Alan Finkel: the man who could bring peace to Australia's climate wars

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts was waiting but Alan Finkel was ready.

Chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel. 

The chief scientist, who has a PhD in electrical engineering and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in neuroscience, could see what Parliament's most persistent climate change sceptic was doing.

Did Dr Finkel believe it was important for a scientist to keep an open mind, Senator Roberts wanted to know.

Dr Finkel spotted the trap and said he was happy to own up to a "healthy degree of scepticism”.

Read Stephanie Peatling’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Alan Finkel: the man who could bring peace to Australia's climate wars.”

CSIRO says Australia can get 100 per cent renewable energy

No technical impediment to Australia
reaching 100 per cent renewables.

The Australian government’s chief scientific body says there is no apparent technical impediment to reaching 100 per cent renewables for the national electricity grid, and levels of up to 30 per cent renewable energy should be considered as just “trivial” in current energy systems.

The CSIRO estimate was made in the Senate select committee into the “Resilience of electricity infrastructure in a warming world,” which is providing some fascinating insight that we will be reporting on (because mainstream media won’t).

Of course, the whole proposition of the committee was considered absurd by One Nation Senator and climate conspiracy theorist Malcolm Roberts, who repeatedly insisted that global warming was not happening and constantly badgered the energy experts on this point.

But what did emerge was a general consensus that the electricity grid was in the midst of a rapid and massive transformation, and a change of rules and regulations could likely accelerate that transformation and make it cheaper.

And amid the toxic political debate about the level of renewable energy, specifically wind and solar, that can be accommodated into the system, CSIRO energy division’s principal research scientist Paul Graham said there were no barriers to 100 per cent renewable energy, and lower levels could be easily absorbed.

Read the RenewEconomy by Giles Parkinson - “CSIRO says Australia can get 100 per cent renewable energy.”

One Nation senator joins new world order of climate change denial

 One Nation’s Queensland senator Malcolm
Roberts  attended a gathering with an
attendee list that reads like a who’s
who of the climate science denial world.

A key figure picked to prepare the US federal environment agency for life under a Donald Trump administration has met in Washington DC with some of the world’s most notorious and longest-serving climate science deniers, including One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts.

Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), was picked by the now president-elect to lead the Environmental Protection Agency “transition team” back in September.

Trump has pledged to strip many powers from the EPA to boost fossil fuel production.

Ebell has spent two decades trying to undermine the science linking dangerous climate change to fossil fuel burning.

E&E News reported that Ebell was at one meeting hosted by the CEI and held in the hearing room of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee.

The EPW committee is chaired by Senator James Inhofe who, like Trump, has described human-caused climate change as a hoax.

The meeting was not open to the public or the press, E&E News reported, with Ebell refusing to give any details.

Read Graham Readfearn’s story in The Guardian - “One Nation senator joins new world order of climate change denial.”

NASA chief slaps down climate sceptic senator Malcolm Roberts: 'You hold a number of misconceptions'

One Nation's Malcolm Roberts
is 'mistaken' - NASA.

A senior NASA official has taken the extraordinary step of personally rejecting the claims of One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts that the agency had falsified key data to exaggerate warming in the Arctic.

Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Senator Roberts he was "mistaken" in his assertion that the US agency had "removed" Arctic data to mask warming in the 1940s.

"You appear to hold a number of misconceptions which I am happy to clarify at this time," Dr Schmidt told Senator Roberts in letters and emails obtained by Fairfax Media. "The claim that GISS has 'removed the 1940s warmth' in the Arctic is not correct."

Dr Schmidt noted in his letter dated November 18 that the data was freely available on its website.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in today’s Melbourne Age – “NASA chief slaps down climate sceptic senator Malcolm Roberts: 'You hold a number of misconceptions'.”

Dr Karl Will Debate Malcolm Roberts On Climate Science

Dr Karl (left) will debate climate change
 with senator Michael Roberts.

Today is all about Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump, but a possibly even more interesting meeting of the minds has seemingly been locked in between a federal senator and Australia's most beloved scientist.

