The
Georgia Straight (Vancouver)
March 3, 2011
http://www.straight.com/article-377325/vancouver/
david-suzuki-politicians-who-reject-science-are-not-fit-lead
Politicians
who reject science are not fit to
lead
By David
Suzuki and Faisal
Moola
My life as
a scientist got its boost in the
United States. I was
attending
college in Massachusetts in 1957
on a scholarship when the
Soviet
Union launched the first Sputnik
satellite. The event also
launched
the space race between the
U.S.S.R. and the U.S., as the
Americans
started pouring money into the
sciences in an attempt to
catch
up.
I was given
funding to continue my graduate
studies at the University
of Chicago.
On getting my PhD, I went on to
work as a research
associate
at the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in
Tennessee.
Although
the facility was built in 1942 as
part of a top secret
program to
purify uranium for the Manhattan
Project, its focus had
shifted to
basic biology by the time I
arrived, and it became a
centre of
world-class research and
international
cooperation.
Times have
changed. I wish I could say that
we've evolved when it
comes to
science. But sometimes reading
the news and listening to the
pronouncements
of politicians, especially south
of the border, I'm
bewildered
by the rampant ignorance about
science and the antipathy
toward
it.
One example
I just came across was a comment
by the governor of
Maine, Paul
Lepage, about bisphenol-A, or
BPA, which is used mainly
in plastic
containers and toys. Health
Canada recently declared BPA a
toxic
chemical because of its links to
breast cancer, developmental
problems in
children, prostate disease, and
fertility issues.
In response
to calls for his state to
restrict BPA use, Lepage said,
"There
hasn't been any science that
identifies that there is a
problem.
The only thing that I've heard is
if you take a plastic
bottle and
put it in the microwave and you
heat it up, it gives off a
chemical
similar to estrogen. So the worst
case is some women may
have little
beards."
It's a
profoundly ignorant statement for
anyone to make, let alone a
state
governor, but it's only the tip
of the iceberg. Science is
taking a
beating in the U.S., and we're
starting to see a similar
phenomenon
here in Canada, although not to
as great an extent.
Far more
dangerous are attempts by U.S.
politicians to attack the
overwhelming
scientific evidence that human
activity is causing
catastrophic
climate change. Despite countless
studies by scientists
from around
the world and agreement among 98
percent of the world's
climate
scientists and most of the
world's scientific academies and
societies
that greenhouse gas emissions are
causing the Earth's
average
temperature to rise, not to
mention the facts staring us in
the
face-increased frequency of
extreme weather conditions,
rising
sea levels,
melting ice caps and
glaciers-some politicians in the
U.S.
continue to reject the science
and argue that we must proceed
with
business as usual.
Virginia's
Republican attorney general,
Kenneth Cuccinelli, has been
spending
taxpayer dollars attacking
climate scientists at the
University
of Virginia and is suing the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency over
its ruling that carbon dioxide
and other global warming
gases are a
threat to human health and
welfare.
Many
Republicans, some of whom also
reject the science of evolution
and believe
the Earth was created 6,000 years
ago and that humans and
dinosaurs
walked together, have been
following his lead.
Meanwhile a
fifth investigation into the
so-called "climategate"
brouhaha,
this one led by Republicans in
response to a request from
one of
their own, Sen. James Inhofe of
Oklahoma, has again found no
"evidence
to question the ethics of our
scientists or raise doubts
about
[the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's]
understanding
of climate change
science".
In Canada,
our government has cut funding
for climate research,
rejected or
ignored scientific studies
showing environmental damage
from the
tars sands, and been accused of
"muzzling" scientists.
We can take
some comfort that, according to a
recent poll, 80 percent
of
Canadians believe in the science
behind climate change, compared
to only 58
percent of U.S.
citizens.
Science
isn't perfect, and it can be used
for destructive as well as
beneficial
purposes. But it's the best tool
we have for analyzing and
understanding
our world and the impact of our
actions on the
environment
of which we are a part. If our
leaders reject science, we
really are
in trouble.
