When the iconic Gwynne Dyer recently spoke to a sold out crowd at Goldcorp Auditorium at Simon Fraser University he said although terrorism dominates media headlines it’s the global threat of climate change that keeps him up at night.

Delivering a lecture on his vision of “The New World Disorder,” Dyer said the Western world obsesses over the Middle East, overblowing the significance of radical terror groups to global security.

“It's astounding how little the Middle East matters,” Dyer told the crowd. “I mean, it monopolizes our news media, but the Middle East contains 10 percent of the world's people. Only five percent of the world's people are Arabs. And it accounts for about three percent of the world's economy, including all the oil."

In his acclaimed book Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats, Dyer warned that unless we get serious about a wholesale decarbonization of our economies, "the second half of this century will not be a time you would choose to live in."

“This thing is coming at us a whole lot faster than the publicly acknowledged wisdom has it,” Dyer wrote. “When you talk to the people at the sharp end of the climate business, scientists and policy-makers alike, there is an air of suppressed panic in many of the conversations. We are not going to get through this without taking a lot of casualties, if we get through it at all.”

Over the course of his career, Dyer has become something of a maverick among his military cohorts.

After serving in three militaries, Dyer obtaining a Ph.D. in Military and Middle Eastern History from the University of London and now provides some of Canada’s most insightful geo-political analysis — often criticizing mainstream military action.

When it comes to addressing current threats, Dyer’s analysis is antithetical to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s.

The notion that Canada is under imminent threat from both ISIS and Putin’s Russia is Canadian fear mongering, Dyer said, adding that narrative serves to legitimize military action against foreign threats. This happens at the expense of international action on climate change, he said.

In response to Canada’s recent military action in Syria, Dyer told the SFU crowd that military action was certain to accomplish one thing only: further retaliation from ISIS forces and increasing escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

Canada’s response to terrorism has provoked significant criticism, especially in response to the Harper government’s recently tabled Bill C-51, an anti-terrorism bill experts say threatens Canadian democracy and civil liberties by expanding surveillance and counter-terrorism activities of spy agencies here at home.

Dyer said rather than the specter of international terrorism, what truly frightens him is one thing: “Climate change, climate change, climate change.”

Image Credit: Klam@s via Flickr

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Vivian Krause has spent years scrutinizing how Canadian environmental groups are funded, claiming she's just asking "fair questions."

But as the blogger-turned-newspaper-columnist has run rampant with her conspiracy theory that American charitable foundations' support of Canadian environmental groups is nefarious, she has continually avoided seeking a fair answer.

If Krause were seeking a fair answer, she'd quickly learn that both investment dollars and philanthropic dollars cross borders all the time. There isn’t anything special or surprising about environmental groups receiving funding from U.S. foundations that share their goals — especially when the increasingly global nature of environmental challenges, particularly climate change, is taken into consideration.

Despite this common-sense answer, Krause’s strategy has effectively diverted attention away from genuine debate of environmental issues, while simultaneously undermining the important role environmental groups play in Canadian society.

Creating Diversions a Trademark of Oil Industry Strategy

This diversion strategy is a well-known tactic of the oil industry. A strategy document leaked yesterday details how one of the world’s most powerful PR firms, Edelman, advised TransCanada to undermine opponents to the Energy East pipeline.

Edelman recommended TransCanada apply pressure to opponents by “distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources.” To achieve that, Edelman advises TransCanada to work with “supportive third parties who can in turn put the pressure on, particularly when TransCanada can’t.”

Sound familiar?

In Vivian Krause's resume, she proudly takes credit for spawning a Senate inquiry and Canada Revenue Agency audit — distractions that forced environmental groups to spend time defending themselves, rather than doing their important work as watchdogs and advocates for environmental protection.

While Krause has been busy maligning the funding of Canadian environmental groups, very little attention has been paid to where Krause gets her bread buttered.

Krause Receives 90% of Income From Resource Industries

Krause frequently claims her research is independent (PDF) and that her work is unaffiliated with any industry — yet she has admitted that since 2012, more than 90 per cent of her income has come from oil, gas and mining interests through honorariums and speaking fees.

Krause has been paid as much as $10,000 to speak to energy executives. While she may not be directly employed by the fossil fuel industry, her work certainly aligns with that industry’s interests.

Groups paying Krause speaker’s fees included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Association for Mineral Exploration and the Vancouver Board of Trade.

Large speaking fees are increasingly being used as a handy way to support the work of industry allies without directly employing them.

To see just how contentious speaking fees can be, take a gander at the recent Rex Murphy or Peter Mansbridge controversies. CBC ended up adjusting its policy, requiring hosts to disclose their speaking fees.

What Was Vivian Krause’s Argument Again?

