Australia wasted decades in climate denial – and must break free of the mire of misinformation

Australia’s climate “debate” has been bogged in a culture war for decades. What should be a straightforward discussion of scientific fact and possible responses has instead become a mire of misinformation and denial that has paralysed policy, clogged investment, increased power prices and delayed change.

‘Many of the same politicians responsible for these wickedly
 wasted decades have the temerity to attack the protesters for
not coming up with considered policy responses.’

National greenhouse gas emissions have risen every year since soon after the abolition of the carbon price in 2014, yet the prime minister stands on the international stage and insists Australia is “doing our bit on climate change and we reject any suggestion to the contrary”.

Read the story from The Guardian by Lenore Taylor - “Australia wasted decades in climate denial – and must break free of the mire of misinformation.” 

Speaker at OU takes aim at climate-change denial

An acclaimed and often controversial critic of climate-change denial spoke at Ohio University last Wednesday about the issue “in the age of Trump.”

Professor Michael Mann. 

Dr. Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, delivered his speech at OU’s Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. The whole title: “A Return to the Madhouse: Climate Change Denial in the Age of Trump.”

Mann co-authored the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change report that earned the Nobel Peace Price in 2007. He’s often a target of groups and politicians who argue that even if climate change is happening, there’s insufficient evidence to conclude that humans are causing it.

During his talk Wednesday, Mann explained that global temperatures have been steadily rising, hitting new maximums in 2014, 2015, and 2016. “Oceans have been warmer than they’ve ever been,” said Mann. This causes water to evaporate over the ocean’s surface, creating a layer of warm air that energizes hurricanes and makes them bigger and faster, he said.

Read The Athens News story by Becca King - “Speaker at OU takes aim at climate-change denial.”

Maths illiteracy has led to Trump and Brexit: Eddie Woo

Dubai: For Eddie Woo, there's a direct link between the trouble many adults have with maths and the election of Donald Trump, Brexit and climate change denial.

Cherrybrook Technology High School maths teacher Eddie
 Woo says the way maths is taught in Australia and around the
world needs to be changed radically.

Mr Woo, the Cherrybrook Technology High School maths head teacher who has become known around the world for his maths YouTube videos, said the inability of many people to understand data and statistics has become a major social problem.

Read the story by Pallavi Singhal from The Age - “Maths illiteracy has led to Trump and Brexit: Eddie Woo.”

Coal still on the agenda for some despite its tragic negatives

“Coal, meanwhile, is widely recognized as the most toxic and emissions-intensive fossil fuel. The leading worldwide cause of climate change, coal-fired power plants are the largest source of CO2 – greater than tropical deforestation or oil use for transportation. An immediate rapid transition away from coal-fired energy is essential to limiting global warming to 1.5°C (or the catastrophic 2°C),” and yet the Adani coal mine in Queensland is still on the agenda and would be authorised tomorrow is some of our responsible men had their way.

Quote from the book “Unprecedented Crime: Climate Change Denial and Game Changers for Survival” by Dr Peter Carter and Elizabeth Woodworth.

An 'Unprecedented crime'

Writing in “Unprecedented Crime: Climate Change Denial and Game Changers for Survival” Dr Peter D. Carter and Elizabeth Woodworth said: 

“In 2013, the year that atmospheric CO2 reached 400 ppm for the first time in over 2.5 million years, 163 elected representatives from the 113th Congress had “taken over $58.8 million from the fossil fuel industry that is the driving force behind the carbon emissions that cause climate change.”

Why the IPA's claim global warming is natural is 'junk science’

People who work for climate science denial thinktanks tend not to spend all that much time worrying about getting stuff into scientific journals.

Participants at a 2015 UN climate conference look
at a world map of rising global temperatures. 

Perhaps because it’s easier, people who are paid to tell the public and policy makers that human-caused climate change is overblown bunk would rather pump out newspaper columns, do softball interviews or push out their own self-published reports. There’s a lot less scrutiny in that kind of public relations.

So when two staffers at Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs managed to get some “science” into a journal earlier this month, there was much delight in conservative media outlets, together with a distinct lack of any genuine scepticism.

Global Warming Is Almost Entirely Natural, Study Confirms,” wrote Breitbart. “Advanced Computer Models Suggest Most Global Warming Is From Natural Forces,” said the Daily Caller.

Read Graham Readfearn’s story on The Guardian - “Why the IPA's claim global warming is natural is 'junk science’.”

We are the world champs as the worst event

A

ustralians are the world champions at the world’s worst event – we stand as the best in denying human influence on global warming.

And now Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), according to DeSmog Blog, holds the unofficial and dubious title of being Australia’s leading climate science denial organisation.

Read the DeSmog Blog story - “Australia's IPA Think Tank Adds Coal Lobbying To Its Climate Science Denial”.

Climate change is easily understood, denial comparatively complex

Anne Manne helps us
understand something
about denial.

The equations that lead to climate change and relatively simply and subsequently understandable, but the intellectual gymnastics that result in denial are so complex they escape logic and reason.

The Monthly has discussed that denial and its reason in a story headed: “Confident white males – and other profiles of denialism”.

Author, Anne Manne opened with the thought: “The ‘facts’ on climate change could not be clearer” and ended her discussion saying conservative, white males are three times more likely to be denialists, noting that they are technophobes who see a technological fix consistent with preserving the life of the consumer as deeply appealing.

Get set for a deluge of denial

Get set for a deluge, not of rain, rather denial.

A story published on Slate and headed: “As climate change report draws near, deniers raise voices and bury heads deeper”, warns us to shelter ourselves for the downpour of denial.

It points to Rupert Murdoch owned “anything” and of course News Corp as the anchor of the denial campaign.

Political ignorance makes me weep

Greg Hunt - his views make me weep.

A gasp followed by weeping envelops me as I read more of the distortions and denials that come from the mouths of our politicians.

What I am reading is must be denial, outright lies or damnable ignorance. However, it could be a simple offensive lunge for power?

Whatever is it, honesty, compassion for people, both alive and yet unborn, seems to have no place in these political machinations.

Nor, either, does respect for individuals or organizations that are serving Australia well.

The disrespect Opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, has for the Climate Institute is evident in the story from the ABC headed: “Greg Hunt rejects ‘silly’ Climate Institute report on direct action policy”.

Irrational decisions of huge consequence



Democracy Incorporated
 as listed on Amazon.com.

Writing in Democracy Incorporated – Managed democracy and spectre of inverted totalitarianism, Sheldon S. Wolin said:

“Under the Bush Administration there have been repeated instances of governmental or corporate attempts to distort or suppress unwelcome expert reports and scientific findings. As President Bush testified. ‘One of the hardest pasts of my job is to connect Iraq with the war on terror.’ A common thread connects false claims about WMDs with denials of global warming. The one insists that there was evidence; the other denies that there is evidence. Both are denials of actuality; both are irrational decisions of huge consequence; and both are aided by the lack of intellectual and public integrity among our scandal-ridden corporate ridder and governmental leadership.”