Maurice Newman's address to ABC staff- Australia-regarding skeptics of man caused Global Warming)

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The lack of moral and scientific integrity shown by the IPCC serves only to reduce clarity and increase confusion, disappoint believers and give fuel to doubters. It has frustrated policy makers, and as polling now shows, it has clearly weakened public belief in climate change and devalued respect for science in general.

And JoNova comments on this:

ABC Chairman says “Let them speak.” Greens say “Nooooo.”

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Today the Chairman of “our ABC” (it’s paid for by Australian taxpayers) said the unthinkable.

It’s not that he said man-made global warming was a scam, and he didn’t announce that carbon wasn’t a pollutant; he just asked for journalists to listen to other points of view.

“At the ABC, I believe we must re-energise the spirit of enquiry. Be dynamic and challenging, to look for contrary points of view, to ensure that the maverick voice will not be silenced.”

In a speech to senior ABC staff, he said that climate change was an example of “group-think”, and that they should listen perhaps “to other points of view that may be sceptical.”

Contrary views on climate change have not been tolerated and those who express them have been labelled and mocked.

I’ve been around long enough to know that consensus and conventional wisdom doesn’t always serve you well and that unless you leave some room for an alternative point of view you are likely to go down a wrong track…

These innocuous non-judgemental lines are too far from the doctrine.

Christine Milne of the Australian Greens responded, and in the true spirit of an open democracy and a free press, urged ABC journalists to ignore him. Fully 40% of Australians might be sceptical,* but Christine Milne wants to make sure that information that aligns with their opinions is not represented by our national government-funded broadcaster. Like Clive Hamilton, she hides in the dark… don’t let them speak. Where is the compassion and tolerance the Greens claim to defend? We’ll defend you if you agree with us, but if you come from a different culture (one that respects data more than “doctorates” and logic over bluster), we’ll use every tool at our disposal to suppress you.

Milne called it “anti-science” nonsense. Why? Because Newman said the unthinkable: “I still have an open mind on climate change.” So closed minds are the way to go?

“So as I said, I’m not a scientist and I’m like anybody else in the public, I have to listen to all points of view and then make judgments when we’re asked to vote on particular policies.”

These innocuous non-judgemental lines are too far from the doctrine.

He might be the Chairman, and obviously has some influence, but he fights a culture where many journalists think it’s conversational to insult scientists. Brendan Trembath, the journalist who interviewed him after the speech, even asked:“Would you say you’re a climate change denier or not as obvious as that?”

Imagine on any other scientific topic, if a journalist asked: “Would you say your opinion is equivalent to someone who denies the halocaust?” Or, “Would you agree that you deny the scientific evidence from an entire branch of science?”

Take this question literally from Brendan Trembath: Is there some doubt in your mind about climate change? It’s a bit like suggesting you have doubts that the tides come and go.

It’s a bit like suggesting you have doubts that the tides come and go.

The caretakers of the Big Scare Campaign have reframed basic English. “Climate change” is so branded now, it’s loaded with inference and double-meaning. The same with the word “denier”. Many people hide behind these terms as if they are labels, but there is no paper or Law of Nature that skeptics deny, and the global climate is constantly changing on every timescale from hours-to-eons. This false rebranding is insidious and must be exposed for the marketing tactic that it is.

Lastly, one day even journalists may recognize that the effects of global warming are not evidence of the cause of that warming.

Brendan Trembath: Even though we’ve got people talking about longer and more severe bushfire seasons, the melting of polar ice caps, you still have your doubts?

Trembath forgot to mention sea-level rise, droughts, hurricanes, and Dengue Fever, which are also not useful as indicators of the cause of global warming. It is pretty extraordinary that after such an unending litany of the conflated effects of warm weather, anyone can keep a rational, independent mind at the ABC.

Trembath might do well to try explaining to us how solar-magnetic effects or cloud-cover changes, or aliens with rayguns would not also melt polar ice caps or raise sea levels…

Maurice Newman was formerly Chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange. His appointment is a five-year post that started in Jan 2007. We can look forward to two more years of a sane voice at the ABC (I hope).

