Interference is used to describe intentional and unfair constraints on scientists that restrict their ability to conduct and communicate their work. Examples of interference include restrictions on ability to communicate work to the public or colleagues (muzzling), workplace harassment, and undue modifications made to findings that alter the data or its interpretation.

Interference has serious consequences. It causes issues with researchers’ mental health and career satisfaction as well as limits the ability of taxpayer-funded research to be shared with the public.

Even more seriously, interference can lead to downplaying environmental risks or a lack of good information to support decision-making and policies about resource extraction and the environment.

Study shows interference is ongoing in Canada

We recently surveyed 741 environmental researchers across Canada in two separate studies into interference. We circulated our survey through scientific societies related to environmental fields, as well as directly emailing Canadian authors of peer-reviewed research in environmental disciplines.

Researchers were asked (1) if they believed they had experienced interference in their work, (2) the sources and types of this interference, and (3) the subsequent effects on their career satisfaction and well-being.

We also asked demographic information to understand whether researchers’ perceptions of interference differed by career stage, research area or identity.

Although overall ability to communicate is improving, interference is a pervasive issue in Canada, including from government, private industry and academia. We found 92 per cent of the environmental researchers reported having experienced interference with their ability to communicate or conduct their research in some form.

Interference also manifested in different ways and already-marginalized researchers experienced worse outcomes.

History of interference in Canada

Under the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, first-hand reports of muzzling by federal government scientists were common. These frustrations eventually boiled over in 2013 when hundreds of scientists took to the streets in lab coats to protest the “war on science.”

These claims were later backed in a survey by the Professional Institute of the Public Service (PIPSC). Their 2013 survey of federal scientists found that 90 per cent of respondents felt restricted in their ability to conduct and communicate research, and 70 per cent reported political interference.

In 2015, the Liberals, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, were elected on promises to lift restrictions and implement a Model Policy on Scientific Integrity. Versions of this policy were adopted in 2019 across all federal scientific departments.

In 2016, PIPSC conducted a follow up survey. They found that although accounts of muzzling had decreased, 50 per cent of respondents still felt restricted in their ability to conduct and communicate work, and 40 per cent experienced ongoing political interference.

Interference in science today

Though informative, the PIPSC survey was limited in scope: they only focused on federal government scientists and didn’t investigate all sources of interference, or which subgroups of scientists were most vulnerable. Our research addressed these gaps and investigated the impact of the scientific integrity policies.

In our survey, respondents indicated that, overall, their ability to communicate with the public has improved in the recent years. Of the respondents aware of the government’s scientific integrity policies, roughly half of them attribute positive changes to them.

Others argued that the 2015 change in government had the biggest influence. In the first few months of their tenure, the Liberal government created a new cabinet position, the Minister of Science (this position was absorbed into the role of Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry in 2019), and appointed a chief science advisor among other changes.

Though the ability to communicate has generally improved, many of the researchers argued interference still goes on in subtler ways. These included undue restriction on what kind of environmental research they can do, and funding to pursue them. Many respondents attributed those restrictions to the influence of private industry.

Respondents identified the major sources of external interference as management, workplace policies, and external research partners. The chief motivations for interference, as the scientists saw it, included downplaying environmental risks, justifying an organization’s current position on an issue and avoiding contention.

Our most surprising finding was almost half of respondents said they limited their communications with the public and policymakers due to fears of negative backlash and reduced career opportunities.

In addition, interference had not been experienced equally. Early career and marginalized scientists — including those who identify as women, racialized, living with a disability and 2SLGBTQI+ — reported facing significantly more interference than their counterparts.

Scientists studying climate change, pollution, environmental impacted assessments and threatened species were also more likely to experience interference with their work than scientists in other disciplines.

The consequences for Canadians and our environment

Environmental policy is only as good as the evidence it is based on. In the current climate crisis, effective environmental policy has never been more important. If scientists cannot freely conduct and communicate their work, the gap between evidence and policy widens, and that means Canada gets less effective laws and policies.

