David Karoly continues to appear with an unflinching story we all need to hear

David Karoly.

by Robert McLean

David Karoly continues to appear in my life.

The University of Melbourne Professor from the School of Earth Sciences first appeared as a speaker at the university’s Festival of Ideas in 2009 to contribute to a week-long discussion about climate change.

He appeared several times at other Melbourne functions which I attended, he spoke about climate change at a Shepparton function in 2010 and then last night (May 2) he was one of a panel of six that considered: “Transforming data into votes: Should current climate change policies in Australia sway your vote in the next election?”

Last night’s public forum was organized by the university’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics and along with Prof Karoly featured the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mark Dreyfus, the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin Shadow and the enviroment, Parliamentary Secretary for Environment, Senator Simon Birmingham, of South Australia, the Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Christine Milne, the Director of the Centre of Policy Studies at Melbourne’s Monash University, Professor Philip D. Adams, and the president of the Australian Council of Social Service, Mr Simon Schrapel.

The Basement Theatre at Melbourne University’s  “Spot Building” was close to full for last night’s forum – nearly all the 300 plus seats were taken.

Prof Philip Adams.

The two-hour session, including a 12 minute presentation from each speaker, was thought provoking and left most, certainly me, with no doubt that human-induced climate change is real, and happening.

However, some were not at all convinced, including one questioner who, brandishing a rather thick file of paperwork that the world’s climatologists were duplicitous and so had mislead the public.

A few in the audience applauded his observations, but most were offended by his suggestions.

Interestingly, on returning home, awaiting was an email from friend and Al Gore trained climate change advocate, John Pettigrew, who earlier that day had been involved in a phone-hook-up, which involved Prof Karoly.

John shared a slide presentation of Prof Karoly’s entitled “Climate Science Update” that interestingly enough was strikingly similar to that shown at the Melbourne forum.