Infographic Update

An updated infographic with footnotes has been added to the infographic page.  The infographic visually represents what appears to be a high degree of interconnectedness between the university, the government, and industry.

University/Corporate Connections

UPDATE: A new version of the chart, along with footnotes, is available here!

The following is a draft of a chart that graphically displays some of the connections between the University and the nuclear and oil industries.  It requires careful perusal, but raises some questions about the corporatization of the university.  A more developed and refined version will be available soon, so stay tuned.

Corporatization at the University of Calgary

Jonathan Kay: The ‘climategate’ shoe is now on the other foot

Remember “Climategate?” That was the apparent scandal that began in 2009 when hackers downloaded and publicized thousands of emails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Climate-change skeptics claimed that the emails showed that scientists were engaged in a massive conspiracy to suppress the “truth” that man-made warming was a giant hoax perpetrated by Al Gore, George Soros, the United Nations, and the Sierra Club.

As it turned out, there was no scandal. Six separate investigations into”climategate” all showed that the supposed damning evidence was just cherry-picked, decontextualized sound bites from candid discussions among scientists. As Scientific Americanmagazine reported: “Nothing in the stolen material undermines the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and that humans are to blame.” (In any event, as any thinking person already knew, the East Anglia data set was just one of several showing the massive warming pattern on earth.)

None of this subsequent investigation and exoneration has done anything to reduce the fever pitch of the warming-denier community, who see Climategate in epic terms. As I’ve argued previously, climate-change deniers think in ways that are at best cultish, and at worst conspiratorial. And they are not above twisting the available evidence in eccentric ways in order to blame warming on sunspots or (their new favourite) assorted “cosmic rays from space.”

I thought of this crowd today when I saw news that oil-industry-funded research accounts at the University of Calgary have been used to pay for anti-warming propaganda:

The records showed that the strategy was crafted by professional firms, in collaboration with well-known climate change skeptics in Canada and abroad, allowing donors to earn tax receipts by channelling their money through the university. All of the activities and $507,975 in spending were organized by the Friends of Science, an anti-Kyoto Protocol group founded by retired oil industry workers and academics who are skeptical about peer-reviewed research linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades.

Hmmm … An academic institution’s ostensibly neutral fact-finding mission being scandalously compromised by ideologues with an axe to grind on the subject of climate science? It’s almost as if there is some kind of climate-themed Watergate-style scandal at work here …

A sort of “climate-gate,” if you will.

No doubt, we will be hearing lots of firm denunciations of this real scandal from all the same fellows who still find space in their newspaper columns to decry the fake scandal of Climate-gate. Following the latter episode in 2009, a Financial Post colleague wrote that the controversy “requires a full investigation by competent scientists and official bodies.” In his next column, I expect he will be demanding that UCalgary gets the same treatment.

National Post
jkay@nationalpost.com

Jack Jensen's Letter to the Editor, published in the Prince Albert Daily Herald

Letter to the Editor re. maximum exposure limits to radioactivity

September 6, 2011

The Editor,

Forget about the Saskatchewan government/Hitachi-GE memorandum of understanding to develop small nuclear reactors.  What is needed is fundamental research into the allowable exposure to radioactivity, regulations that have not fundamentally changed since 1958 - long before the discovery of DNA.  The nuclear industry has actively attacked such research by Eastern European universities, hence the need for a western university that wants to establish itself amongst pre-eminent universities to take up this research.  The existing  exposure limits were based on radioactivity on the skin, a relatively simple health  problem compared to exposure through inhalation or ingestion.   In the body, ‘hot’ particles created by nuclear fission are treated like their non-radioactive counterparts, radioactive iodine concentrating in the thyroid, strontium in the bones etc.  The ‘hot’ particles then continuously bombard the surrounding tissue, disrupting the DNA, which can lead to cancer. 

A short youtube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBEipg81uLw) by Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Associates, illustrates the extent of airborne ‘hot’ particles from the meltdown of the Hitachi-designed Fukushima nuclear reactors.  Air was drawn through filters which were then examined for ‘hot’ particles.  The conclusion was that residents of Tokyo and its suburbs (population 30 million) inhaled an average of 10 ‘hot’ particles per day in April and that residents closer to Fukushima (population 2 million) inhaled  400 ‘hot’ particles per day!  How will this affect the health of these people and their descendants?  Who knows, but someone should be doing this research.

 If you agree that research into and acceptance of radiation exposure limits based on inhalation and ingestion be funded  before money is expended on creating more nuclear wastes, please advise Premier Brad Wall (premier@gov.sk.ca), Innnovation Minster Rob Norris (minister.aeei@gov.sk.ca) and U of S President Peter MacKinnon (peter.mackinnon@usask.ca).

Jack Jensen

Neil Jones' response to SP article "Senators want board chair to step aside"

President for all

BY NEIL JONES, THE STARPHOENIXAUGUST 23, 2011

In the story, Senators want board chair to step aside (SP, Aug. 17), University of Saskatchewan president Peter MacKinnon says "Universities' relationships with corporate donors are long term, and typically involve university staff, not board directors."

I see this as intentional obfuscation.

The issue here is that Nancy Hopkins, in chairing the Presidential Search Committee, plays a central role in the selection of the most powerful member of university staff. She also has a pecuniary interests in Cameco of more than $1 million. As such, she has a clear interest in serving the corporation through her committee's eventual choice.

Mackinnon and Hopkins also seem to have given up on the idea of the university as a primarily publicly funded institution. Hopkins calls this vision "unrealistic," and MacKinnon insists that serving corporations (his "communities") is "inevitable."

This is liable to be a selffulfilling prophecy. When a university stops lobby-ing for public funding and opts instead for corporate "donations," the door is open for governments to withdraw support.

Under MacKinnon the U of S has effectively taken the stance that public funding is no longer valued. We need a new president who will reverse this stance, and insist upon a restoration of public funding for academic institutions.

The next U of S president should be someone who values public say in the direction of research and education and who sees the university as primarily serving the interests of all Saskatchewanians - not just corporations.

Neil Jones

More USSWORD and Nuclear Research in the Starphoenix

Last week, in response to Janet French's article about USSWORD and the potential conflict of interest on the presidential search committee, the StarPhoenix published an editorial criticising USSWORD's stance:

The StarPhoenix: Hopkins seeks open process

Then earlier this week, the StarPhoenix also revealed the details of a research partnership between Hitachi and the government of Saskatchewan, including plans for the University of Saskatchewan:

The StarPhoenix:Saskatchewan, Hitachi partner on nuke research. By Jeanette Stewart

Nuclear Research Centre, Cameco, and the Next President of the U of S

The following is a link to the update posted by Sandra Finley earlier this year, summarizing the government contribution of funding to the university for a nuclear research centre, the involvement of Cameco, and the search  for the next president of the University.  It includes a summary of the situation up to that point, as well as analysis and commentary:

The Battles: Discussions by Sandra Finley