From Conscious Earth, "The online and blogging community had a field day tearing down Stephane Dion for failing to cite the David Suzuki Foundation report The Air We Breathe as a source for his environmental platform … [David Suzuki himself put] forward an open call for the general use of his foundation's research: 'Knock yourselves out. Feel free to steal, pilfer, borrow, rent, filch or otherwise take any research my foundation does and put it to good use.'"
Suzuki is a science hero, an amazing and brave Canadian researcher whose accessible, topical explanations of science topics have made him a national treasure.
This may seem obvious to some, but the whole point of conducting and publishing this research is to get people to actually use it. As public education, it helps raise awareness of environmental problems. But more important, it provides solutions to those problems. And most of those solutions are best implemented by our political and business leaders, rather than by individuals.
So if you ask me if it bothers me that politicians are stealing the solutions brought forward by my foundation, the answer is no. To use a computer term, we consider this information "open source." It's a free buffet; please take all you like. The whole reason why we do the research is to effect change. If those who have the power to make those solutions happen actually use that information, so much the better. This is how change happens.
(Thanks, Steven!)
