Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston |
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Politicised science
Did anyone watch 4 Corners last night? Here is a transcript. Climate change has been an important theme on Webdiary and I personally think it is the most important issue on the planet. The most recent thread was Sue Russell's The end of the world as we know it (do you feel fine?), but there has also been Climate change update 3: Greenhouse 2005, and a number of others by David Roffey, Changing Climate Change by Jeffrey D Sachs and Climate change: blindingly obvious or relatively unimportant? by J Bradford DeLong and Bjørn Lomborg.
Here is a brief extract from Janine Cohen's 4-Corners report "The Greenhouse Mafia":
JANINE COHEN: Kevin Hennessy is the coordinator of the CSIRO's Climate Impact Group. One of his jobs is to talk about the potential impacts of climate change. But there are some likely impacts of climate change that are clearly a no-go zone. Some scientists believe that there'll be more environmental refugees. Is that a possibility?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: I can't really comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Why can't you comment on that?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: That's, that's, er... No, I can't comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Is that part of editorial policy? You can't comment on things that affect immigration?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: No, I can't comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Can I just ask you why you can't comment?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: Not on camera.
JANINE COHEN: Oh, OK. But is it a policy thing?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: I can't comment on that.
Well, we can safely say that Webdiary has been trying harder to keep you informed about this issue than the Government.
To kick this thread off then, here is a Press Release from Greens Senator Christine Milne's office, entitled, "Independent investigation needed into corruption of climate change policy.":
Claims that the fossil fuel industry had unprecedented access to confidential Commonwealth government processes and the silencing of senior climate change scientists require an independent investigation, the Australian Greens said today.
The allegations point to a corruption of the process for developing government policy on the most critical environmental issue facing the nation, Greens climate change spokesperson Senator Christine Milne said.
"The claims aired last night on ABC Four Corners by reputable scientists and a former ministerial staffer will trouble every Australian who cares about accountability and the government's response to climate change," Senator Milne said in Canberra.
"Attempts by government ministers and the fossil fuel industry to dismiss the claims will not wash.
"This is not how government should operate - providing access for parties with vested interests to draft cabinet and ministerial documents in an apparent attempt to undermine policy responses to address the pollution their businesses cause.
"Is this why the government has refused to set greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and to acknowledge that sea level rise in the Pacific could displace many people who will seek refuge in Australia?
"Australia's global reputation has been severely damaged by the scandal enveloping the Australian Wheat Board, private companies and the government over the sale of wheat to Iraq.
"These claims about industry involvement at the highest level of
developing climate change policy further besmirch Australia's
international standing and contrast with Prime Minister Howard's attempts to improve governance in our region.
"The government must appoint a suitable person with judicial experience to conduct an independent investigation, with the powers of a Royal Commission, to examine these most serious claims."
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The Ice Cap Budget
This article from today's SMH adds to Will Howard's comments on the ice caps. It reports that the Antarctic budget appears to be in deficit - to the tune of 150 cubic kilometres a year. That would be a (very small) direct increase in sea level. More worrying are the possible consequences on the dynamics of the ice caps themselves.
The article also reports a South African study that indicates that even small reductions in rainfall might have drastic consequences. That makes sense to me. In a dry climate, only the last portion of the rainfall ends up in the rivers. If there is a change in rainfall, that last portion will be most effected.
And some comments on points 8 & 9:
8. Tropical disease will spread to temperate regions.
A good thing, too. It's about time some serious money was spent on malaria research.
9. Closing coal fired power stations and replacing them with renewable energy sources will not cause unemployment and economic deprivation.
