'Sounds more like religion than science' - CSIRO boss

Dr Larry Marshall - 'sounds more
 like religion than science.'

The CSIRO's chief has told the ABC the backlash from his decision to restructure the organisation has made him feel like an "early climate scientist in the '70s fighting against the oil lobby" and that there is so much emotion in the debate it almost "sounds more like religion than science".

Dr Larry Marshall said he would not be backing down on his controversial shake-up of the organisation's climate divisions, telling the ABC he was yet to be persuaded.

Read the ABC story - “CSIRO boss defends shake-up, says politics of climate 'more like religion than science'.”

(Larry Marshall appears to making and “either, or” call for Australia’s preeminent science body in relation to its approach to climate change. However, the dilemma is so complex, so consuming and so inconsiderate of what we would like to do and spend our money on, that we cannot afford to the choosey about what it is we do. He has argued that the institution needed to get “measurement and modelling” and use its resource to better understand what Australia and world needed to do in terms of adaptation.

Constrained by an ideologically limited budget, Dr Marshall has made a call, but I suggest the wrong one for without the measurement and modelling, our scientists, and others, do not what they are adapting to or how far it is they need to reach.

Both the fundamentals of climate science need to be attended to as do the broader sweep of behaviour and how we must act responsibly in our attempts to adapt to different circumstances that will evolve as climate change unfolds.

The suggestion by Dr Marshall that the climate conversation is so emotional that it sounds more like religion than science is somewhat ironic as any challenge to the market-driven economy (the prime cause of climate change) will bring an emotive, religious-like response from most anyone, including certainly our PM and probably Dr Marshall himself -
Robert McLean).