So let’s get this straight: Krause, who has relied on speaking fees from the multinational resource sector for 90 per cent of her income for the past three years, argues that Canada’s environmental organizations are fronts for U.S. interests because they receive a portion of their funding from across the border?

Despite the spurious logic, Krause is still given a platform to spread her misleading information in the Postmedia chain of newspapers, including the Financial Post and The Province, as well as on Global News shows where she's a regular panelist on Unfiltered with Jill Krop.

While Krause may spin a mysterious tale, the answer is simple: philanthropic dollars crossing borders to support work on global issues is the norm. And Canadian charities are required to disclose all significant donations from foreign sources annually.

The Real Debate Canada Needs

The continued debate over the funding sources of the environmental community is simply a diversion tactic that favours the fossil fuel industry's desire to avoid having the real debate about Canada’s energy future.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges nations to phase out fossil fuels immediately to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.

The report puts responsibility squarely on the shoulders of our elected leaders, saying they can “either put policies in place to achieve this essential shift, or they can spend the rest of their careers dealing with climate disaster after climate disaster.”

But Canada won’t meet its 2020 international climate target, according to Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand.

“The federal government does not have an overall plan that maps out how Canada will achieve this target. Canadians have not been given the details about which regulations will be developed, when, nor what greenhouse gas reductions will be expected,” Gelfand wrote in a report last month.

Now that China and the U.S. have signed a deal agreeing to cut emissions, Canada is left with even fewer excuses not to act.

Meantime, the federal government’s mandate to advance an energy superpower agenda marches forth, resulting in controversy across the country — from the Kinder Morgan fiasco on Burnaby Mountain, to the First Nations legal battle against Enbridge Northern Gateway, to the Athabasca Chipewyan and Beaver Lake Cree First Nations’ fight to prevent oilsands expansion on their territory, to efforts to ban fracking in Nova Scotia.

These efforts are not the outcome of foreign conspiracy — they’re the outcome of a lack of any sensible national conversation about how to develop our natural resources while meeting our international climate change commitments.

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This past weekend David Ellis, a CTV photo journalist with 28 years' experience, boarded a plane bound for Malaysia with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Last week Ellis was set to be banned from accompanying Stephen Harper on the upcoming trip because he asked the Prime Minister an unwelcome question during a photo op in New York.

Harper's office backed down after a backlash from the major television networks, including CBC, CTV and Global News, which questioned the role the PMO should play in journalistic coverage of Harper's travels abroad.

Harper was in New York last week for a "highly scripted public program, including a business roundtable" according to Tim Harper of the Toronto Star. Included on Prime Minister Harper's schedule was a photo op with the business leaders, a "staged event" to "make the prime minister look good," during which he "smiles and grabs the hand of whomever he is about to meet."

In 2006 Harper instituted strict rules prohibiting journalists from asking questions during photo ops in Canada and abroad. In Britain and Australia, there are no restrictions on journalists asking questions during photo ops. This rule is occasionally broken in the case of breaking news.

At the time of Harper's New York photo op, David Ellis was concerned with the charging of Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro under the Canada Elections Act for exceeding election spending and donation limits. Del Mastro was Harper's parliamentary secretary, though he's now been stripped of that title and is no longer a member of the Conservative caucus.

After clearing it with his Ottawa office, Ellis asked Harper, who has defended Del Mastro while he was being investigated, "Any comment today, sir, about Dean Del Mastro being charged?" Stephen Harper declined to answer, and all journalists were vacated from the room without incident.

Within one week CTV was notified by the PMO that Ellis would not be allowed on Harper's plane for the seven-day trip to Malaysia and Indonesia even though the journalist had received clearance to work as a pool cameraman.

According to the Canadian Press, the main networks CBC, CTV and Global "[pool] resources on prime ministerial trips in order to cut costs," with each sending its own reporter but taking turns sending camera operators, editors and technicians.

Media travelling with the prime minister pay for their own lodging and transportation.

The networks in the pool backed CTV's decision to send Ellis to board Harper's plane despite the the PMO's order.

When news of the ban became public, Jason MacDonald, the Prime Minister's communications director, issued an email, stating "no accredited Canadian media outlet is prevented from joining us for the upcoming trip to the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation Summit."

"To suggest otherwise is absolutely false," he added, declining at the time to specify whether Ellis would be allowed on the plane.

Following the backlash from the press gallery, the PMO clarified Ellis would accompany Harper after all. "I'm not going to get into the issue . . . all that matters is he will be on the trip,'' said MacDonald.

"Asking a question of an elected official shouldn't be a punishable offence," Daniel Thibeault, president of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery, told the Star.

As Tim Harper of the Star puts it, "picking and choosing who you want on your plane covering an official government foreign visit is one step short of the PMO flying to Malaysia with its own stenographer who would email back tales of the glorious leader's conquests."

Image Credit: World Economic Forum / Wikimedia Commons

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