“Join Olympians and snow and ski specialists for thought-provoking discussion on the challenges we face today and the future of snow sports,” proclaimed the Ecology Ottawa (EO) announcement advertising their event on Wednesday at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum.

“I’m Tom Harris with the International Climate Science Coalition [ICSC]. I’ve been a skier for about 55 years so I’d like to hear what the panel thinks about this circumstance. As demonstrated by books like this [1,000 page book held up for the audience to see], the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change [NIPCC], there are literally thousands of scientists who do not think that we’re headed for dangerous warming. So I offered to Ecology Ottawa to bring one of these scientists in, for free, I asked them about a week ago, and they turned that down. So what I’d like to know from the panel is: what do you think of excluding scientists who disagree with political correctness from appearing on the panel?”

After statements by the participants about how snow and ice would soon be a thing of the past and the sport of skiing all but dead due to global warming, the question period began. I said:

At “the Future of Snow and Skiing in a Warming World”, the public were invited to hear from a panel of winter Olympic athletes, ski centre managers, and a local scientist who contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Besides the audience’s surprise that someone would dare ask such a question, and one person calling out, “there are not thousands of scientists”, a woman immediately jumped up, obviously prepped to discredit the evil denier they knew would be attending. She launched into the sort of attack—who do you work for, etc.—that groups like ICSC face all the time. Rather than asking her to sit down and allow the panel to answer the question, the EO organizers permitted her to be passed a microphone and gave her the time to make her charge again, this time loud and clear.

“I just think that you have to divulge your, um, where you’re coming from. Mr. Harris has been paid by the fossil fuel industry for decades!” she said.

The audience applauded happily. A denier had been outed. Hurrah!

I responded that her charge was incorrect and explained that “these scientists [holding up the NIPCC report] are published in peer reviewed journals. [These] are thousands of scientists from universities.”

“There are not thousands of scientists. That’s a lie,” called out another audience member. “Boo, get out,” said another. “You only get one question.” Oops, very strict rules here, I thought. A half minute question and a quick reply was too much. One man was so angry that he turned around and gave me a finger. Burn the heretic, they seemed to be saying.

The EO meeting chair tried to cut me off part-way through my response, saying, “OK, OK, let’s let the panel answer the question.” Aggressively interrupting meetings was apparently fine with the chair, if you are on the side of the angels, that is. But taking a few seconds to answer the charges is not allowed in the church of global warming.

The only scientist on the panel, Dr. Stephan Gruber of Carleton University said in response that, “I was not aware of the fact that scientists are being excluded here. And I am also not aware of the fact that right here we are discussing whether or whether not there is global climate change happening. That may be a discussion that we should be having somewhere else if you feel that needs to be addressed…”

Graber did not seem to understand that I was in no way debating “whether or whether not there is global climate change happening.” The question I asked was about the appropriateness of excluding scientists from the panel who debate whether or not “we’re headed for dangerous warming”.

“I feel quite confident to trust in what the IPCC does,” Gruber finally concluded. “And I am very happy to look at any other evidence that other scientists present because if we like or don’t like their outcomes, presenting evidence is a good thing in the scientific discourse. But, so far, I really haven’t seen a lot of things presented to me that convince me. And I don’t think that this is the panel where we should get stuck in this discussion.”

Hmm, OK, no science in tonight’s meeting, I thought. Just a discussion about what will happen according to EO’s religion unless we prevent it and how to adapt to this supposed inevitability.

After enthusiastic applause from the audience for Gruber’s answer, the chair thanked the professor and said, “It brings up a question that may be worth asking. Sara Renner [Olympian who gave an address by Skype about the problems facing skiers in a warming world] talked about the challenges they had with hate mail. And, Patrick, he talked about people … there are people who question whether this is a real problem. Certainly today’s event, Mr. Harris did phone the museum and ask the museum if they could cancel the event [note: this is not actually correct. I registered a complaint with the museum that such a biased meeting would be held at a publicly funded institution]. I know one of the panelists was approached by a prominent person and discouraged from participating. So what is it, do you think Stephan, that motivates people who feel so strongly that they want to disagree with the established lines?”

Gruber replied, laughing, “I don’t know. I mean this must be a personal question because it has nothing to do with, you know, my scientific background [sighs]. I don’t know what motivates people to threaten others or to use tactics that don’t go to the actual arguments. I can’t speak to this. Honestly. And I think we shouldn’t here. It doesn’t help the argument.”

Gruber was smart not to get sucked into speculation about the motivations of those who take a different point of view on climate change. If the EO chair was not embarrassed by the Carleton professor’s response, he should have been. The chair quickly said, “Let’s move to another question.”

After questions about the impact on climate change of various skiing practices and trail preparation, there followed a two minute rambling statement from a woman in the audience that ended with, “There’s too much carbs in the air. We need to look at exactly our lifestyle and our diet and our health to have a much greener environment that we do now, and how are we going to do that? That is our main question tonight.”

Climate change science, with alarmist forecasts treated as gospel

Climate change science did in fact come up repeatedly in the meeting, with alarmist forecasts treated as gospel. This was fine with the chair who waxed alarmingly about science papers that showed temperatures rises as much as 12.5 degrees C by 2080. Gruber confidently asserted, “It will get warmer. Winters will get shorter. For some ski resorts, that doesn’t matter. But for the majority of them it matters.” He then discussed observations of the snow changes and glacier retreat throughout the mountains.

Had there been a scientists on the panel who didn’t accept the IPCC’s position, then the audience would probably have been alerted to the fact that there has actually been a slight rise in winter snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere over the past 46 years, including small rises in both North America and Eurasia. Here are the relevant graphs from the Rutgers University (New Jersey) Global Snow Lab:







Perhaps the most ironic moment of the evening came when a past member of the national ski team in the audience said during his 2.5 minute ‘question’, “I think Sara addressed this in talking about how the intimidation that she or Thomas [her husband, also an Olympian] faced when they took a public stand, I think there is a real elephant in the room in terms of the efforts that are made, in some respects on both sides, to try to maintain a very polar position.”

The audience voiced their approval, apparently oblivious to the fact that the real elephant in the room was right there in the museum theatre: their own aggressive behaviour when I dared question EO’s point of view.

EO and their allies do a great disservice to the environmental movement with events like last night’s. By supressing alternative points of view, they alienate many fair-minded people who appreciate that science is never as cut and dried as EO would like us to believe. Science, including environmental science, should be about debate with the side with the best arguments winning the day.

Although I later thanked the EO chair for not being aggressive himself, it is clear in retrospect that he should have quickly silenced audience members who misbehaved. We want to encourage, not frighten away, people with an understanding of science to take part in public debates on such important issues.

My Egyptian-Canadian friend who attended the event with me and tried, unsuccessfully, to ask a question (one skeptical question was more than enough, organizers must have concluded) observed after the Ecology Ottawa event, “Canadians should look to many developing counties if they want to see where acceptance of aggressive bully boy tactics in support of political correctness eventually takes one. It is not pretty.”