-lived farmer’s market in 2010 that quickly came up against a bureaucratic tidal wave of food safety concerns and has not been able to resurface, despite the hard work of the people at Regenesis@York. In its place remains the Good Food Market, but these occur a significant walk away, in the Jane/Finch community.
York also has a history of student-run sustainable food vendors. The only one that still exists seems to be the Lunik Co-op on the Glendon campus. There is also a little known initiative in the works to create a green campus cooperative in the HNES building. It is projects like these that need to be supported and expanded instead of expending energy polling students. As students we need to improve on creating an institutional memory so that we have something to build on when we are frustrated about how something works on campus. As one of the largest universities in Ontario we have the power to mobilize around issues that are important to us. YFS is an amazing resource for generating that mobilizing power and I believe that we could make some significant changes if there was a sense of unity and collective action that was able to form.
The fact that York is situated in an area that is generally known to have poor access to food sources (i.e. lack of grocery stores, other than Food Cents, which is outside of the core campus) means that York also has the potential to be a food hub for the surrounding community. If a grocery store was able to fit into the York campus not only would this be a benefit to students, but also to the surrounding community. In fact, the York University Secondary Plan, approved by City Council on December 4, 2009, states that a grocery store in Mixed Used Areas “C” would be “permitted and encouraged”. However, the ongoing efforts by the York University Development Corporation to update York’s Master Plan (York’s third, and due to be completed this year), do not mention concrete plans for a grocery store, but rather just mention the idea from community consultations).
Everyone can relate to food issues somehow because it is a major concern for us all and one that effects how we eat, how healthy we are, and how we relate to our built environment. We have the power to shape this environment and to shape how we eat.
IRIS is a good resource at York University for students wanting to maintain that institutional memory and build on good food work that is already underway on campus. If you find yourself wanting to learn more about food issues and how the situation at York fits in to the broader food system come and check out the second annual Focus on Sustainability Film Festival: Food in February.
“Climate Change is NOT a hoax” (B. Obama) blog #3: Evidence-based policy and the need for scientists to talk to the public
In their 2000 book, The Cultural Creatives, Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, two professors in the USA, examined common values that are held by people regardless of their political affiliation - democrat or republican. They generated a long list of shared characteristics that cut across partisan political boundaries, such as an interest in ecological sustainability, and respect for womens' rights.
One value that I hope most people would share across a broad-political spectrum, is that of using the best-available research to inform policy. I would also wager, that given the difference between the trends in Canadian and USA citizens' beliefs about whether climate change has a human cause, most Canadians would think that we'd be much more likely to find ideology-driven policy (this is basically policy that's driven by belief and values, even in the face of contradictory evidence, that suggests that the value-based policy may not serve society's broader interests), south of the 49th parallel.
Ummm, so, the actual evidence appears to runs contrary this assumption. In an in-depth article for The Walrus in September 2012, and a more light-hearted Toronto Star article from August 2012 (if that's possible, given the seriousness of the topic), by self-described seniors, criminal defence lawyer Edward L. Greenspan, and criminologist, Professor Emeritus Anthony N. Doob challenge federal criminal justice policy that runs in direct opposition to research results. They wrote in the Toronto Star, that: "The minister of justice said he is not interested in evidence-based policy: “We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” he said. “We’re governing on the basis of what’s right to better protect victims and law-abiding Canadians.”"
If crime has been declining since 1992 (so the stats say), then building more prisons to incarcerate more people, which the Harper government is pushing, just doesn't make good policy sense. But, aha, perhaps there's a profit-motive in here somewhere. So, if you are interested in learning more about what a profit-motive associated with higher levels of imprisonment could look like, then, in the spirit of NOT getting our information from verifiable, peer-reviewed sources that feed into the evidence-base of the policy pyramid, I can thoroughly recommend the Jailhouse Job episode, from the TV series, Leverage, starring Timothy Hutton.
