Canada’s Harper régime has invented the new crime of being a member
of an “anti-Canadian petroleum movement,” and equating such a stance
with terrorism. Evidently believing it is in danger of losing the fight
against pipeline projects intended to speed up Alberta tar sands
production, its response is to place environmentalists under
surveillance.
A secret report prepared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the
country’s national police agency, claims that public activism against
the problems caused by oil and gas extraction is a growing and violent
threat to Canada’s national security. The report goes so far as to
challenge the very idea that human activity is causing global warming or
that global warming is even a problem. At least
97 percent of environmental scientists agree that human activity is causing global warming. The basis on which a police force can declare otherwise is surely not clear.
The Alberta tar sands (photo by Howl Arts Collective, Montréal)
Whether police officials truly believe they understand the global
climate better than scientists who are expert in the field or are merely
providing “intelligence” [sic] that the government of Prime Minister
Stephen Harper wants to hear, I will leave to others more familiar than I
with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Regardless,
the RMCP report, leaked to Greenpeace, makes for amusing reading. For example:
“[T]here is an apparent growing international
anti-Canadian petroleum movement. In their literature, representatives
of the movement claim climate change is now the most serious global
environmental threat, and that climate change is a direct consequence of
elevated anthropogenic greenhouse gases which, reportedly, are directly
linked to the continued use of fossil fuels.” [page 5]
And whom might the police rely on for that statement? No, not those
pesky scientists who refuse to say what is demanded of them by oil and
gas companies and the right-wing governments who love them. Instead, the
RMCP
quotes the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, cites a poll commissioned by a foundation connected to the oil industry, and a columnist at the
Toronto Sun, a hard-right tabloid in the Murdoch mold. The
Sun
columnist, as quoted in the police report, said “environmental
radicals” seek “to undermine the development of Canada’s oilsands — an
insignificant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Actual experts in the field would disagree. A
Scientific America analysis
that quotes several climate scientists reports that if all the bitumen
in the Alberta tar sands were burned, 240 billion metric tons of carbon
would be added to the atmosphere. The total amount of carbon that has
been thrown into atmosphere by humanity in all of history is
estimated at 588 billion tons.
Are going to believe the police or your lying eyes?
The Globe and Mail of Toronto quoted a Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman
denying any intention of spying on peaceful protestors:
“There is no focus on environmental groups, but rather on
the broader criminal threats to Canada’s critical infrastructure. The
RCMP does not monitor any environmental protest group. Its mandate is to
investigate individuals involved in criminality.”
But the newspaper’s report noted that the spokesman “would not comment on the tone” of the report, which even
The Globe and Mail,
a leading establishment publication, found difficult to accept as it
earlier in the article noted the RMCP report’s “highly charged
language.” Moreover, Canadian human rights organizations filed
complaints earlier in February over spying on opponents of the proposed
Northern Gateway pipeline, a project intended to move tar sands oil from
Alberta to a port in northern British Columbia, passing through
hundreds of miles of environmentally sensitive lands.
Environmentalists and Indigenous peoples have been subjected to
spying by the RMCP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service,
according to a complaint filed by the British Columbia Civil Liberties
Association. The association is also opposing a new measure, the
Anti-terrorism Act 2015, or Bill C-51, intended to “dramatically expand
the powers of Canada’s national security agencies.”
The association reports:
“Bill C-51 makes massive changes to many aspects of
Canada’s spying and security system. Any one of the changes – making it
easier to lock people up without charge; criminalizing expression;
vastly expanding the powers of Canada’s spies; gutting privacy
protections – is significant, raises constitutional questions, and must
be the subject of serious debate. Lumping them all together into one
bill, and proposing to speed that bill through Parliament, virtually
guarantees that democratic debate on these proposed measures will be
insufficient.”
Such speed is consistent with the Harper government’s attitude toward
activists. A previous environment minister, Peter Kent, called
parliamentary opponents of tar sands “treacherous” and had a long history of
dismantling every regulation he could. The current environment minister, Leona Aglukkaq, while less inclined to frontal attacks, nonetheless
also doubts climate change.
From smoking is good for you to the weather is just fine
Global-warming denialism is well-funded, with oil and gas companies
often the heaviest contributors to “think tanks” that specialize in
doubting scientific evidence on behalf of their corporate benefactors.
An excellent roundup of these deniers, written by physics professor John
W. Farley for the May 2012 edition of
Monthly Review, noted that Exxon Mobil Corporation, the Koch brothers and other special interests have
spent tens of millions of dollars.
One of these corporate-funded “think tanks” is the Heartland
Institute, which began life as a Big Tobacco outfit issuing reports
denying links between smoking and cancer.....
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