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts came into parliament as a loud and proud sceptic of climate science. This week he presented a report he had compiled, claiming that the CSIRO had not done due diligence on the climate data it used. He has been vocal on Twitter since, challenging critics and spruiking upcoming public events that some of his climate sceptic supporters will be hosting.

Read John Butler’s story on The Huffington Post - “Dr Karl Will Debate Malcolm Roberts On Climate Science.”

Malcolm Roberts' climate change press conference starts bad, ends even worse

Senator Malcolm Roberts during the press
 conference at Parliament House.

Don't ask senator Malcolm Roberts to use the "C-word".

You may say it. You may think it. You may even assign it to his "facts".

But he will not.

Not even at a press conference on Monday, which started badly and ended worse when One Nation adviser James Ashby shouted at the media when the senator was pressed on the future of embattled colleague Rod Culleton, who was, at that moment, comparing himself to Muhammad Ali.

Read the story in the Melbourne Age - “Malcolm Roberts' climate change press conference starts bad, ends even worse.”

Malcolm Roberts Denies Climate Science, Rod Culleton Compares Self To Muhammad Ali

Senator Malcolm Roberts presented
 his report to media on Monday.

One Nation certainly had their Weetbix this morning, coming strong out of the blocks on a Monday with Malcolm Roberts issuing a report slamming the CSIRO's climate science and Rod Culleton likening himself to Muhammad Ali.

Roberts had been spruiking his Monday morning press conference all weekend, promising a "major" announcement at 9am. The press conference was to launch his report -- 'On Climate, CSIRO Lacks Empirical Proof' -- taking aim at the climate change science of the CSIRO.

Roberts said he had a meeting in September with "CSIRO senior scientists", which led him to find that the science agency "does not have empirical evidence proving that carbon dioxide from human activity effects climate", that their findings "contradicts the empirical climate evidence", and that their climate computer models are neither appropriate nor recommended to be used to inform government policy".

Read The Huffington Post story - “Malcolm Roberts Denies Climate Science, Rod Culleton Compares Self To Muhammad Ali.”

The silliest arguments, freshly baked by Senator Malcolm Roberts

One of the silliest arguments of climate deniers goes like this: the atmosphere with its greenhouse gases cannot warm the Earth’s surface, because it is colder than the surface. But heat always flows from warm to cold and never vice versa, as stated in the second law of thermodynamics.

The freshly baked Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts has recently phrased it thus in his maiden speech:

It is basic. The sun warms the earth’s surface. The surface, by contact, warms the moving, circulating atmosphere. That means the atmosphere cools the surface. How then can the atmosphere warm it? It cannot. That is why their computer models are wrong.

This is of course not only questions the increasing human-caused greenhouse effect, but in general our understanding of temperatures on all planets, which goes back to Joseph Fourier, who in 1824 was the first to understand the importance of the greenhouse effect.

Read the piece from Real Climate - “Can a blanket violate the second law of thermodynamics?”

Malcolm Roberts to talk with the CSIRO about climate change 'evidence'

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts used question
time on Thursday to ask the Coalition for the
  'specific location of data that proves
claims that humans affect global climate change’.

The CSIRO will meet Malcolm Roberts to discuss global warming after the innovation and science minister, Greg Hunt, intervened to help the One Nation senator obtain a briefing.

Roberts told Guardian Australia he would listen to the evidence, despite having described climate data that contradicted his view as “corrupted”.

In Senate question time on Thursday Roberts asked the minister for resources and Northern Australia, Matt Canavan, for “the specific location of data that proves claims that humans affect global climate change”.

Read Paul Garp’s story on The Guardian - “Malcolm Roberts to discuss climate science with CSIRO.”

Climate change denying Senator a challenge for our media

New Australian Senator, Malcolm Roberts
 suggests scientific charts
such as this have been "manipulated".
 

The election of Malcolm Roberts as a One Nation senator has put Australia’s media in a difficult spot.