Since the present Canadian justice minister is not interested in evidence-based policy, it seems pretty evident to me, that this value must, logically, hold across all branches of the federal government. You can't have one ministry rejecting the concept of "evidence-based" and another accepting it, can you? OK - maybe you can.... in a blog from 2011, Tobi Cohen explains exactly how this government achieves this multiple-personality approach.
So, what's a researcher, engaged in knowledge production to do, when confronted by all this rejection of tedious data? One option, is to go to a meeting where politicians are discussing the importance of research in policy development, and try to feel some love. This is exactly what I did last week at the Thornhill Federal Liberal Riding Association fundraiser event in Vaughn, Ontario, just north of Toronto.
A retired colleague, Prof Emeritus Ken Davey FRSC, Order of Canada, of York University's Biology Department, organized a panel consisting of provincial and federal members of parliament, including Dr. Ted Hsu, the Liberal MP for Kingston and the Islands. Dr. Hsu is a physicist, who went into business, and then into politics. He is the Liberal critic for science and technology, and has been one of the most active Canadian politicians in calling out the Harper government on their humungous cuts to science, including the closure of the Experimental Lakes Area. Incidentally, York University's Professor Norman Yan is speaking, today, on a panel at the University of Toronto, about the Experimental Lakes closure: Unmuzzled - The Urgent Need for the Vocal Aquatic Scientist in Today's Political Climate in Canada.
In his speech, Dr. Hsu explained the implications of cancelling the long-form census, the gutting of Environment Canada and Parks Canada, the muzzling of federal scientists, and of many other Harper government idealogically-motivated cuts to those parts of our federal government that deal in producing high quality data or the provision of expert review. Dr. Hsu also talked about his excitement at the Death of Evidence rally in Ottawa in July 2012, at which he was the only MP to address the crowd. He was delighted to see a group (namely, scientists), who don't normally engage in political actions, becoming active.
Well, yeh, I was aware of the demonstration, since a number of my colleagues organized it and many attended it - and, way to go, guys! Unfortunately, as a veteran demonstrator myself (taking my toddler to Queen's Park in the mid-1990s, to demonstrate against cuts to daycare, etc.), it's hard for me to see how this lab-coat protest is going to contribute towards bringing about a change in attitude on the part of the Harper government. The real work lies elsewhere. This rally was baby-step number zero.
In my opinion, one of the main reasons why Canadian science has been suffering so much at the hands of the current federal government, is that Canada has been a laggard when it comes to supporting and promoting the Public Understanding of Science. You only have to look to the United Kingdom, at science personalities like, now retired, Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University, and Jim Al-Khalili, the Professor of Public Engagement in Science at Surrey University, to see the boosted profile that basic science research has in society.
Both in the UK and the USA, there is much more organized advocacy for research. For example, while on sabbatical at Harvard, there was a call at the Forest, for a training opportunity to teach researchers how to speak to their congressman or congresswoman.
Are there strategic solutions to this Canadian gap in science engagement? Yesterday, the Science Media Centre of Canada, a non-profit charity, and the office of York's Vice-President for Research and Innovation, held a "journalism bootcamp" or Journalism 101 afternoon session for scientists to learn how to improve their interactions with the media. Members of a panel, Karen McCairley, an Executive Producer at Discovery Channel, Jim Handman, Senior Producer of CBC's Quirks and Quarks, Hannah Hoag, freelance science journalist and Penny Park, Executive Director of the Science Media Centre spelled out, in hilarious, and very plain language, how to be a more accessible scientist to the public and media.
I got to give a presentation, as a scientist, about why we (I'm looking at you in your lab coats and uncombed hair!) SHOULD communicate with the public about science, both directly and indirectly, instead of hiding in our labs., or in my case a ditch, or a forest. Here are my 5 main reasons:
1. The public are taxpayers, they fund you, and they deserve to hear directly from you (OK, so the Harper government doesn't want that, but other governments support this notion and have developed some great guidelines).
2. Outreach and engagement is increasingly written into funding requirements.
3. If the scientist doesn't communicate in plain language, someone else will do it for him/her.
4. Learning how to communicate in plain language can have the payoff, of enabling better interdisciplinary communication within academia, and increased research opportunities where large, interdisciplinary collaborations are required for funding.
