Maritime historian Jon Ottman has been denied a fee waiver on records he's requested about an aged U.S. Coast Guard cutter that was auctioned to a shipbreaker in Mexico without, he says, being thoroughly checked for toxic and hazardous materials. Photo: America's Queen — Coast Guard Cutter Storis, courtesy US Coast Guard.
The startling admission only bolsters critics who say the conservative Harper government is suppressing science which does not support its politics — for example, its policies on global warming or oil sands.
By LISA MEERTS-BRANDSMA
Uganda’s fertile soils and mild climate not only support a rich diversity of flora and fauna, but also allow 80 percent of the country’s land to be under cultivation, and more than 80 percent of its citizens to live as farmers.
Eighty-six percent of the 4,069 scientists surveyed by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada said "that, if faced with a political decision putting public health, safety or the environment at risk, they do not believe they could speak out without repercussions."
Canada's Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault will be investigating the muzzling of Canadian scientists — a perennial complaint of SEJ's Canadian members who can not freely interview tax-funded scientists about subjects like climate. SEJ has twice urged Environment Canada to end such media policies, receiving no answer.
InsideClimate News' Lisa Song notes that US EPA's website had originally shown 1,149,460 gallons of oil recovered from the 2010 Enbridge spill near Kalamazoo, Michigan. Sometime in mid-March 2013, she reports, that number was removed from the EPA site and replaced by one much lower, the amount Enbridge claims was spilled.