I have little competence in economics, but there are a few things that seem obvious. The miners and plant workers lose employment. The power companies suffer loss of profits and their invested capital shrinks. On the other hand, people and capital have to be employed to manufacture the plant for the various renewable sources: wind turbines, solar cells, water-wheels etc. You'd expect the electricity distribution network to be roughly comparable - maybe a bit less, but not drastically. Overall, it's a shift from a few high capital, low employment sources of power to many lower capital sources with a much higher total employment of labour (unless we go nuclear). A reasonable projection would be capital neutral (the capital lost in the mining/power station industries compensated by capital creation in renewable power industries) and employment positive. Side benefits in export potential (value already added, for a change) and particularly in the reduction in externalities (that damned CO2, for example).
Will, I'll try to post on Why Xenophobia... tomorrow night.
Ice budget and sea-level
Lies about Global Warming
Interesting paper mentioned by Miranda Devine in the SMH today.
Nine Lies About Global Warming by Ray Evans of the Lavoisier Group.
He suggests that there are 9 fibs being thrown around regarding climate change.
1. Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant.
2. The 20th Century is the hottest in recorded history and the decade 1990-2000 is the hottest ever.
3. The evidence linking man-made CD and current warming is decisive.
4. The scientific consensus is that man-made CD emissions have already caused significant global warming and must be severely curtailed to prevent future climate catastrophe.
5. Warming caused by man-made CD emissions is responsible for more droughts, blizzards and cyclones than before.
6. Man-made CD emissions are causing the polar ice caps to melt and sea levels to rise. Threatening Pacific and Indian Ocean island nations.
7. Unless man-made CD emissions are reduced by over 50% by 2050, our descendants will be living in a world hotter by 2-5 degrees in 2100.
8. Tropical disease will spread to temperate regions.
9. Closing coal fired power stations and replacing them with renewable energy sources will not cause unemployment and economic deprivation.
I'm sure there are many here who disagree with Mr Evans.
Nine Lies?
Gareth Eastwood writes "Interesting paper mentioned by Miranda Devine in the SMH today."
I have the Devine piece in front of me now. Let's take Evans' points one by one.
"Ray Evans of the Lavoisier Group ... suggests that there are 9 fibs being thrown around regarding climate change."
"1. Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant."
Well this is a semantic point. Pollutant or not, human action has taken carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to a greater level than any natural level in the past at least half million years, and probably the last 25 million years. That human action is responsible for the added CO2 is not in dispute. In the sense that we have enriched the atmosphere with CD far beyond what its natural concentration would be, then yes the CD is a "pollutant."
"2. The 20th Century is the hottest in recorded history and the decade 1990-2000 is the hottest ever."
This is pretty well confirmed now by the data sets to hand so far, both historical records and paleoclimatological "proxies."
"3. The evidence linking man-made CD and current warming is decisive."
Both the temporal variations and spatial patterns of global warming of the past century are consistent with a significant fraction of the observed warming being man-made (by the added greenhouse gases). As recently as a year ago I would have said there was still room for doubt about this, but the data sets coming out since then strongly confirm the link. It's possible this will turn out to be wrong. But if you're in the risk-assessment biz, which like it or not, we are as human beings, we have to decide if it's worth betting against. I say no.
"4. The scientific consensus is that man-made CD emissions have already caused significant global warming and must be severely curtailed to prevent future climate catastrophe."
See my point above. Whether the future warming will be a "catastrophe" or not remains to be seen, but there are definitely some deleterious impacts that we have already set in motion: sea-level rise and ocean acidification are two examples.
"5. Warming caused by man-made CD emissions is responsible for more droughts, blizzards and cyclones than before."
Evidence on this is still somewhat equivocal, both whether there are "more than before" and if so, whether it can be attributed to man-made emissions. But a number of credible projections that suggest more "extreme" events in certain regions. Many of these regions are places where a lot of people live and/or try to grow food.
"6. Man-made CD emissions are causing the polar ice caps to melt and sea levels to rise. Threatening Pacific and Indian Ocean island nations."