5. To help Canada catch up with the UK and USA, which are ahead in encouraging the area of the public understanding of science.
At the bootcamp, Peter Calamai, a veteran Canadian science journalist and a founding member of the Canadian Science Writers' Association, reported some alarming statistics from the USA that underscored the importance of scientists communicating with our various publics. Most Americans cannot name a living scientist - 15% managed Stephen Hawking (the slide above is used with permission). This was reported in the March 2011 Research Amer!ca: Your Congress, Your Health, National Public Opinion Poll. Peter also recommended the book, Escape from the Ivory Tower by Nancy Baron, as a must-read for scientists.
In their book, Unscientific America - How scientific illiteracy threatens America, authors Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirschenbaum report that only 18% of Americans have actually met a scientist. Which prompted one blogger, at New Voices for Research to encourage scientists to head out into the street, shake a stranger's hand and introduce ourselves!
So, there are the marching orders for scientists living in Conservative-held Federal ridings across Canada - go forth and shake a lot of hands. That's what it is going to take to build voter-support for natural and physical sciences, social sciences academic research, and evidence-based policy, one hand-shake at a time.
Dawn Bazely
And PS - I talk to politicians of all stripes and people from all walks of life - this is a fundamental approach of sustainability - to be inclusive, and cut-across partisan politics. I believe that I just might be a Cultural Creative! Do the test for yourself, and find out whether you are one.
“Climate Change is NOT a Hoax” (B. Obama) Blog #2: Just cancelled my Globe and Mail subscriptions
SCENE: Kitchen, writing student references for medical schools, while CBC's As It Happens plays on the radio.
JEFF DOUGLAS (As It Happens radio broadcoaster):
""Media Culpa." That's the name of a blog maintained by Ottawa artist Carol Wainio. As the name suggests, the blog exposes what Ms. Wainio believes to be substandard journalism. Lately, her spotlight has been focusing on one Canadian journalist in particular: Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente.
On Friday, the Globe's Public Editor, Sylvia Stead, responded to some of the issues raised by Ms Wainio. Ms. Stead included an explanation from Ms. Wente. But Carol Wainio isn't satisfied, and neither is John Miller.
He's the founding Chair of Ryerson University's Journalism Department and professor emeritus. We reached Mr. Miller in Port Hope, Ontario." (from The Monday Edition of As It Happens, duration 7 mins 49 secs)
DAWN BAZELY: "What the heck?" To my family hanging around doing homework and reading the Globe and Mail: "Did you hear that?"
Yes, we heard it and after the interview with Prof. Miller (starting at minute 13:25 of the podcast), I read many of the blogs and the Globe and Mail articles about the plagiarism. The Globe and Mail admitted to some of what Carol Wainio has been documenting, though did not call it plagiarism. It culminated, this morning, in my sending a Letter to the Editor of the Globe and Mail explaining that until a transparent and public investigation takes place to restore my faith in their journalistic standards and practices, that I would be cancelling my online and print subscriptions. Too bad, because I am a huge fan of Lucy Waverman's recipes, and my lobbying to get her back to the Saturday Life section from the mid-week section appeared to have borne fruit.
What does this debacle at the Globe and Mail have to do with Climate Change? A lot, actually (more on that in a moment).
It also has to do with how universities deal with ethics and academic integrity, including plagiarism. York University students are required to read the Academic Integrity webpages and do the tutorial about it. At York, I was one of the first professors to use Turnitin plagiarism software, because I brought in a lot of written work into BIOL 2050 (Ecology). Course instructors and teaching assistants spend a huge amount of their time educating about and policing academic honesty and making sure that plagiarism is not happening and if something is flagged as being potential plagiarism, filing complaints, holding meetings with associate deans and students involved, and then doing any follow up remedial work. There are large chunks of my life spent with tearful, upset students, that I will never ever get back.
