A critical lecture in a 'cone-of-silence'

-       Robert McLean

Professor David Karoly.

David Karoly is an enigma and he was also recently described on national radio as one of Australia’s greatest living treasures.

As an atmospheric scientist, he can fill a room with people eager to hear his wisdom and then, in a twinkling seems to shed his professorship persona joining with others to rearrange chairs and desks to return the lecture room layout to that of a classroom.

There was standing room only in what was a classroom at the University Melbourne’s School of Design building for the October “Climate Conversation Series” staged by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI).

The topic for the Tuesday, October 25, lecture was “Towards a climate policy toolkit: Special review of Australia’s climate goals and policies”.

The Professor Karoly is a member of the government’s Climate Change Authority (CCA) and following the recent release of the  group’s third report, he and a fellow authority member from Charles Sturt University, Professor Clive Hamilton,  published a minority report that criticized a number of the recommendations in the Report.

Professor Karoly discussed recommendations from that third CCA report and then talked about recommendations from the minority report written  by himself and Professor Hamilton.

The idea of “changing hats” from that of being a formal member of the CCA to the author of a minority report was to be acted out, Professor Karoly actually had a hat with him, but was so immersed in his presentation that he overlooked the actual “changing” until near the end of the lecture.

The October lecture was held in something of a “cone-of-silence” as it was during Professor Karoly’s introduction that those in the room were asked to refrain from texting or sending other messages.

Prof Karoly, who had been threatened with legal action over his minority report, also asked the what he was about to say not be recorded, personally asking me to turn off the small recording device I take to most such events.

The PowerPoint slides used at the October Climate Conversations by Prof Karoly have been released by the MSSI. Also, both the third CCA Report and the Minority Report can be found on the MSSI website.

Minister's ease with emissions is confusing

-      Robert McLean.

I’m confused, even though reasonably aware of what is being said in the climate conversation and the science around which is revolves.

Environment Minister, Greg Hunt -
completely at ease with
Australia's emissions position.
 

And so anyone less aware of the facts and myths in the climate conversation would have the impression that Australia’s leads the world in terms of its response to climate change or would be completely disengaged as the “blah, blah, blah” was simply too much for them.

Australia’s Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, emerged from yesterday’s New York City signing of the Paris climate agreement claiming Australia would “meet and beat” its carbon dioxide emission reduction targets, quoting a plethora of numbers with such authority that it suggested that his countrymen need no longer concern themselves about climate change.

Although he did not say it in so few world, the implication was that the Turnbull Government was completely on top of the  whole climate change dilemma when reality contradicts every observation he made – the world is losing, of has lost its fight with climate change and mitigation efforts alone are both inadequate and inappropriate and we should be turning our attention to adaptation.

The latter, however, offends the philosophy upon which the ideologies of Mr Hunt and his counterparts so desperately cling as adaptation, which was in any way adequate, demands a change antithetical to their beliefs.

The Turnbull Government and its ideologues see profit and growth as the only solution to climate change when those remotely aware of climate change and its causes can see the machinations of capitalism as the root cause.

It would be grossly unfair to suggest Mr Hunt was spreading mistruths for seen from his position , he is not even justifying his, or his government’s behaviour, rather simply explaining what happened in New York City, again with his embellishments of what is happening in Australia.

My shoulders droop.

Here on the ground it is quite different – we are almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels  for both energy and transport, we are digging and selling our coal to overseas nations, we are exploiting our rich gas reserves, have done almost nought to encourage the creation and building of alternative energy supplies and appear to be privatizing all that we can just as quickly as we can, apparently oblivious that the public infrastructure is usually vastly more energy efficient  and simply better for people than anything a profit-driven private enterprise can muster.

Yes, I’m confused, listen to an apparently confident Mr Hunt and all is well, but take note of our climate scientists and others who understand that damage humans have caused to Earth’s climate system, and the story is not near so reassuring.