Environmental scientists are doing essential work. They are informing and equipping us to fight against the climate crisis, prevent extinction of species and solve the multitude of environmental challenges we face. If scientists are unable to effectively communicate with the public, democratic decision-making, that depends on informed voters, could be compromised as well.

All institutions employing scientists must take active steps to protect them from interference. This can be done by implementing and upholding scientific integrity policies, similar to those of the federal government, and creating better supports for early career researchers and those from marginalized backgrounds.

From the public and the news media, we should demand that scientists’ voices and knowledge have a secure place in public discourse, while also protecting them from online harassment and backlash. We are grateful to have been able to undertake and share our research without interference. We hope that changes can be made so that scientists, in all sectors and all institutions, share this privilege.

Alana Westwood is an assistant professor, at the School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University; Manjulika E. Robertson is a research associate, at Westwood Lab, Dalhousie University; and Samantha M. Chu is a Master of Environmental Studies student at Dalhousie University. 

Nada Salem from Evidence for Democracy also co-authored this article.

This article first appeared in The Conversation. Read the original article here. 

The post Why are Canadian scientists still being muzzled? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

ESG funds, which select companies for their broader environmental and social impact on top of performance, include a lot of big names whose business has little to do with reducing pollution, Greenchip president Cook said.

Traditional investments like Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and JP Morgan are often at the top of portfolios labelled ESG.

“When I talk to young people who are interested in the sustainable economy, I don’t think they’re thinking, ‘I want Netflix to behave better,’” Cook said in an interview July 9 with Corporate Knights. “I think they’re thinking, ‘Solar panels and wind turbines and (electric vehicles) and more efficient ways to reduce energy and reduce pollution.’

Cook, whose investment fund focuses on companies selling the “stuff” of the low-carbon or sustainable economy, said the difference between what ESG means and how some investors might perceive it has been growing with the expansion of ESG funds globally.

The current assets under management of socially-responsible investing and ESG funds grew by 25 per cent between 2014 and 2016 to reach around US$23-trillion, Morgan Stanley’s May report on the market, ESG Investing Goes Mainstream, says.

Almost 40 per cent of asset allocators use some kind of ESG measure in their investment decisions compared to just 20 per cent three years ago, the report says.

Investment funds in this space are led by equities that would appear to do well regardless of their impact on the environmental and society, Cook said in a note to Greenchip investors on July 9 on ESG indicators.

While there are over 400 U.S. stocks in a new offering from Goldman Sachs called the JUST fund, the top five positions are held by Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and JP Morgan, Cook’s note says.

Whether this means ESG is making a difference for the environment and society is a tough question.

Morgan Stanley’s report from May says that ESG is having an impact. Overall, the amount of ESG disclosure is growing and ESG indicators are rising over time, it says. Interestingly, ESG indicators have risen in emerging economies in the 2010-2015 period, but declined in developed markets over the same time, the report says.

Cook is not so certain the approach is pushing markets toward a sustainable model.

“We need to keep investing in all this stuff — the traditional economy — but we also want to have a foot on the dock of the new economy,” he said.

For those who agree with Cook, the key is to differentiate between what companies sell and how companies behave, he said.

The ESG market rewards sound environmental and social behaviour. Amazon’s main businesses don’t involve a lot of air pollution, for example, compared to the rest of the economy, so its strong economic and ESG performance make it a good investment.

But other funds, like Greenchip’s, focus more on what a companies does. Do they replace competitors that pollute more? Are they building products that turn economies away from intensive resource use?

Some of the companies Greenchip invests in include Canadian Solar, rail company Alstom and LED-maker Signify, formerly Philips Lighting.

Cook advises to not just use the ESG tag but look for “sustainability themed” funds.

“They need to look past the label,” he said.

