Political Suppression of Science: Lessons from Canada (NUMEROUS LINKS ON URL)
[ https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-s ... ons-canada ]
Canadian scientists are lending support to worried American peers.
by Erica Gies Published January 23, 2017
The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States has touched off a mad scramble by some scientists [ https://www.wired.com/2017/01/rogue-sci ... ata-trump/ ] to back up critical scientific data as government researchers reckon with the new administration’s threats to scrub climate data [ https://insideepa.com/daily-news/trump- ... pa-website ] and strip funding for ongoing climate research. [ https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e-research ]
In Toronto, Canadian researchers are archiving [ http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as- ... -1.3896089 ] US climate data, and University of Pennsylvania collective DataRescue [ http://www.ppehlab.org/blogposts/2017/1 ... datarefuge ] is organizing events across the United States that harness volunteers to move climate and environmental data to private and international servers.
To many, this activity may seem like an overreaction. But for some Canadian scientists, firsthand experience with government suppression of science makes these threats all too real. [ http://www.truenorthsmartandfree.ca/ ] That the White House website, taken over by the Trump administration on Friday, now makes no mention of climate change, [ https://motherboard.vice.com/read/all-r ... se-website ] further supports these worries.
During the 10-year term of Canadian Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, some government scientists were unable to publish their research [ http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/faq-t ... -1.3079537 ] or talk to the public [ http://www.truenorthsmartandfree.ca/inc ... scientists ] without minders; research was defunded or blocked [ http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/vani ... r-on-data/ ]; and invaluable data archives dating back a century were destroyed [ http://www.truenorthsmartandfree.ca/inc ... -discarded ] in acts dubbed “libricide.” [ https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/23/Cana ... Libraries/ ] Reports were literally tossed into dumpsters. [ https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/09/Dism ... y-Library/ ]
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