Government experts tracked a new ozone hole, but were not allowed to give interviews
Research on falling salmon stocks was published in a leading journal
By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News, Vancouver 17 February 2012 Last updated at 12:09 ET
The Canadian government has been accused of "muzzling" its scientists.
Speakers at a major science meeting being held in Canada said communication of vital research on health and environment issues is being suppressed.
But one Canadian government department approached by the BBC said it held the communication of science as a priority.
Prof Thomas Pedersen, a senior scientist at the University of Victoria, said he believed there was a political motive in some cases.
"The Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) is keen to keep control of the message, I think to ensure that the government won't be embarrassed by scientific findings of its scientists that run counter to sound environmental stewardship," he said.
"I suspect the federal government would prefer that its scientists don't discuss research that points out just how serious the climate change challenge is."
The Canadian government recently withdrew from the Kyoto protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The allegation of "muzzling" came up at a session of the AAAS meeting to discuss the impact of a media protocol introduced by the Conservative government shortly after it was elected in 2008.
The protocol requires that all interview requests for scientists employed by the government must first be cleared by officials. A decision as to whether to allow the interview can take several days, which can prevent government scientists commenting on breaking news stories.
Sources say that requests are often refused and when interviews are granted, government media relations officials can and do ask for written questions to be submitted in advance and elect to sit in on the interview.
'Orwellian' approach
Andrew Weaver, an environmental scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, described the protocol as "Orwellian".
The protocol states: "Just as we have one department we should have one voice. Interviews sometimes present surprises to ministers and senior management. Media relations will work with staff on how best to deal with the call (an interview request from a journalist). This should include asking the programme expert to respond with approved lines."
Professor Weaver said that information is so tightly controlled that the public is "left in the dark".
"The only information they are given is that which the government wants, which will then allow a supporting of a particular agenda," he said.
The media protocol was obtained and reported three years ago by Margaret Munro, who is a science writer for Postmedia News, based in Vancouver. Speaking at the AAAS meeting, she said its effect was to suppress scientific debate on issues of public interest.
"The more controversial the story, the less likely you are to talk to the scientists. They (government media relations staff) just stonewall. If they don't like the question you don't get an answer."
Ms Munro cited several examples of what she described as the "muzzling" of scientists by the government.
The most notorious case is of that of Dr Kristi Miller, who is head of molecular genetics for the Department for Fisheries and Oceans. Dr Miller had been investigating why salmon populations in western Canada were declining.
The investigation, which was published in one of the leading scientific journals in the world, Science, seemed to suggest that fish might have been exposed to a virus associated with cancer.
The suggestion raised many questions, including whether the virus might have been imported by the local aquaculture industry.
Requests denied
The journal felt this to be an important study and put out a press release, which it sent out to thousands of journalists across the world. Dr Miller was named as the principal contact.
However, the government declined all requests to interview Dr Miller. It said it was because she was due to give evidence to a judicial inquiry on the issue of falling fish stocks.
According to Ms Munro, because reporters were denied the opportunity to question Dr Miller about her work, important public policy issues went unanswered.
"You have a government that is micromanaging the message, obsessively. The Privy Council Office (which works for the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper) seems to vet everything that goes out to the media," she said.
A spokeswoman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada told BBC News: "The Department works daily to ensure it provides the public with timely, accurate, objective and complete information about our policies, programmes, services and initiatives, in accordance with the Federal Government's Communications Policy.
"In 2011, Fisheries and Oceans publicly issued 286 science advisory reports documenting our research on Canada's fisheries; our scientists respond to approximately 380 science-based media calls every year."
Fisheries and Oceans Canada declined a request by the BBC to interview Kristi Miller for this article. Dr Miller told us she would have been willing to be interviewed had her department given her permission.
The AAAS meeting's discussion on muzzling is organised by freelance science reporter Binh An Vu Van. She says fellow journalists across Canada are finding it "harder and harder" to get access to government scientists.
Ms Vu Van claims that as well as "clear-cut cases of muzzling", such as the one involving Dr Miller, media relations officers use more subtle methods. She said that when she requests an interview, she has to enter into prolonged email correspondence to speak to a scientist she knows is ready and willing to be interviewed, often to be declined or offered another scientist she does not want to interview.
"It's so hard to get hold of scientists that a lot of my colleagues have given up," she explained.
Ms Munro cited another example of research published in another leading scientific journal, Nature, that was published last October.
An international team including several scientists from the government agency, Environment Canada, set out details of a hole that appeared in the ozone layer above the Arctic.
Ms Munro said she had called one of the scientists involved who she had dealt with several times in the past. He agreed to speak to her, but said that he had been told that her request had to be put to government media relations officials in Ottawa.