Sea level rise has two components: 1) thermal expansion of the warming oceans; definitely happening, in a pattern consistent with anthropogenic global warming. This thermal expansion alone is enough to threaten many low-lying places, especially low-lying atolls like those in the Marshall Islands, Maldives, etc.2) Shifting water from frozen form in ice caps to liquid form in the ocean. It's still not quite clear whether the overall "budget" of the ice caps is in balance, deficit (more melting than accumulation), or surplus (more accumulation than melting). But the glaciological modelling done so far suggests there are parts of the polar ice caps, such as West Antarctica and Greenland, which are vulnerable to relatively small shifts in temperature. Collapse or partial loss of these would make sea level rise by several meters. Arctic ice mainly sea-ice. It's already floating so its melting would have little impact on sea level.
"7. Unless man-made CD emissions are reduced by over 50% by 2050, our descendants will be living in a world hotter by 2-5 degrees in 2100."
This is pretty well understood; the physics are pretty simple. The question really is: what's the impact of a 2-5-degree warmer world?
"8. Tropical disease will spread to temperate regions."
Not clear, but there have been some epidemiological projections suggesting this will happen, because warming would extend the ranges of the disease vectors (e.g. certain mosquito species) poleward.
"9. Closing coal fired power stations and replacing them with renewable energy sources will not cause unemployment and economic deprivation."
I don't know the economic trade-offs involved in shifting from coal-based to renewable energy sources.
I would characterise none of those nine statements as "lies" even if some are debatable.
Must Read This One
Fate of the Ocean and Flannery
That Fate of the Ocean article is a pretty good one, if a bit unfocused. (Thanks, Michael, for the link. I don't think it's off topic at all). One point the author does not emphasise enough is the irreversibility of much of the change we have already "locked in" to the ocean. In particular the warming of the upper ocean creates a huge thermal mass which will keep re-radiating heat back to the atmosphere for decades if not centuries, even if we were to stop all carbon emissions now. About 84% of the radiative imbalance we've already created is contained in that upper-ocean layer.
The acidification of the ocean is also something which will take centuries to reverse, because of the long time scales of the geochemical processes which buffer the carbonic acid (the form carbon dioxide assumes upon dissolving into water).
The overfishing of far-offshore areas also may have far-reaching ecological consequences. When I was first learning about oceanography, back in the days of wooden ships and iron men (or was that wooden men and iron ships?), the paradigm was that pelagic (open-ocean, hundreds to thousands of km from shore) ecosystems were still pristine. It probably wasn't even true then, and it's definitely not true now.
Having said all that ... whether Flannery's claim that global warming is "the greatest threat facing humanity" or not is debatable, but it is a risk with huge potential impacts, even if the short-of-worst-case scenarios turn out to be correct.
Ignorance breeds further ignorance
A television advertisement for Adelaide's Solar Shop featuring Tim Flannery has been prevented from being screened by Free TV Australia's "Commercials Advice" body. In it Flannery claimed that climate change is "the greatest threat facing humanity" - a claim which Commercials Advice rejected as false.
From what I can gather, this is a case of pre-screening self-censorship by the TV stations, not the outcome of adjudication by the regulatory body, the Advertising Standards Bureau - which runs a complaints-based system. So Flannery is probably right that it's "a matter for some more education" rather than political interference. How the public will ever get the education, though, when our scientists are prevented from giving it, is beyond me.
ha,ha, ha.
Robyn Clothier, I don't whether to laugh or cry concerning the sad Flannery story you relate. Despicable, isn't it?
( hands across eyes ) "I can't see; I can't see!!"
Hmmm, reminds me...Media Watch is back. I wonder what further infringements ACMA will allow the info-tainment/ shock- jocks types to get away with in the near future, in contrast.
There has already been one absolute travesty of justice committed by ACMA (former board of control), committed against the ABC's Media Watch, with the obvious goal of trying to curb its revelations about the slimy practices of tabloid media, in this case, Seven's racist TodayTonight, hosted by the Bionic Woman, Naomi Robson ("potty-mouth", to her friends!).
I commend the Media Watch site to all interested parties for further details.
