Is discussing climate change offside for Canadian weather forecasters?

Canada’s government has a rocky relationship with its science community, what with the funding cuts and gag orders being recently executed, but one area relatively untouched has been the meteorologists who predict the weather.

But the relatively politically innocuous public service of sharing weather forecasts may also be wrought with peril, with recent suggestions that those employed by the Canadian Meteorological Service have had the breadth of issues they can discuss limited to exclude climate change.

The science news site IFL Science reported this week that Canadian weather forecasters have been forbidden from publicly discussing climate change, purportedly because the study of meteorology only ensures expertise in short-term weather patterns.

Government spokesman Mark Johnson told journalist Mike De Souza, "Environment Canada scientists speak to their area of expertise. For example, our Weather Preparedness Meteorologists are experts in their field of severe weather and speak to this subject. Questions about climate change or long-term trends would be directed to a climatologist or other applicable authority."

Sort of makes sense. If the government has experts on long-term weather patterns and issues, why not ask them? If history is any indication, however, it's not that simple.

The Conservative government has had a tempestuous relationship with Canadian scientists after implementing various funding cuts and introducing strict policing about when and how scientists can publicly discuss their work.

The concern is best captured in a 2013 survey from the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which found that 90 per cent of Canadian scientists felt they were not allowed to speak freely about their work, with almost as many (86 per cent) fearing censure or retaliation if they did do.

Of the scientist who agreed to participate in the survey, 24 per cent said they were sometimes or often asked to alter or remove technical information from government documents for non-scientific reasons. As many as 37 per cent said they had been stopped from publicly speaking about their work in the past five years.

But the issues began well before that. Scientists have been protesting Prime Minister Stephen Harper's "war on evidence" in various ways since the government introduced tough media relations protocol to scientists in 2007, the year after he became prime minister.

In 2011, scientist Kristi Miller was reportedly refused the right to do interviews about her research into a salmon-killing virus. The same year, Green Party leader Elizabeth May claims a government team studying global CO2 emissions was barred from giving public comment.

A "funeral" was held in Ottawa in July 2012 to mourn the death of evidence, as organizers put it. More specifically, the group was protesting massive cuts to science programs.

The protest at that time wasn't specifically about climate change, but the government's apparent desire to shut down avenues of research.

“To deny evidence is to live in a child's fantasy world. Recent actions by the federal government suggest our state is frightened by evidence, and is retreating into a fantasy world," Dr. Arne Moores, Professor of Biodiversity at Simon Fraser University, said at the time.

Last year, the NDP introduced a doomed motion to un-muzzle scientists and protect them from government interference. That motion would have led the government to "encourage federal scientists to speak freely to the media and the public about scientific and technical matters based on their official research," and also allow them to present viewpoints that extend beyond their scientific research.

In other words, meteorologists who specialize in the immediate cause and effect of weather would be welcome to extrapolate their thoughts, expertise and personal opinion into a longer timeline.

Under the current circumstances, that may not be the case. PublicScience.ca compiled a collection of anonymous quotes collected in the 2013 survey, one of which speaks directly to this issue.

Is the government tamping down debate on climate change? Perhaps, or perhaps not. But limiting the careers of those willing to discuss it doesn't exactly foster a healthy environment for debate.

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