"So I phoned up Ottawa and they just said no you can't talk to the guy. A couple of weeks later, he was available but by then the story had been done. So they take them out of the news cycle," she said.
Ms Munro also claims that journalists were denied access to scientists working for the government agency Health Canada last year, when there was concern about radiation levels reaching the country's western coast from Japan following the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Ultimately, journalists obtained the information they sought from European agencies.
The Postmedia News journalist obtained documents relating to interview requests using Canada's equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act. She said the documents show interview requests move up what she describes as an "increasingly thick layer of media managers, media strategists, deputy ministers, then go up to the Privy Council Office, which decides 'yes' or 'no'".
"The government has never explained what the process is. They just imposed these changes and they expected us to sit back and take it," she explained.
Professor Andrew Weaver believes that the media protocol is being used by the Canadian government to "instruct scientists to deliver a certain message, thereby taking the heat out of controversial topics".
He added: "You can't have an informed discussion if the science isn't allowed to be communicated. Public relations message number one is that you have to set the conversation. You don't want to have a conversation on someone else's terms. And this is now being applied to science on discussions about oil sands, climate and salmon."
Clare Nullis, spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), speaks to the press at the regular briefing in Geneva. Photo credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré
By Amanda Waldmannstetter February 21, 2012
Communities around the world now have access to a free weather information system that will help avert major disasters by providing warnings of impending extreme weather events. The system, implemented by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), will also assist in water management, food security, and health issues.
The WMO Information System (WIS) [ http://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/wis/index_en.html ], will make accessible a number of meteorological observations and other data to a wide variety of agencies, communities and other stakeholders.
Dr. Wenjian Zhang, director of Observations and Information Systems at WMO, told MediaGlobal, “With WIS, emergency response teams can register to receive warnings, and once warnings of impending extreme events are issued, they can register for relevant weather, water, and climate information to be sent to them automatically to help with their planning.”
Just over a year ago, there were scales that measured hurricanes’ power and air quality, but none for floods, droughts, or heatwaves. Because of global warming, such droughts and floods are expected to become more frequent, as well.
The new system will be the first all-inclusive weather information source, stemming from data all over the globe. “The WMO Information System is the pillar of our strategy for managing and moving weather, climate, and water information in the 21st century,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
“It will reduce the costs of information exchange incurred by national meteorological and hydrological services and maximize exploitation of advances in communications technology … it will allow users outside the meteorological community to have free access to this information for the first time.”
The WIS connects and integrates information from three types of data centers, including national centers, data collection and production centers, as well as global information system centers.
National centers collect and distribute data on a national basis, generating quality-controlled analysis and forecast products and services, including archiving national climate information. The National Meteorological or Hydrological Service National Meteorological or Hydrological Service will coordinate or authorize the use of the WIS by national users.
Data collection or production centers focus on thematic, regional or global collection, production of sets of data, forecast products, and processed or value-added information. They also provide archiving services.
Global information system centers connect to each other through a high-speed private network, rapidly sharing information for routine global dissemination. They also serve as distribution centers into their jurisdiction. Global information system centers provide entry points, through metadata catalogues, for any request for data exchanged within the WIS. They also provide the connection to other information systems such as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems.
The congress dictates that WIS provides routine collection and dissemination service for time-critical and operation-critical data and products, implemented through dedicated telecommunication means. This includes a dedicated service for the rapid international exchange of warnings and related messages.
Also, WIS must provide data discovery, access and retrieval service. This is based on a request/reply “pull” mechanism with relevant data-management functions, implemented online.
A timely delivery service for data and products is also mandated, and implemented through a combination of dedicated telecommunication means and the internet.
The global information system centers that have been approved by WMO’s governing World Meteorological Congress include Beijing, China; Tokyo, Japan; and Offenbach, Germany. These three have been running in pre-operational mode since the middle of 2011 and are now fully operational.
The WIS is an expansion of the Global Telecommunication System of the World Weather Watch (WWW), in use since 1963. The Fourth World Meteorological Congress approved the concept of WWW, which is the basis of the WMO programs. It combines observing systems, telecommunication facilities, data-processing, and forecasting centers.
The WMO is “a major contribution towards life-saving efforts at community level,” said Margareta Wahlström, UN special representative for Disaster Risk Reduction.
“This is a significant boost for disaster risk reduction and will have many practical benefits for communities which suffer from weather-related disasters,” said Wahlström. “For the first time, national disaster management offices and other responders will have free and direct access in real-time to weather observations and forecasts including tsunami alerts, tropical cyclone and storm warnings. Time and information save lives and this will make early warning systems more effective.”
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