Keeping science out of policy
Hi Paul - thanks for pointing out the Age article. I'm in the US so did not see 4 Corners, but your query prompted me to read through the 4C transcript. One government report was mentioned, where Dr Barrie Pittock was asked to remove material dealing with strategies for mitigation. Campbell did not comment on this report.
The report dealt with in the Age doesn't seem to have been mentioned on 4C but the part removed again dealt with how to respond to global warming/climate change.
What the government and the energy industries are censoring is scientists commenting on what needs to be done. This seems unwarranted and arbitrary - not only shuts out the people best qualified to advise but seeks to minimise their impact on the public debate. Sounds a lot like the gagging of scientists here, and the kind of stranglehold industry lobbyists have on the formulation of US 'strategies' - and all without Dick Cheney!
Thanks, Kerryn
Kerryn, you would have been fascinated with 4 Corners last night, too.
This was an expose involving the eastern states' equivalent to Tassie rainforests - Public/Private Partnerships and the stuffing up and hiving off at a premium of public transport infrastructure. All classical neo lib stuff, with a bi-partisan collection of politicians, a bevy of "consultants" and corporate spokespeople spinning frantically employing every euphemism under the sun, and infuriated motorists - all under the watchful barely discernible gaze of the obscured eminence-gris of the schmozzle; Macquarie Bank.
With all the contracts signed and commercial in-confidence purring over like a Rolls-Royce engine, we can discern that common sense public transport and the ability of a society to respond realistically to things like climate change have all been circumscribed, by an ugly collusion of vested interests before the public could ever wake up to being sold out.
Privatisation has been the most devastating of all of neo liberalism's responses to Keynesianism and democracy. Employing libertarian rhetoric concerning the rights of the individual as a stalking horse for vested interests capture of resources in common and their most common sense use, a motley collection of big business, media and politicians has stymied the likelihood of a reasoned response to interconnected issues like the concept of community, actual rights and purposes of humans, global warming and global poverty.
The barbarians at the gate, sensing the requirement for a more intelligent response by communities to new problems, hopped to ransack on so many different levels across borders. The global regime now in place prevents any meaningful response to real issues and problems, out of deference to the prejudices, greed, ego, caprices and ignorance of the powerful few.
Re: Politicised science
Any government would be absolutely stupid to muzzle its scientists. Policy-makers, and the electorate in general, need to hear a wide range of opinion. The opinion of scientists, after all, does not obligate society to take any particular policy step. Scientists, on the other hand, need to be wary of issuing "policy prescriptive" advice; it's not our "place" to do so. What I mean by that is it's not our place as scientists to prescribe specific policies. It is our place as citizens to do so, however, and we certainly can take off our "scientist hats" to speak our citizens' minds on matters of policy.
I think the role of the scientific community is to provide advice on the consequences and impacts of environmental policy (or lack of policy). In other words, we are in a position to say "if the carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere rises to double its pre-industrial level in the next century, this is what we project will happen. To forestall these outcomes, we would need to stabilise or reduce carbon emissions by so many gigatons." We are not in a position to say to policymakers: "you should ratify the Kyoto Protocol" or "you should allow a nuclear fuel processing plant to be built in Australia." (Personally I think ratifying Kyoto would be a good start). These are not scientific questions, and must be based on politics, social policy, economics, fear, greed, and all the usual motivators of politicians.
But Barrie Pittock, one of the scientists interviewed on the Four Corners program, was not, as I understand it, prescribing policy. He was trying to say, in essence: "Look, projections are that sea level is going to rise so many centimeters over the coming decades. The number of people living below 'x' cm above sea level is 'y' hundred thousand. These people are going to have to go somewhere, and Australian policymakers need to be aware of that." He wasn't saying "I want the Government to increase its immigration quotas by so-many thousands."