*A recent poll showed forty percent of Australians disagree that our carbon emissions are significantly changing the climate (ACSC poll, Feb 2010 see page 27 of the PDF).

Hat tip to Mattb.

PS: There’s a special piece of bluster from Prof. Stefan Lewandonsky on ABC Unleashed tonight. I saw him speak in December, and wrote about that here. Get bowled over by the “utterly inconceivable” repetition of argument from authority as he soaks in consensus, and clarifies the issue of the global climate with references to Ivan Milat (a serial killer), HIV, Prince Charles, the global drug trade, and the Faulklands war. Feeling edified? For a moment, he stops mindlessly bowing to the gods of science and doing sophisticated research into “google scholar searches”, and tosses ad homs instead. It must be tough watching your cult fall apart.

fyi

This is very encouraging.

This is pretty impressive speech. Unfortunately, ABC (Australian) has been one of the worst in media bias in support of AGW in Australia. We can only hope this is some type of turning point at the ABC....but I doubt it. This is a quasi-government supported organization, like PBS, in the USA, and is very left leaning on its programming, especially with news and current events.

I think so....need to add another link..to Wattsupwiththat.com:

When the IPCC ‘disappeared’ the Medieval Warm Period

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IPCC changed viewpoint on the MWP in 2001 – did this have effect on scientific results?

Guest post by Frank Lansner Latest News (hidethedecline)

A brief check indicates a “warm MWP-consensus” before IPCC published the Mann hockey stick graph in 2001. But after 2001, results on MWP seems to approach the IPCC viewpoint.

In April 2009 I collected a series of results concerning Holocene, Historic and recent temperatures for an article on WattsUpWithThat.

Here I found approximately 54 datasets (almost 100% peer reviewed results) that I used for analyzing the claimed difference on MWP on the Northern vs. the Southern hemisphere. I also used the 54 datasets to see if the tree ring method has an impact on MWP results.

Another aspect of MWP results caught my interest:

fig. 1.

It is often debated how IPCC changed its viewpoint concerning the Medieval Warm Period in 2001.

- Was the pre-2001 MWP viewpoint simply “wrong” ?

- When IPCC launched their new viewpoint on MWP in 2001, was this new viewpoint in fact the consensus in 2001?

- Or did the IPCC actually claim to know better than the consensus in 2001?

- What is the consensus on the MWP today?

- And finally, did the results after IPCC change of viewpoint in 2001 have changed, how can this be explained?

Here are the 54 temperature datasets covering the MWP divided in two groups :

Thanks for the info....very interesting......

From the comments at JoNova we also have this published by ABC ...Greens won't like it:

10 March 2010
Op-Ed on Australia's Decarbonization

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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has just published an op-ed of mine on the implications of proposed emissions reduction policies on the decarbonization of Australia's economy. Here is an excerpt:

To become as carbon efficient as Japan by 2020 would require replacing its entire coal energy with a zero-carbon alternative.

If energy demand increases by 1.5 per cent per year - a rate lower than expected economic growth - then Australia would need to build the equivalent amount of carbon-free energy of 46, 750 megawatt (MW) nuclear power plants to replace its coal generation. That is not going to happen.

Several of my colleagues in Australia didn't like the analogy, since, as they tell me, "Australia doesn't do nuclear".

So we can express the magnitude of the challenge in another way, in terms of the number of 10 MW solar thermal power plants of the sort found in Cloncurry, Queensland. To decarbonise to the level of Japan by 2020 would require 12,667 of these plants, or about 24 of them coming online every week over the next decade. That is not going to happen either.

We can play with the numbers and make different assumptions, but the results will be the same: the magnitude of the challenge implied by Australia's pending emissions trading legislation is huge, likely unachievable.

Have a look, and please feel free to ask any questions. The analysis, of course, is based on my paper on the same subject.

Thanx !

Beam me to Planet Gore !

Text of the speech by ABC chairman Maurice Newman to ABC journalists, program-makers and manage