For the second time in two years the Bush-wannabe administration of Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper has quietly released an important report on the impact of climate change, while trying to bury it in the dead of summer.
The report, entitled Human Health in a Changing Climate: A Canadian Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity has been released last Thursday at 4:30 p.m., just before a long weekend in most Canadian provinces. The 500-page document that warns about the harmful impact of climate change on the health of Canadians has been authored by more than twenty first-rate specialists in the fields of public health and the environment.
Problem is, very few people are likely to read it. According to Montreal's Le Devoir (French), the report will not be posted on Health Canada's web site and will only be available by request, through e-mail, because the document is too large (8 MB) to be downloaded through the website!
I kid you not. It's the kind of strategery imported directly from the Bush playbook.
So may I ask the kind readers of this diary to join me in a small act of hacktivism. Write to Health Canada (ccadaptation@hc-sc.gc.ca) and ask for a PDF copy of the report. It might be a good read, even if you live south of the 49th parallel. And it might derail futures attempts to do the same.
UPDATE: doorguy found a link to a summary of the report.
UPDATE 2: I've recieved the French version of the report, which I posted on scribd.