Tag Archives: Tim Flannery

#SciLxn41; Peer Review Radio’s end of season broadcast on April 26, 2011

Tomorrow, April 26, 2011, at 9 am PST (12 noon EST) Peer Review Radio will be broadcasting its last show of the season (scroll down and over to the right for your choice of listening to it live or, later, as a podcast), a programme on science policy in the 2011 Canadian Federal Election.

Adrian J. Ebsary is producing and hosting the show, which will feature interviews with me, Marie-Claire Shanahan, science education professor at the University of Alberta and blogger at Boundary Vision, amongst others discussing science policy, science education, and more as they relate to the platforms of the Bloc Québécois, Conservative, Green, Liberal, and NDP federal parties in this 2011 election season.

Unfortunately, we were not able to get candidates from each of the federal parties to talk to us about their party’s 2011 election platform and science policy. Two candidates did agree to discuss it but due to CRTC rules, all the parties must be given equal broadcast time, so Adrian is not able to include them in the broadcast. Consequently, interviews with Scott Bradley, Liberal party candidate running in Ottawa Centre, and Emma Hobgin, Green party candidate in Owen Sound and the party’s shadow Science Minister, will be distributed after the programme has aired via Youtube. That’s the current plan, if anything changes, I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, there’s an April 24, 2011 article in the Times-Colonist (a Victoria, BC newspaper) by Postmedia News reporter, Mike De Souza about Australian scientist Tim Flannery’s bafflement over the lack of discussion about science issues such as the environment and climate change in the federal election campaigns. From the article,

A best-selling Australian author who is known as the “rock star” of modern science is baffled to see Canada’s election campaign side-stepping around climate change and environmental issues.

In an interview with Postmedia News, Tim Flannery, recently appointed as chief commisioner of the Australian government’s climate commission, says the environment is one of the top issues everywhere he travels.

But after arriving in North America earlier this month to promote his new book, Here on Earth, he noted from the recent federal leaders debates that Canada’s political climate was different than what he saw during a visit three years ago.

“I watched (the debates) with great interest but I was mystified to see that the environment just didn’t rank at all,” said Flannery, who leads the commission that engages the Australian public in discussions about climate change.