ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Green Pieces: exploring the connections between Canadian climate science, environmental activism and popular environmental discourse

• In Event: New Perspectives on Climate Change in the Long 1970s

English Abstract

In June 1988 scientists, policy makers, politicians and non-governmental organisations came together in Toronto for a government sponsored conference on the “Changing Atmosphere” and its “Implications for Global Security”. Featuring high-profile attendees, including the Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, the conference resulted in the first widely reported statements about the scientific consensus on the anthropogenic causes of current climatic changes. For a brief moment scientific, political, and activist interests seemed closely aligned.

Just three decades earlier Canada’s climatological expertise was limited to isolated researchers in government and university physics departments. Following concerted efforts to grow capacity, by the early 1970s Canadian researchers were increasingly well-situated to play an integral role in emergent research on anthropogenic climate change. Through the 1970s, continued growth in atmospheric science research in Canada was supported by relatively consistent political support.

In parallel during the 1970s, nascent environmental movements found fertile ground in Canada. Most notably, the founding of Greenpeace in Vancouver in 1971, represented an important milestone as activism became more organised and directly engaged in scientific and political discourses. Drawing on the work of prominent Canadian science popularisers, in particular David Suzuki, I will demonstrate how they acted as conduits for ideas between the scientific, political and activist realms.

Working back from the 1988 conference, this paper will chart how these distinct scientific, political and activist strands developed. Drawing on primary materials from government and universities, and oral histories with Canadian climatologists, I argue that in addition to being driven by Canadian desires to improve its international reputation in climatology and the geopolitical opportunities the issue was seen to present, Canada’s central role in these early international conversations, was also shaped by its strong grassroots environmental movements.

Author

• Alexander Hall, McMaster University