Governments take all kinds of policy advice on all kinds of policy areas, with all sorts of uncertainties, none of which makes inevitable any particular policy step. Military analysts draw up all kinds of contingency plans for intervening someplace or other - how many troops will it take? How many casualties will it entail? How much will it cost? How long will we have to stay? That doesn't mean we're going to invade Vanuatu tomorrow.
Kyoto Protocol proponents often imply that if only policymakers could be convinced that global warming is real and due to human action, the Kyoto Protocol would be universally ratified and put into action. In a word, no. Climate science is not the only (and indeed may not be the most important) factor driving governments' policies in this area, and Kyoto is not the only possible carbon emissions limitation scheme. On the flip side of this issue, opponents of limitations on fossil fuel emissions seem intent on discrediting the science of global warming as a way of forestalling action. But global warming is not the only reason to reduce fossil fuel use; there are compelling and more immediate geopolitical, environmental, and economic reasons to cut back on fossil-fuel dependence.
"Age" report, 8/20
The story has just been followed up by a piece by Liz Minchin, 20/8, in the Age, Sensitive material cut from climate report, which discusses 13 pages of conclusions censored from a 159 page report released last July.
Does anyone recall if this specific issue was discussed with Campbell during the Four Corners interview, or recall any worthwhile response from him? Own memory is a touch foggy.
Can't for the life of me understand why government is so infantile that it would want to censor information and discourse concerning this most straightforward of issues; when examined by scientists (shades of RU 486); what is the "moral" issue to which scientific analysis must be obscured this time? Surely is much too important to be playing childish "pretendies" games involving real topics and human lives?
A case for the precautionary principle
A case here for the precautionary principle.
I do not want to follow the deliberately blind, or those who choose to put profits ahead of polar ice. Moreover, I am very suspicious of politicians' attempts to control information available to the public. Control their information, and you control the people. Goebbels knew that well. The last 4 Corners, I suggest, should be seen in that light.
The UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has just released this report on the effects their computer models predict for the year 3000, assuming no major reduction in emissions.
For those who want a summary, here it is.
Who owns their knowledge?
A simple question: Who owns the knowledge in the heads of the (publicly funded and paid) CSIRO scientists? Is it the public? Or is it the (publicly funded and paid) politicians?
It is a complete nonsense to keep those with the best and most relevant knowledge on the crucial topic of global warming/climate change silenced because "policy should be left to politicians". Policy is made through public pressure on politicians and, by stopping the scientists communicating their thoughts on policy matters, the politicians are ultimately seeking to relieve any such pressure on themselves.
Nobody benefits except vested interests, particularly the coal industry, which as the last 4 Corners program showed, is not short of lobbyists in Canberra.
It is nonsense
Hey Ian, I'm sure your question is mainly rhetorical. Maybe someone can correct me but as far as I know expertise used on a job is normally part of the salary deal. There are exclusions I would expect but the point you are making is quite right.
It certainly is complete nonsense to say what Howard, Abbott and others have been saying. Experts are actually employed because of their expertise. It's called advice, something not taken if not palatable apparently.
Today's MP's seem to think they are elected to rule. They are not. They are elected to administer, a completely different function.
Unfortunately their views seem to be gaining momentum and the public, at least partly, is swallowing it.
History Starts Today
The thing that also floored me in the 4 Corners program was the statement by the Minister, to the effect that, he has the legislation in place that will save the planet. A touch arrogant maybe and even a little unrealistic (!!) but he was also carefully erasing the years that this government has willfully ignored or criticised all warnings on greenhouse warming and expressed its disdain for the Kyoto Protocol. Yes, history seems to start when they are ready to do something. Ignore the rest.
James Squires...
James Squires: "I wonder what mankind introduced in 806 AD that put a crimp on all the globally high temperatures in those days? Maybe the Romans introduced Carbon Trading?"
Nah the Romans were by then long gone as any sort of world force. They had gone the same way so many here point out evil AmeriKKKa is heading. Long since over taken by smaller more community based democratic groups with titles such as Goths, Vandals and Visigoths etc.
