A democracy is only as effective as its voters; if its citizens are being deliberately kept in the dark about important issues, then fully informed participation cannot happen. At the same time, as Canada continues to overemphasize the role and importance of its oil sands, the country is turning into something else. Writing in the New York Times, Canadian professor Thomas Homer-Dixon noted that the oil industry is “twisting our society into something we don’t like,” and that “Canada is beginning to exhibit the economic and political characteristics of a petro-state.” He continues: Countries with huge reserves of valuable natural resources often suffer from economic imbalances and boom-bust cycles. They also tend to have low-innovation economies, because lucrative resource extraction makes them fat and happy, at least when resource prices are high. Canada’s record on technical innovation, except in resource extraction, is notoriously poor. Capital and talent flow to the tar sands, while investments in manufacturing productivity and high technology elsewhere languish... To read the full article: io9/how-the-tar-sands-are-crushing-science-in-canada-468049277
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 02:52:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015