Action needed to stop 'climate deniers' from winning the information war

Note: This appeal is written particularly for the attention of environmental groups and activists throughout Canada and the U.S., suggesting they set up a co-operative system to bring a halt to the huge amount of disinformation about global warming that appears in mainstream media.

The global warming deniers are at it again, and it is high time that the environmental movement in Canada and the United States launched an organized campaign to expose these scientific community charlatans.

The mainstream business media, which bows to corporate interests in both countries, is quick to publish interviews and opinion articles by the tiny percentage of scientists who deny that global warming exists. Some say that it has not been proven that human activity damages the environment. Some bizarrely claim that emissions of carbon dioxide are beneficial to the planet.

Business journalists go on the attack; demonize Atlantic seasonal workers

National business journalists and columnists have bought into Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s demeaning view that folks in the Atlantic region are backward and have a defeatist attitude. Framed in disrespectful language, they’re promoting untested economic ideas that, if adopted, would seriously damage the economy – and the people – of the region.

Apparently it wasn’t enough for elite business journalists to applaud how Harper has made life far more difficult for many already struggling seasonal workers by cracking down on employment Insurance (EI). They are advocating the elimination of EI for all 102,000 seasonal workers, people who are employed in the fishery, forestry, agriculture and tourism industries, etc.

 “. . . there is no justification, in logic or in economics, for seasonal EI,” wrote Globe and Mail contributor and former Nova Scotia restaurateur Brian Lee Crowley, “and the dogged pursuit of this policy flies in the face of the interests of Canada and people who become trapped in the cycle of working seasonally and then receiving EI benefits while unemployed.” 

Great minds agree on petitions....

Someone else agrees with me that petitions don't work - unless they're part of a larger campaign.

I wrote about this in my post... Petitions next to useless in campaign to defend CBC

Petitions next to useless in campaign to defend CBC

At least half-a-dozen petitions aimed at stopping Stephen Harper from taking control of the CBC are buzzing around the Internet. Pressure groups are putting a lot of effort into this campaign, but the question is - does sending petitions to Ottawa have any effect on the Conservatives. Are they just wasting everyone's time?

The many petitions contain all the right language:

"Prime Minister Harper is using his latest budget bill to seize unprecedented power over the CBC," say Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and LeadNow in a joint appeal. "Independent public media is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy, and we cannot stand by and let the CBC be silenced and controlled for partisan political gain."

"The government would be able to have dictatorial control over the terms and conditions of employment of non-union staff -- and any collective bargaining among unionized staff -- at the CBC and Radio Canada," says a petition started by SumOfUs.