Unfortunately for many of these more spirtually based community groups getting one's act together was rather difficult and Kyoto Mark I was not signed until about 1000 AD. About that time human kind got its act together signed the agreement and the world was lucky enough to enter a more peaceful, enlightening period known as the Dark Ages. Until all was destroyed with the rise of yet another evil empire!
Follow the Greens and the shinning light I say!
Climate Change - a fiction from extremist Greenie Lefties
Just thought I'd put a provocative title to get your attention. Provocative is the word. How dare the Oz government gag debate on climate change! And to think that I was thinking of applying for a job with CSIRO when and if I return to the backwater that is John Howard's Australia. John - just keep burning those fossil fuels, mate, you're helping make the UK into a temperate zone! Meanwhile, large parts of Oz will turn into desert, if they haven't already with desperate farmers tearing down trees faster than the state governments can police it. How dare we criticise "third world" countries for cutting down their trees.
But seriously, how can any reasonable person (unless your daddy works for Shell) argue against global warming when we have people like Stephen Schneider (here and here) speaking to us already? The kind of nut case arguments against climate change are breathtaking.
It really reminds me of the creation versus evolution "debate". Pitching sheer belief against measured scientific evidence, whether temperature or fossils, really doesn't classify as an argument to me. I mean if it was a comet heading towards earth, would we be arguing about who put it there?
How many people (media included) realise that many effects of increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere are quadratic (ie grow faster than a proportional relationship)? In other words, a little goes a long way when you start changing things like CO2 balance. You bet that ice caps can melt, ocean levels can rise, and it's already happening. I wonder how far Kirribilli House is above the high tide mark?
This whole thing is yet more evidence that Howard's Australia is turning into an ideological clone of the US, minus the time limit on the top job. Well I've already voted with my feet. Stuff you John.
[ASIO - please file this post. You'll need it when Howard makes free speech illegal. Oh sorry, it already is!]
Only to be expected
It could be worse
Doing one's duty
Time to remove Howard
It’s time both major Political Parties realized that the time to act on climate change is now!
Before the industrial revolution, the atmospheric content of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, was 270 parts per million (ppm). Today it is recorded at 380ppm, and corresponds with a global warming period that has resulted in the past 10 years being the warmest since official records were kept midway through the 19th century.
This warming, in turn, corresponds with significant melting of both the Arctic and Antarctic icecaps, thereby influencing global current streams and associated weather patterns. It is a closed planetary system that we live in and any speeding up of natural processes, such as the rapid release of carbon dioxide in the burning of coal and other fossil fuels, will have an effect.
The Economist magazine, acknowledges that climate change is now of such a nature that a mixture of political will and technological fixes is required. According to the World Resources Institute, greenhouse gas emissions in the US increased 13% from 1990-2002, while Australia recorded a 22% increase. In contrast, the EU, a Kyoto signatory, has seen a small decline in its emissions during the same period. This is led by the UK and Germany, who reduced their emissions 15% and 19% respectively. Clearly, the incentives of emission targets can work.
The only way to avoid the worst impacts of climate change is to cut emissions, experts agree. Kyoto won't be enough. Emissions will need to fall by 80 or 90 percent, rather than 5 or 10 percent, to have an effect on the models. In terms of a response, Kyoto is only a start. Political leadership is all that's missing to achieve emissions cuts of 30 to 40 percent.
If Howard stands in the way of change he must be removed. There is no time to waste.
How will you tell you grandkids, you sat by and did nothing?
It’s a terrible
It’s a terrible situation when eminent scientists are being gagged by the Federal Government or agents for the Federal Government. Clearly, the scientists interviewed have a lot of integrity; the pursuit of science is an ethical undertaking. So when scientists have the option of biting their mouth or being forced to resign it says a lot about the uncouth political environment in which they reside.