In his first speech to Parliament on Tuesday, Roberts made many false claims about climate change. He said that climate change was a “scam” and implied that it was some sort of conspiracy between all the major international research agencies. “... there is no data proving human use of hydro-carbon fuels affects climate,” he said.

Most news outlets had stopped covering the views of climate science deniers in regular reporting. There is a clear scientific consensus that the world is warming and that human carbon emissions have caused it, so reporting the views of a few non-experts who push fanciful theories with no credible evidence is seen as “false balance”.

But journalists are in a different position when someone in an important office holds such views.

Read Michael Slezak’s story on The Guardian – “Debunking Malcolm Roberts: the case against a climate science denier.”

Malcolm Roberts leaves NASA 'flummoxed' with Q&A claims

NASA boss, Gavin Schmidt.

It probably takes a lot to faze Gavin Schmidt, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, but the outlandish views of Malcolm Roberts, the newly elected One Nation senator, can do it from half a world away.

On Monday night's Q&A program on the ABC, Roberts was venting his now well-worn view that there was no empirical evidence of climate change.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in the Melbourne Age - “Malcolm Roberts leaves NASA 'flummoxed' with Q&A climate claims.”

Climate showdown on Q&A between professor and senator-elect

Professor Brian Cox.

There was a climate change showdown on Q&A last night when Professor Brian Cox and One Nation senator-elect Malcolm Roberts were guests on the panel.

Here's the best bits from their exchanges for you.

The night began with an audience question to the British physicist, asking him to address Mr Roberts' request for proof of a human element in climate change.

Read and watch the ABC’s report on last night Q&A - "Professor Brian Cox takes on senator-elect Malcolm Roberts in climate change stoush.”

(Watching last night’s Q&A was embarrassing – my parliamentary representative (I didn’t vote for Malcolm Roberts, but the Australian people did and so he is ‘my’ representative!) made some ludicrous statements in accusing NASA of manipulating its climate science data and was openly questioning of one of the world’s leading public scientists, Professor Brian Cox.

Mr Roberts repeatedly retreated to shoring up his views with comments about “empirical evidence”, but was clearly unable to accept the unequivocal empirical evidence that smashed his arguments.

Sadly, that same Mr Roberts will play a critical role in deciding how Australia responds to climate change – Robert McLean).

Letter writers articulate their mystification with climate doubters

Those who understand the emerging dangers of climate change are mystified as to why so many doubt what has been unequivocally proved by and agreed to by most of the world’s scientists who work in atmospheric and related sciences.

Letters are now mostly written
on keyboards - the traditional
pen and paper are largely gone.

The Melbourne newspaper, The Age, has letters almost every day from people articulating their dismay, here is a couple from today’s paper.

One Nation inanity

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts (The Age, 5/8) claims climate change is either not occurring or is part of a scientific conspiracy. Firstly NASA, which had the scientific capability to put humans on the moon, has provided clear data that the world is heating up and, as a direct result, sea levels have risen 70millimetres since the early 1990s. Mr Roberts has not provided any answers to the cause of increasing global warming and the rise of sea levels.
As a biological scientist, I cannot imagine why hundreds of the world's best scientists would want to trash their careers or legacies by promoting a falsehood or conspiracy. They would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. If I had worked in the fossil fuel industry, as Malcolm Roberts has, I might have the opposite view on global warming.
David Beardsell, Balwyn North

 It's simple science

I heard Malcolm Roberts, with his climate change-denying rhetoric, speaking on radio. With this vast mistrust of science, it is a wonder that he is game to get in an aeroplane or go to a doctor. After all, science is science. I wonder how and why such a person gets elected when his thinking is so backward.
Bill Proctor, Launching Place

Hunt U-turn a farce

New Science Minister Greg Hunt's U-turn on climate change research (The Age, 4/8) is stunning in its inconsistency. His government, through inaction or deceitful intent, has overseen the destruction of CSIRO's world-leading research on climate science. It now has the gall to reverse this decision. The damage has already been done and the 15 new positions will not return the quality or breadth of research that existed. I do not know whether to laugh or cry at the complete stupidity of it all.
Tony Priestley, Fitzroy