As the Harper government prepares to spend $20 billion for 65 new fighter jets many say are unneeded, government scientists are quietly complaining that a single new ocean research ship is woefully under-budgeted at $120 million, putting the future of Canada’s marine science at risk.
The scientists are so alarmed about plans for the new ship they’ve taken the unusual and politically charged step of petitioning the departments of Fisheries and Oceans and Natural Resources Canada.
The 44 sea-going researchers, many working at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, and an additional 18 former scientists and staff, have signed a letter calling the planned vessel “inadequate” and saying it will “limit Canada’s ability to know and to manage its offshore lands and seas.”
The new ship is planned as a replacement for the CCGS Hudson, a 91-metre vessel that has been the primary research platform for Canada’s offshore scientists since 1963.
In 2007, the government budgeted $120 million for a replacement vessel of roughly the same size as the Hudson, with an expected delivery date of 2014. But inflationary pressures have led to repeated reductions in the size of the replacement; current plans call for a 76-metre vessel; the Hudson displaces 4,800 tones, while the new ship would displace just 3,400 tonnes.
The smaller vessel, with less ice-breaking capability, takes much valuable time off the summer research season, explains the letter. And time will again be impacted because supplies will have to be ferried from far-away ports, rather than stored on board.
According to the letter, limited deck space on the new boat means that the ability to take core samples from the ocean floor would be severely limited, and that scientists would not be able to operate newly developed Canadian Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.
Additionally, a reduction in berths from the Hudson’s 31 to 24 means that there will be less room for university researchers. “The way we’ve been dealing with our tight budgets over the last two decades, is we’ve been partnering with the university people,” Ellen Kenchington, one of the lead authors of the letter, tells The Coast. But with fewer university-funded researchers will be on board, the DFO and NRCan budgets won’t stretch as far.
Kenchington is surprised that The Coast obtained the letter, and doesn’t want the issue to enter the political arena. “I think our concerns are being listened to; maybe I won’t feel this way in a couple of months,” she says. “At this point, people are asking for more information and I’m putting together what I can on it, and they’re asking others, so I think things are looking positive for a good outcome.”
“The design of the offshore oceanographic vessel is still in development and has not been finalized,” says Frank Stanek, a spokesperson for Fisheries and Oceans. “The project team is currently working with the design firm to finalize a design for construction, with a clear objective of maximizing the vessels’ research capabilities within the available budget.”
See the scientists’ letter here.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2011.
So if we pose the question: Why is this and other environmental related issues not a hot topic in the present election campaign? Consider this.
The vast majority of Canadians and undoubtably the entire industrialised world are more concerned with putting food on the table, paying the rent, and in some cases keeping up with the joneses. Although this may be a controversial prospective, it may very well be the truth. Global warming is not yet on the visible doorstep of the developed world. We don’t wake up in the morning and wonder where we’ll hunt or gather for our food. We’re sheltered from the elements to an extent that we live in a virtual world within our modern homes. In fact, much of our food now comes from factory farms that either produce meat, or veg in another virtual environment where the elements/nutrients are controlled to laboratory standard. Before you know it, our oceans will be polluted to an extent that we’ll only be eating farmed fish. In short we are disconnected from reality. The changes in our environment caused by human activity have had little effect on us in the industrialised world aside from motivating conscientious members of the scientific community and media to ring the alarms. That being said, there’s a whole other discussion to be had about value based thinkers doing an unhelpfully decent job at persuading folks that science is some sort of conspiracy (ie. Vaccines;Evolution;Global Warming). It’s just not disrupting our pleasant littles lives enough to make people care and take action (and just to clarify,I am not trying to excuse this behaviour, but rather pose a theory of explanation).
The people affected first and unquestionably now are those in the ‘underdeveloped world’ who still directly depend on the earth every day to put food on their table, and house their families. These are the same people that are effectively powerless to do anything about it. WE are the consumers. We drive the exploration for the oil that disrupts nature; we drive the production of waste that ends up in our oceans as a result of the lust we have for consumer things; our water supply will be poisoned because of the chemicals used to make our factory food. People who are still living the natural human lifestyle, hunting, gathering and living off the earth are the ones who would make a change if they had any means to do so as it is effecting them now.
We must make the connection between conservation and our survival. We haven’t yet. Our impact on our earth as it stands could be catastrophic. Some say it’s too late; I still have hope. We need only look to into our own history book of humanity to see how our ancestors were able to sustain themselves without exploiting and destroying our earth. Maybe we need a great leader to show us the way, but I doubt we’ll find it in this election. Either way, now is the time to act. It shouldn’t take an iceberg landing on your doorstep to realise it.
If I’m totally wrong, which could be the case, we need to speak up so these egotistical politicians take notice and realise that the public cares. We can make individual changes on our own, but it’s the policy makers that can make big change happen real fast.
Don’t worry Shep help is on the way…..http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378178/Charles-Manson-breaks-20-year-silence-40th-anniversary-gruesome-Sharon-Tate-murders.html
So where my point was, Canadians generally don’t take GW seriously. Thanks pothole…. I think.
Ahh the Hudson love boat. I’ve seen younger research vessels in a museum but this workhorse of a ship is still working hard for science. The most recent budget cuts for the Hudson replacement is only the most recent of cuts that have been plaguing BIO for years (seemingly since the Liberals last held power). People are retiring with no one being hired to replace them, short-term contracts are not being renewed, some of the labs are no longer operating and they don’t even have the money to hire co-op students for the summer! If they had opened that letter to all current and former students and staff, it would have thousands of signatures, mine included!