OTTAWA – A group of young people pranked the federal government on Wednesday by cloning the Environment Canada website and using it to release false information in a bid to shine the spotlight on climate change.
The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition used a cloned website to announce the re-launch of a discontinued elementary school curriculum that teaches students about climate change and human impacts on the environment. The release was also sent to thousands of Canadian journalists.
A phony news release quotes Environment Minister Peter Kent saying: “Climate change is the defining issue of our time. We know how important action on climate change is to Canadians, even more so now than in 1995. We are immensely proud to re-launch this groundbreaking, made-in-Canada educational program.”
The prank was an attempt to show how government priorities on the environment have shifted over the past decade, say organizers.
“There aren’t many channels for us to be heard and this is an effective way for our voices to be heard,” said Amara Possian of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. “Our main focus with it was to find a creative way to illustrate the lack of action, the fact that there was action in the past and this program was discontinued, but there currently isn’t any action and we are doing something about it.
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The imposter site look identical to the news release page on the Environment Canada website, the only difference is curriculum announcement. The URL is also a few letters different than the official Environment Canada site.
It was flagged by a government official and Environment Canada was notified on Wednesday morning. Possian and her co-conspirators admitted to the prank early Wednesday afternoon.
Getting out the message
Kent’s office condemned the prank on Wednesday, saying calling it “dishonest” and said it was looking into whether it would launch any sort of legal response.
“There are responsible ways of bringing concerns forward- this is not one of them,” said Kent’s spokeswoman Melissa Lantsman. “We condemn this blatant dishonesty and shameful misrepresentation of the Minister to Canadians.”
Possian said young people have been trying to tell government to take more action on climate change through traditional ways, but it just didn’t work.
“This is just another way for us to engage with the government,” she says. “I firmly believe that the government doesn’t listen closely to those most impacted by climate change.”
The Canadian youth were advised by Yes Men, a network of cyber imposters that pranked the government in the past.
In December 2009, U.S.-based pranksters admitted to sending out fake new releases from Environment Canada claiming that Canada had committed to drastic greenhouse gas emissions cuts. The releases were sent out during the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen.
“I think there is some real positive coverage,” said Mike Bonanno, one of the founders of Yes Men. “The story is being told again that this government doesn’t care about people and people’s future…When you can look back at one of the Environment Canada campaigns from the mid-90s and see that they were trying to act and educate the youth about climate change, it is just a tragedy today to realize that program it has ended.”
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