So to read that a very public and polarizing columnist who has been given many board-feet of column space in what Chris Selley of the National Post describes in an online post as Canada's "self-styled paper of record" is not only being questioned about possible plagiarism and that several instances of this have been raised in the past by Carol Wainio (you can read the comparisons of the text - they are all over the internet), but then to see the muted responses from the Globe's Public Editor, and the Editor, made me feel utterly dismayed. THIS IS SERIOUS! In our courses, this would get students called into meetings, and if it continued (as appears to be have been happening), there would be a ramped up response and penalties imposed - severe penalties. Chris Selley quite rightly went on to observe that the Globe's response "is completely out of keeping with the global journalism mainstream".
I have written about the challenges of consistent blogging about sustainability, because of the time that I feel ethically obliged to spend checking sources, referencing and inserting links into posts, so as to maintain the standards that I am supposed to uphold as an academic. I get freaked out about accuracy and attribution. Apparently the Globe and Mail doesn't see this as such a big issue.
And finally, climate change... It's simply that Margaret Wente's many columns on climate change, sustainability, energy, etc. indicate that she is happy to give a big shout out to skeptics and denialists and generally is not interested in considering the boring old scientific community in a respectful, (even semi-) balanced and informed dialogue. Furthermore, a number of her columns about about the environment have contained errors through omission - exactly one of the reasons for academic dishonesty charges being levelled against Bjorn Lomborg, himself a controversial climate skeptic - then believer - now unfunded. I gave up reading Wente a long time ago after realizing that any time spent analyzing and responding was a total waste. The people now defending Wente in the comments section of the Globe and Mail appear to be supporting her because she speaks to their cultural beliefs and for them, uncomfortable facts are really not going to be that important (aka cognitive dissonance). A couple of years ago, the Globe and Mail actually did publish a response by Gerald Butts of WWF Canada to one of Wente's anti-climate change screeds.
So, here I go - a bit of analysis and observation of a couple of Wente columns:
From a December 1st 2011 column, "Suppression of climate debate is a disaster for science"
"Instead of distancing themselves from the shenanigans, the broader climate-science community has treated the central figures in Climategate like persecuted heroes. That is a terrible mistake, because it erodes the credibility of the entire field. The suppression of legitimate debate is a catastrophe for climate science. It’s also a catastrophe for science, period." (M. Wente)
Sorry - but the climate scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit were cleared of malpractice allegations, as reported by the Guardian on April 14 2010 in an inquiry headed by Lord Oxburgh. More of the same hacked emails were put out there after the inquiry had finished, by the denialists - but Wente doesn't mention the Oxburgh inquiry results anywhere, as far as I can tell - though she does consistently say that the science of climate change is not settled. NOT TRUE! Surely the Globe could have afforded to send her to any one of the International Polar Year conferences held in Quebec.
And in the same column, Wente cites an economics professor on the topic of climate science: "Ross McKitrick... at the University of Guelph who is a leading climate-science critic" A quick check of McKitrick's publications on Google Scholar, indicates that he publishes papers about the lack of evidence for climate change with a co-author Patrick J. Michaels of the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, Washington, D. C. Hmm - wonder who funds them? - oh, that billionaire, Koch.
Previously, Wente had covered Climategate in a column, "Climate science's PR disaster" in which someone called Steve McIntyre, a skeptic and "anarchist", was heavily referenced. He has recently published a journal paper confirming climate change in Antarctica, but this is his only peer-reviewed paper - his other writing is on his blog page.
The problem with these two columns is that Wente is conflating peer-reviewed and non-peer reviewed writing. There is a whole field that considers academic and funder bias (but it's not really ever mentioned by Wente).
I could go on picking Wente's biased writing apart, but it's pointless. She has sold many papers with this approach, and gets a lot of clicks on the internet. Except, that I cannot resist pointing out the irony of a June 14 column supporting fracking in which she's actually calling for science: "I'm no expert on fracking technology, and I'm in no position to evaluate the risks. I have to rely on experts for that." She fails to point out that there is research ongoing into this issue and a lot of concern about fracking. Yes, the research investigating the downsides of fracking is in its infancy, and there's not much published on it, but Wente has never shied away from featuring the opinions of poorly-published people.
