BOCKING: Schindler's Pissed - Excerpt

[Oscar]

Schindler's Pissed - Excerpt

http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/peopl ... ers-pissed

BY Stephen Bocking Sep 2012 | In Defence of Science 38.5 Categories: ELA - Scientists

Freshwater science pioneer David Schindler fires back about tar sands development, closing the Experimental Lakes Area, and why researchers should speak out.

DAVID SCHINDLER is one of Canada’s most influential environmental scientists, both at home and abroad. Between 1968 and 1989, he directed the Experimental Lakes Area research facility in Ontario, leading experiments on freshwater ecosystems that advanced our understanding of the effects of nutrient enrichment, acid rain and climate change. An Officer of the Order of Canada and recipient of many awards, Schindler is now a Killam Memorial professor of ecology at the University of Alberta. He and his colleagues have tracked contaminants from tar sands developments, underlining the need for effective monitoring of industry. Schindler has also been a leading environmental advocate, opposing recent efforts to weaken the Fisheries Act and other federal legislation and asserting the importance of basing decisions on sound scientific knowledge. Environmental historian Stephen Bocking interviewed Schindler in April of this year, before the summer of scientific discontent.

EXCERPT:

And then there’s Fort McMurray, which has the worst growing pains I’ve ever seen. When I first went there it was seven or eight thousand people, and now it’s at least tenfold that, with little hidden bush camps all over the place. They admit they can’t even get a complete census. Every doctor in the hospital is exhausted, and the papers have been full of stories about the poorly constructed buildings that have had to be evacuated. It’s just a crazy way to develop any sort of industry, in my view. Housing prices are high, and the highway connecting the city to the outside world is known as the “highway of death.”

SB: Some people would argue that the oil sands are an example of a fundamentally unsustainable industry. Do you think there is a place for the oil sands if Canada genuinely embraces sustainability?
DS: I think there is, but my development of it would be very slow. I would put a lot more emphasis on reclamation and set some big reserves aside, so that we wouldn’t have species like woodland caribou in the area going extinct in 20 or 30 years. I’d tell those companies, “Once you have reclaimed your mined area to the state where it can support these iconic species, then we’ll give you a new chunk of land to exploit,” not just give it all to them for cheap prices – and to hell with the boreal flora and fauna.

I think that if they were given that challenge, companies would really do it. Companies are falling all over themselves to get a share in the profits now; they know it’s a fire sale going on and they want to be there. Companies are greedy.

SB: How will the Harper government’s plan to close the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in Ontario impact the average Canadian citizen?
DS: It is hard to say what Canadians will miss if the ELA is closed. Probably the best answer is to look back: If there had been no ELA, we would probably be controlling several elements in sewage at great expense – not doing a good job on any – and wondering why our lakes turn green. Instead, we have relatively inexpensive control of one nutrient, phosphorus, and where we have controlled it well enough, lakes have recovered. Lots of lakes are still green, but the answers now lie with weak-willed regulators, not with science.

Similarly, with acid rain, we would probably believe that most of our lakes were not in jeopardy. We would not know that 50 per cent of the species were disappearing, and we would still have sulphur oxides pouring out of smelters and coal-fired power plants. In both of these cases, the whole-ecosystem approach at ELA exposed significant flaws in the conclusions of smaller-scale experiments. With no ELA, it is these smaller scales that we must fall back to as guides to water policy.

While they have not yet visibly affected national policy, the [more recent] reservoir, endocrine disruptor and mercury experiments at ELA should eventually have similar impacts. If used effectively, the experimental lakes should continue to yield reliable information about emerging problems.

SB: You’ve been both a very productive scientist and a contributor to public debate. Is it enough for scientists to do good research, or do they need to speak publicly about what their results might mean for policy?
DS: I think the latter. If you’re doing stuff that’s of no importance to policy, I’d say fine, put it on the shelves in the ivory tower library. But if what you’re doing has policy implications it ought to be known, and ministers ought to be healthy enough to consider it. And it certainly wouldn’t offend me if a minister said, “Yeah, we’ve read that study and it was well done, but we’re not going to follow the recommendations and here’s why.” What I really object to is them trying to say, “That’s not good science and we don’t agree with that and this scientist over here says something else,” pointing to some industry hack or some two-bit program. I’d like to see the whole debate become much more open and healthy. I certainly wouldn’t want scientists setting policy – I think it would be a disaster – but I think science should be done and well-considered before policy is made, and it should be a part of the decision.

SB: I can understand that when interest groups attack scientists publicly, it can have a chilling effect.
DS: I think it does. It certainly doesn’t make you feel good when you get attacked. Probably the worst case I know of is what happened with climate change. I’ve never seen a field where there are so many people with no knowledge on whether the climate is changing who consider themselves to be instant experts. You can’t suggest there’s climate change resulting from human activity without all of these creeps coming out of the woodwork and telling you, “There’s people who disagree with you, and it isn’t decided, and look at Climategate and how horrible that was,” on and on and on. A lot of people out there simply don’t get it, because they don’t understand how science works. The politicians are one thing to deal with, but you also have to deal with the lunatic fringe.

SB: Are you optimistic or otherwise about the prospects of Canada taking action on climate change?
DS: I think it’s going to be after some major catastrophe. I think something like a total crop failure in the West, or the Great Lakes dropping low enough that it cuts off all shipping, or something like that.

Depends on who’s in government, too. It’s interesting that my experience – in almost 50 years now of dealing with it – is that Conservatives never seek the advice of scientists. Liberals are pretty good about seeking advice, though they often ignore it. The NDP are very good at seeking advice, but we have no idea how well they would use it because they have not been in power.

On several occasions, Jack Layton just phoned up and asked, if he came by, if we could talk about climate for an hour. And I know he did that with other people, too. And just a few months ago, Thomas Mulcair did the same thing. I’d never heard of him, he hadn’t been elected leader yet. But he was curious, he knew it was an important issue and he wanted to talk about climate and the oil sands. The provincial NDP are the same way. In Manitoba’s case, they have an excellent record, with the protection of the eastern shores of Lake Winnipeg and proposed action to control phosphorus inputs.

Politicians who at least try to understand the scientific dimensions of problems get high marks from me. At least they’re curious enough to want to know what’s going on; whether they pay attention or not afterward is another thing. But I suspect that if we were to have an NDP government, we’d see some action on environmental issues fairly fast right now. I guess that’s no more remote a hope than the US having a black president, which seemed impossible five years ago.

Read the extended interview with David Schindler, including discussion of his early research at the ELA
[ http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/
people-and-profiles/web-exclusive-extended-interview-david-schindler ]

Stephen Bocking is a contributing editor to Alternatives, an environmental historian and chair of the Environmental and Resource Science/Studies program at Trent University.

Get involved in the campaign to preserve the ELA at saveela.org.
[ http://saveela.org/ ]

The next issue of Alternatives will also feature a report on why the ELA is so vital to Canadian scientists, policy makers and citizens – and information is nine-tenths of your boot in Harper’s ass. (Full disclosure: This statistic has not been scientifically derived. But it sure was fun to write.)

To read other articles from this issue, buy In Defence of Science 38.5
[ http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/magaz ... cience-385 ]