Name Barry Cooper Role Author | Books Action into nature | |
 | ||
Education University of British Columbia, Shawnigan Lake School | ||
In 1991, Cooper co-authored Deconfederation: Canada without Quebec, in which he argued that Canada would benefit from Quebec separation. He has also written a book titled, Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of Modern Political Science (1999) and Action into Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Technology (1991).
Contents
He is a Fellow at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies and a Senior Research Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. Cooper attended high school at Shawnigan Lake School on Vancouver Island.
As a regular columnist for the Calgary Herald, Cooper is a frequent guest commentator on Canadian political issues. His Calgary Herald biography says: Barry Cooper, FRSC, a fourth generation Albertan, was educated at Shawnigan Lake School, the University of British Columbia and Duke University. He is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and has published many books. A recent effort was, It's the Regime, Stupid! A Report from the Cowboy West on Why Stephen Harper Matters (Key Porter)."
The "Calgary School"
Cooper is a member of an influential group of conservative political scientists the Calgary School, which also includes Tom Flanagan, Rainer Knopff, Ted Morton, and David Bercuson. Cooper, like other members of the Calgary School, strongly advocate against First Nations rights to land and special privilege. In his arguments in a January 2013 article he cites controversial publication entitled First Nations? Second Thoughts in which he countered arguments presented in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People(1996). Both this publication and Cooper's article argue against statements by the RCAP that, "(1) Aboriginals are privileged because they were here first; (2) there are no significant differences between European and Indian civilizations so that (3) Indians are sovereign nations; accordingly (4) treaties were nation-to-nation agreements that (5) affirmed aboriginal sovereignty and ownership of the land."
Flanagan is often described as a member of the Calgary School, which includes a group of conservatively inclined professors at the University of Calgary, such as Barry Cooper, F.L.(Ted) Morton, Rainer Knopff and history professor David Bercuson who are strongly committed to strategic and direct influence on public affairs with a long term vision.
By 1998, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a public policy research institution based in Washington, DC had already observed the ascendancy of the role of Calgary-based academics on Canadian public policy, specifically the Calgary School of political science (Rovinsky 1998:10).
In The Court Party, Knopff and Morton took on judicial activism. Cooper and Bercuson’s Deconfederation undermined the Meech Lake agenda of endless concessions to Quebec. In First Nations? Second Thoughts, I stood up against the juggernaut of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. All these books were widely discussed in the media and have had some impact on the course of public affairs.
Friends of Science and Cooper's Science Education Fund
See Friends of Science In 2006, Cooper became involved with a non-profit organization, Friends of Science, which openly criticized the Kyoto Protocol and the science behind it. The group "offers critical evidence that challenges the premises of the Kyoto Protocol and presents alternative causes for climate change." Friends of Science:About Us. The group is regarded as a corporate lobby for the Alberta oil and gas industry by many environmentalists. By 2004, as faculty member of the University of Calgary, political scientist Barry Cooper, set up the Science Education Fund which could accept donations through the Calgary Foundation. The 57-year-old charity, Calgary Foundation administers charitable giving in the Calgary area and had "a policy of guarding donors' identities." Albert Jacobs, a geologist and retired oil-explorations manager and member of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists who formed the Friends of Science, described how donations from oil and gas industry donors were passed on to the Science Education Fund set up by Barry Cooper, which in turn supported the activities of the Friends of Science including the .
In 2004 Talisman Energy, a Calgary-based, global oil and gas exploration and production company, one of Canada's largest independent oil and gas companies, donated $175,000 to fund a University of Calgary-based "public relations project designed to cast doubt on scientific evidence linking human activity to global warming." Journalist Mike De Souza published the list of significant donations to the Friends of Science which had been received by the press, in an article published in the Vancouver Sun in 2011. Sydney Kahanoff, a Calgary oil and gas executive and philanthropist donated $50,000 through his Kahanoff Foundation, a charity he established in 1979. Murphy Oil matched one of its employees $1,050 donations. Douglas Leahey defended the donations to the Friends of Science from the then CEO of Talisman Energy, James Buckee, who shared the Friends' views on climate change. Cooper's involvement in the funding of this group was called into question in 2006, when it was reported he helped start a University of Calgary fund called the Science Education Fund, which accepted monies from Alberta oil and gas companies, foundations and individuals and then used some of that charitable donation to use in the Friends of Science group, to produce a video, available at friendsofscience.org.
In April 2005, Friends of Science released a 23-minute on-line video directed by Mike Visser, entitled "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change" that contrasts the views of politicians and scientists on the question of climate change. The video featured consultant Tim Ball, Sallie L. Baliunas, Professor of Geology Tim Patterson of Carleton University, Ross McKitrick and Professor of Political Science Barry F. Cooper of the University of Calgary, all of whom are known for skepticism with regard to the mainstream scientific view on global warming. A second edition was released 13 September 2007.
In 2014 Friends of Science released a billboard in Calgary, Alberta claiming that the sun, and not human activity, is the primary driver of Global Warming.