May 2006 ISSUE
READERS' FORUM
Aboriginal Initiative Welcomed
Re: Aboriginal Members: Where Are You? The PEGG, March 2006.
This initiative is indisputably positive. Positive, as aboriginal youth are a large and growing underutilized resource, and also positive as it is long past the time that the First Nations people were included in every facet of our society.
All aspects of the seminar Cultural Diversity: an Emerging Resource, at this year’s Annual Conference were interesting and informative. The presentation by University of Alberta Chancellor Eric Newell, P.Eng., relating the steps taken by Syncrude to include a significant proportion of Aboriginal people in its workforce, was excellent. The process Syncrude developed to achieve its goal could well serve as a pattern for an APEGGA-supported initiative.
APEGGA needs support from individual members and permit holders. The PEGG article states the goal and four areas of focus. Required now is a strategy, a plan and resources. Our Council and new President need to be committed to this enterprise.
We must look at the past to better understand the challenges which this initiative will face. As Mr. Newell said, to understand our Aboriginal Peoples’ attitude toward education, one must first understand the residential school system.
I am pleased to be part of an organization that is moving in this direction. I wish those involved the best.
Frank Postill, P.Eng.
Fort Saskatchewan
Short Letter, Big Step
Re: APEGGA Offers To Partner With ASET, The PEGG, April 2006.
It's about time.
Phil Prins, P.Eng.
Sherwood Park
What Consensus is This?
Re: International Panel Report Represents Consensus, J.
Edward Mathison, P. Geol., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, April 2006
One wonders at the definition of consensus when it is applied to the science of climate change. Mr. Mathison would like us to believe that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with its “rigorously tested scientific documents,” is a consensus within the scientific community.
I beg to differ, as would many other scientists. A thorough critique of the IPCC can be found in a peer- reviewed paper in the Bulletin of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (vol. 50, no. 2, p 297-327). I’ll limit my comments to three points.
Figure 3 in the Summary for Policymakers provided by the IPCC purports to show radiative forcings of the atmospheric constituents that cause climate change. However, the most important greenhouse gas constituent, water vapour, is not included. Amazing!
Based on ice core data and recent measurements, the IPCC makes the point that C02 concentrations since 1750 have reached the highest levels in 420,000 years, about 280 to 370 p.p.m., as reported elsewhere. Yet there is scientific evidence that show marked change in CO2 levels occurred in the past. For example, Kurschner reports C02 levels changing from 280 to 350 p.p.m. about 9,700 years ago, when there could not have been anthropogenic cause.
And then there is the infamous “hockey stick” of Mann et al. This icon prominently displayed by the IPCC and others to graphically illustrate a human cause to temperature change since about 1900, has been thoroughly discredited.
The public should be aware of the politicization of the IPCC and its original objectives as succinctly described by the late Dr. Roger Pocklington (Hamilton Spectator, April 5, 2003). Dr. Pocklington, an oceanographer with the Bedford Institute, was well positioned to comment on this UN body as he was a Canadian representative to the IPCC and a consultant to UN Environmental Program.
He had this to say: “The IPCC was established with the objective of associating climate change with fossil fuel emissions. That fossil fuels might have no significant effect on climate was effectively discounted from the very beginning by the IPCC’s mandate. . .Specialists who study climate history condemn the IPCC for having focused almost exclusively on estimations of human-induced climate change while downplaying the effect of natural climate variations.”
Our “ you said-I said” debate, while interesting and challenging, accomplishes little in enlightening the public.
In the meantime, Canada is engaged in the very costly Kyoto program, when the government should take into account the very best science available on the subject. This, surely, is a sensible objective and to carry it out we need a forum or hearing where highly qualified scientists on both sides of the disagreement can present their evidence.
D.L. Barss, P.Geol.
Calgary