It really is time for the "legacy media", as I have learned it is called, to step up to the plate and deal substantively with the allegations against Margaret Wente. This would at the very least, include running all of her writing through Turnitin or some other plagiarism software.
Dawn Bazely
“Climate Change is NOT a Hoax” (B. Obama) Blog #1: Cognitive Dissonance and Denial
The relevance of Twitter and Tweets to my life and society at large continues to elude me, even though we have had an IRIS twitter account for several years. Mostly, Twitter reminds me of the Roald Dahl book, The Twits! (By the way, the Roald Dahl museum in Great Missenden, UK has a Sustainability programme)
Nevertheless, I felt compelled to Tweet what President Obama said about "climate change not being a hoax", during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. A ton of other people also tweeted this! Obama's comment has inspired me to write a series of 10 blogs exploring why the president of the USA actually had to make this statement. He might equally have said "there is no evidence that mermaids are real."
I spent a good part of the last year, while living in the USA, trying to wrap my head around why so many of its citizens are able to dismiss the evidence of human-induced climate change. I have given a lot of thought to the link between science, policy and politics. As well, I have been reading about personality types, learning styles, economics, etc. etc.
Which brings me to Cognitive Dissonance. This is the state of holding conflicting cognitions. As in, for example, refusing to believe that IPCC scientist reports that carbon emissions from human sources are causing climate change, while at the same time, happily living in a country where most of the infrastructure is directly based on technology that comes from the very same scientific method. To a rationale thinker, who respects the power of peer-reviewed research and logical thought, this particular example of cognitive dissonance is puzzling and unfathomable. But it's so widespread that I have been compelled to ask - what's the science behind this?
Two excellent CBC radio programmes about Risk in the IDEAS series currently being (re)broadcast in the afternoons, directly address my question. Additionally, in a study published earlier this year in Nature Climate Change, Yale University researchers found that climate change denial was associated more with cognitive dissonance than scientific illiteracy.
Here's a summary: "On the simplest level, we take risks to derive benefits. If the benefit outweighs the risk, we've made a good decision. But decisions are subject to bias, even those of experts. How do we live with uncertainty and make good decisions? Vancouver broadcaster Kathleen Flaherty talks with risk takers, risk managers and risk assessors to find out." (from the Ideas with Paul Kennedy website)
Clearly, if human-induced climate change is real, then NOT taking serious steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions constitutes extremely risky behaviour. Why aren't people in the countries with the highest carbon footprints, such as Canada and the USA NOT acting more decisively? Obviously, they must be thinking that the experts are biased. Even though we are talking about widespread scientific consensus!
The interviews and conversations with researchers and authors in the programmes explain how and why people react to uncertainty and risk with inaction. Basically, people avoid thinking uncomfortable thoughts by convincing themselves that everything is ok. How so? Well, for a start, they tend to hang out with others who have similar outlooks and beliefs, which leads to all kinds of fundamentalist and dogmatic denialist thinking, because there is no one there to challenge them.
The example of the consequences that can come from surrounding oneself with "yes men", that is given in the programme, is that of Lord John Browne, former CEO of BP. BP had failed to address poor safety practices at the Texas City oil refinery where there was an explosion in 2005. Apparently, Lord Browne has said in subsequent interviews that he was not questioned and challenged enough by those in his immediate circle, or something to that effect. But, of course, as Kathleen Flaherty pointed out, the membership of his top management team was his choice.
I strongly recommend this programme to everyone wanting to understand how denial arises in the face of bad news and uncertainty - and climate change. This is the process of self-delusion. Of course, the extreme irony about using Lord John Browne as an example of the tendency to avoid those speaking inconvenient truths to power, is that in 1997 he was one of the only Big Oil executives to publicly endorse the IPCC consensus on climate change being related to human activities, and to refer to its second assessment. Browne also rebranded British Petroleum as BP, and "Beyond Petroleum", and is considered a visionary.