The post Looking past the labels appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Forty-four years after the first Earth Day, we must ask a basic question: What is an environmental issue? Air and water pollution, yes. But what if the right answer is that an environmental issue is anything that determines environmental outcomes? Then the definition becomes something much broader, rooted in defining features of our political economy: an unquestioning society wide commitment to economic growth at any cost; a measure of growth, GDP, that includes everything — the good, the bad and the ugly; the ascendancy of money power and corporate power over people power; powerful corporate interests whose overriding objective is to grow by generating profit, including profit from avoiding the environmental costs they create; markets that systematically fail to recognize environmental costs unless corrected by government; government that is subservient to corporate interests and the growth imperative; rampant consumerism spurred endlessly by sophisticated advertising; social injustice and economic insecurity so vast they empower often false claims that needed measures would slow growth, hurt the economy or cost jobs; economic activity now so enormous that its impacts alter the fundamental biophysical operations of the planet.

All of these combine to deliver an ever-growing economy that is undermining the ability of the planet to sustain human and natural communities. That means all of these are environmental issues. Yet very few are addressed by U.S. environmental law, and rarely do they appear on the agendas of mainstream environmental organizations.

It’s time for something different — a new environmentalism that seeks a new economy. And to deliver on the promise of the new economy, we must build a new politics.

But, first, we must also address a second question: What’s the economy actually for? The answer, I believe, is to sustain, restore and nourish human and natural communities. If that is the case, we should be building a new economy that gives top, overriding priority not to profit, production and power, but rather to people, place and planet. The watchword of this new economy is “caring” — caring for each other, for the natural world and for the future.

Promoting the transition to such a new economy must be the central task of a new environmentalism. It is a task that obviously cannot be accomplished by traditional environmentalists alone, but that instead demands a powerful fusion of forces coming together to build a new politics.

This new politics must, first of all, ensure that environmental concern and advocacy extend to the full range of relevant issues. The environmental agenda should expand to embrace a profound challenge to consumerism and commercialism and the lifestyles they offer, a healthy skepticism of growth mania and a redefinition of what society should be striving to grow, a challenge to corporate dominance and a redefinition of the corporation and its goals, a commitment to deep change in both the functioning and the reach of the market, and a powerful assault on the anthropocentric and contempocentric values that currently dominate American culture.

Environmentalists must also join with social progressives in addressing the crisis of inequality now unraveling America’s social fabric and undermining its democracy. In a country with such vast social insecurity, economic arguments — even misleading ones — will routinely trump environmental goals. What we have seen in the United States is the emergence of a vicious circle: Income disparities shift political access and influence to wealthy constituencies and large businesses, which further imperils the potential of the democratic process to act to correct the growing income disparities. As core to their agenda, environmentalists need to embrace topics such as public financing of elections, anticorruption ethical restrictions on legislatures, the right to vote, tougher regulation of lobbying and the revolving door, nonpartisan Congressional redistricting, and other political reform measures.

The new environmentalism must work with a progressive coalition to build a mighty force in electoral politics. This will require major efforts at grassroots organizing, strengthening groups working at the state and community levels, as well as supporting and fielding candidates for public office and developing motivational messages and appeals. Our environmental discourse has thus far been dominated by lawyers, scientists and economists. Now, we need to hear more from poets, preachers, philosophers and psychologists.

Above all, the new environmental politics must be broadly inclusive, reaching out to union members and working families, minorities and people of color, religious organizations, the women’s movement, and other communities of complementary interest and shared fate. It is unfortunate but true that stronger alliances are still needed to overcome the “silo effect” that separates the environmental community from those working on domestic political reforms, a progressive social agenda, human rights, international peace, consumer issues, world health and population concerns, and world poverty and underdevelopment.

The final goal of the new environmental politics must be to build the movement. We have had movements against slavery and for civil rights and against apartheid and the Vietnam War. Environmentalists are still said to be part of “the environmental movement.” We need a real one — networked together, protesting, demanding action and accountability from governments and corporations, and taking steps as consumers and communities to realize both sustainability and social justice in everyday life.

This piece is based on Speth’s new memoir, Angels by the River, published by Chelsea Green Publishing.

The post Building the new environmentalism appeared first on Corporate Knights.