The Federal Government has been quite reckless in their approach to environmental issues. The Greenhouse Effect has been shown to be a real phenomenon through computer models but probably more importantly through information gained from taking ice core samples from Antarctica. Once again Australia through Mr Howard has followed the American line which is now no longer sustainable. The American line being that there is no profit in the Greenhouse Effect, and so it should be ignored. The cost of dealing with the Greenhouse Effect is astronomical and results of any programs begun now will not be seen until many years have elapsed, well beyond the years of any political cycles.
The current Federal Government is a danger to people living now and their offspring.
A detailed view of the cancer in Aus politics
There were three crucial and disturbing aspects to the 4 Corners report as it went to air and one that came after it.
a) the way in which the fossil fuel lobby, by recruiting from, and ingratiating itself with, the bureaucrats, was able to punch well above its weight (just 2% of Aust employment) in terms of influencing government policy in a manner favourable to it. Apparently to the point of actually supplying the same information to cabinet twice, once as an industry submission and also as supposedly independent advice from the public service. Don't we need a real moratorium on this business of pollies and public servants jumping into lucrative private sector jobs to sell their knowledge and connections? It's so close to corruption as to be almost indistinguishable.
b) the way in which the Minister bent over backwards, clearly not knowing what the reporter had, to claim how much he welcomed industry input. (We're pro their business, we're pro their business was his mantra like subtext) The man is clearly out of his depth, being either fiercely ambitious in following the party line, or just naive. What he was smart enough to avoid answering was whether it would be alright for lobbyists to prepare cabinet documents.
c) the muzzling of scientists as yet another example of the politicisation of everything the government does or funds. One suspects only in the Soviet Union, and then nowhere near as efficiently, has the government dedicated itself to such a great extent to making it sure it controls and spins information flowing to the public with an eye always on its electoral concerns. The suborning of science to this cause is simply a logical conclusion of the process that has politicised the public service. Ministers are not accountable and the public is kept misinformed. An antithesis of liberal democracy.
d) pathetically this story has all but sunk without a trace, with little media follow -up. Like the frog slowly boiling the Australian public arena just meets these travesties with a shrug and a return to stories about cartoons storming in a teacup and quotable outrages from Pauline Hanson wannabes.
Let it be noted in conclusion this was not so much a story about Greenhouse or climate change, but about the right to have an open and informed debate about it. The Howard government appears to have decided this shouldn’t happen if it can help it. And the media, with the exception of the Age, seems to acquiesce.
wonder what...
I wonder what mankind introduced in 806 AD that put a crimp on all the globally high temperatures in those days? Maybe the Romans introduced Carbon Trading?
Clever Japanese?
James, perhaps it was the eruption of the volcano Bandai on Honshu in 806.
Vale Danna, sa'alam Flacco
AMAZING SCENES…
Meanwhile, naughty Flacco changes the climate all by himself!
What in God’s name did he mean by dressing as his alter ego, “Danna Vale” and barging in on the four Howard Gurl-Guides doing their RU486 stunt?
Or were they all auditioning for roles in Kath and Kim?
But speaking of climate change, by the sound of it Flacco/Danna has been delving into the Prime Minister’s mind, via the blind alley where the sun don’t shine.
The poor Howard Gurly-Guides left gasping in Flacco’s wake.
And to make matters worse for the nutty nazis, Guanatanamo victim and Moslem family man Mandouh Habib has won a defamation case against Flacco’s organ of research, Sydney’s highly esteemed Daily Telegraph.
Can’t wait to hear what Flacco and his other alter ego, Alan Jones, says about that (after consulting Daily Telegraph, of course.
But isn't it indisputable that we are causing global warming?
"GLOBAL warming in the past century has been greater than any other shift in the world's climate over the past 1200 years, researchers have reported."
Reporting their findings in the journal Science, Timothy Osborn and Keith Briffa, climatologists at the University of East Anglia, home to the leading British climate research centre, stop short of blaming the 20th-century warming on industrial emissions or other human factors.