And, one last thing: the programme gave an alarming statistic that 30% of US white males interviewed believed that all activities are risk-free. This contrasted with women, and African American men and women amongst whom there was hardly anyone holding this view. This lack of ability to detect and acknowledge risk would, logically, be occurring amongst white male bankers. And, we all know what happened on Wall Street a few years ago! You can download the podcasts here
Dawn Bazely
Food Blog no. 10 – cities as sources of food – The Toronto Urban Veg Tour 2012 & 2011
The City of Havana, Cuba produces a tremendous amount of the food for its citizens, as we see in the BBC show, Around the World in 80 Gardens. In the 2004 documentary, The End of Suburbia, the futurist, James Kunstler talked about how people living in the 'burbs, will, in the future, use their front gardens to grow food.
Just how close are we to this being the case in Toronto? Based on my experience across the city, with schools, neighbours, various botanic gardens and teaching the Plants course, I would say that we are still pretty far off. But, there has been movement and a steadily increasing interest amongst youth (for me, that's everyone under 30) in gardening and growing food over the last 5 years - the same trend is happening for knitting. One example of why I think we are far off this, is that I spent a good chunk of my volunteer time in the mid 2000s on my knees, digging, with other dedicated parents (see Catherine Majoribanks, Pete Ewins, myself, Sheila O'Connell and Jeff Hanning above), and restoring an overgrown public school butterfly garden to have a focus on food and herbs, and installing a new native species garden. My various strategic attempts, at that time, to make the sporadic efforts of parent-driven efforts in school gardens more sustainable and widespread over incoming generations of parents, teachers and children, failed. There was simply not a broad enough interest and uptake on multiple fronts - in other words, the tipping point hadn't been reached.
In 2011, The Horticultural Societies of Parkdale and Toronto became a part of the local urban food movement. In an initiative led by Beth Kapusta, a resident of the High Park-Roncesvalles, the Society supported the highly successful Veg Tour 2011. When Beth was looking for local gardens to include in the tour, my family's garden got volunteered as a stop on the tour by the owner of our local cheese shop, the Thin Blue Line.
In 2012, instead of a public Veg Tour the local gardeners previously involved in the tour visited each others' gardens as well as new gardens, and exchanged ideas, as well as a taste of food grown in our' gardens (those are my tomatoes and nasturtium pesto on the tray - photo by Howard Rideout, used with permission).
It was very interesting and educational. This year's tour was an illustration of the principles of successful grass-roots movements. First, it was notable that the leads and participants in the Veg Tour were neighbours who are activists, gardeners, writers, etc. with lots of background knowledge and experience. For example, the 2011 Veg Tour included gardening writer Lorraine Johnson and social innovator Tonya Surman, while the leader, dynamic Beth Kapusta, grew up in Delhi, Ontario, a farming community. What the tour did, was to allow us to aggregate as a group. Reaching critical mass is important for grass roots efforts. As we say at IRIS, "if you're not networking, you're not working".
There are two main challenges for local urban food movements like the High Park-Parkdale Veg Tour. The first is to broaden the community participation to include diverse gardeners from varied cultural backgrounds, who might not normally think about getting involved with such a group. A few years ago, the Toronto Botanical Garden held a workshop aimed at figuring out how to be more relevant to the broader Toronto community. I, along with others suggested the idea of asking culturally diverse gardeners to plant gardens characteristic of those that various waves of immigrants to Toronto created when they arrived: so many immigrants have brought with them knowledge about growing crops. Many of us at the workshop also suggested increasing engagement with school gardens.
A second challenge facing these urban food movements is to transfer the knowledge to less experienced and skilled, but interested youth. Bottom line, is that sustainability-ideas such as growing more local food in urban locations is not new. It's about getting to a tipping point where a critical mass sustains the movement. In Cuba they had no choice. In Toronto, it's more of a choice, at the moment.
Here are some of my favourite veggie gardens in my west Toronto neighbourhood.
Dawn Bazely
PS Through the Veg Tour events, I discovered some interesting York University connections. Clement Kent, the president of The Toronto and Parkdale Horticultural Societies is a post-doctoral fellow in the Biology Department. He was featured in a Y-file article, about the Pollinator Advocate Award that he received for his Pollinator Garden Project.
‘Better than TIFF – York U screens Return of the Far Fur Country Friday 14th 7 pm
The last time I attended TIFF was in 1983 because a friend of mine had helped a friend of his out by appearing as an extra in a movie! It was not a particularly memorable film.
TOMORROW'S (FRIDAY) EVENT WILL BE BETTER THAN THAT AND BETTER THAN SCRAMBLING FOR TIFF TICKETS - come to Nat Taylor Cinema (Ross North 126) tomorrow night, for an event organized by Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, and supported by IRIS, to see Return of the Far Fur Country, featuring rare archival footage shot in Inuit and First Nations communities in 1920, by cinematographers from the Hudson's Bay Company, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the venerable company (founded in 1670). As the arctic melts, these records and stories constitute the legacy of what was once there and what will, in all likelihood be much reduced or radically altered.
Whether or not you are a fan of the current incarnation of HBC, which was bought in 2008 by a USA-based company - the parent of Lord and Taylor, every Canadian should be aware of the hugely important role that the Hudson's Bay Company played in the history of Canada. Peter C. Newman's 1985 book, the Company of Adventurers, is a fascinating read. It was followed by two other books and a PBS tv series, Empire of the Bay.
Personally, I have been very impressed with how an American company has marketed and merchandized the iconic Hudson's Bay logo and products such as the classic Hudson Bay pure wool blanket. My sister is an archaeologist, and a couple of years ago, we gave her a small version of the blanket and the accompanying book about its history as a gift. She loved it.
Dawn Bazely
Photo from the HBC archive, of a 1920 cinematographer
Robert Watson, then and now: the former chair of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change who was removed by President George W. Bush in 2001
In May 2012 , Professor Sir Robert Watson FRS gave a very informative lecture at Oxford University, entitled:
Climate change and biodiversity loss - the importance of scientific assessments to national and international policy formation
The talk was sponsored by the Biodiversity Institute (which hosted me during my sabbatical time at Oxford this year), one of the interdisciplinary Oxford Martin Schools. It was important for several reasons.
First and foremost, Robert (Bob) Watson is an excellent example of a scientist who is actually well versed in the ways of anti-science politics. He gave a detailed explanation in his lecture of how evidence-based policy ought to be formulated. The UK National Ecosystem Assessment, of which he was co-chair provided a case study.
I was excited to be able to ask him my current standard question for colleagues in the science community:
"What can Canadian scientists based in Universities do to bring attention to the current anti-climate change science and anti-peer-reviewed research policies of the Harper government?"
Who is better placed to be asked this question than the man who was was pushed out of IPCC by George W. Bush in response to pressure from Big Oil? Was Robert Watson demoralized by his experience? Absolutely not - he's dynamic, positive and inspirational. This makes him an important public voice in advocating for evidence-based policy. He has continued to serve in a series of high-level science-policy roles as well as being a professor at the University of East Anglia.
In responding to my question, Prof. Watson indicated that he is very up-to-date on the Harper government's track record on Kyoto. He is also well aware of its gutting of Statistics Canada and of the political ideology driving this and other cuts. Why wouldn't he be? He was, himself a victim of political ideology.
In a nutshell, he advised that scientists MUST go directly to the public to advocate for the importance of peer-reviewed research. So, scientists must invest in learning to not "be such a scientist" outside of their labs and field sites. (For most of my colleagues in the natural and physical sciences, I immediately thought "well, good luck with that - I really don't see it happening!").
I will end this post with the text of his 2000 speech to the COP 6 of the UNFCCC. I have bored many second year Ecology students (BIOL 2050) by reading chunks of it out loud during lectures, when I was teaching this course from 2000-2006....
It might be boring but it's important - so much of it is coming to pass - WE WERE WARNED BY SCIENTISTS...
OK - on balance, perhaps it's more fun to listen to Robert Watson in person, Dawn Bazely
