CSIRO climate jobs to go – heads explode all round…


Models can't predict this…

Models can’t predict this…

The national science agency, CSIRO, has announced it will restructure its climate change teams to concentrate on dealing with it rather than trying to understand it.

The national science agency has been accused of walking away from climate science after it announced it would refocus from trying to understand it to practical measures to deal with it.

CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall said yesterday climate change had been well modelled and it was time to start doing something about it.

Dr Marshall, a Sydney-born physicist and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has ordered a restructure that will put 350 jobs at risk, particularly in environmental research, as the agency pursues “moonshots” capable of delivering practical solutions.

[Read more…]

Chief Scientist Penny Sackett resigns


Politics

Penny Sackett, Australia’s Chief Scientist, is resigning from the post halfway through her 5 year appointment. Personally, I am not sorry to see her go, as she was an outspoken climate alarmist (see here, here, here, etc) and became a shrill advocate for the usual “urgent action to tackle climate change.” Unsurprisingly, therefore, she cites “lack of government progress” on climate change as one of the reasons for her departure.

Just as no-one seems bothered any more that the Governor General and various state Governors wade in on political matters, nobody batted an eyelid at Sackett’s outspoken views on climate change. Unfortunately, it’s the world we live in.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

AUSTRALIA’S chief scientist, Penny Sackett, has resigned half way through her five-year appointment.

The government’s leading scientific adviser said she was standing down for personal and professional reasons, but declined to comment further.

”This is not a decision that I have taken lightly or quickly,” said Professor Sackett, pictured, in a statement released on her website yesterday afternoon.

Professor Sackett was … understood to be frustrated about a lack of progress in government efforts to address climate change.

She told the Herald last May she was concerned by the government’s decision to delay its emissions trading legislation.

”Any action that is delayed puts us at higher risk of dangerous climate change,” she said. (source)

If you want to play politics, become a politician.

Climate nonsense from Australia's Chief Scientist


Eyes closed, ears closed, brain closed

Who isn’t really a scientist at all any more. She has become an alarmist environmental advocate, along with the majority of the climate science community. She has already decided that “the debate is over” and that we should all be blindly committed to “tackling the problem”, and screwing our economy for no benefit whatsoever. All of this is evidenced by her wholly unscientific comments at the Gold Coast climate conference:

”Often a scientific argument for climate change, and the ways in which humanity has contributed to it, is confused with political or economic arguments for or against a particular course of action to mitigate or adapt to climate change,” she said.

‘The consensus within the scientific community about the main points of the science is strong, [sorry what has consensus to do with science again?] whereas the consensus within the political community – and those who elect them – about what to do about it is less strong.

”While it is unfortunate that Australian politics and a large fraction of the citizenry may be polarised with respect to the best course of climate action, it would be not only unhelpful but tragic if this polarisation led to a societal divide in our commitment to act.”

On the ”gap” between the scientific understanding of climate change and that of policymakers and the public, Professor Sackett said scientists needed to better translate their work into lay terms.

Yet more weasel words, and more blaming “lack of communication” for the fact the public aren’t buying the spin.

Eyes closed, ears closed and brain closed. What hope is there for impartial, freethinking scientific enquiry with quasi-religious dogma like this from Australia’s Chief Scientist?

Read it here.

Climate scientists meet to improve brainwashing skills


Washes away scepticism faster than other leading brands

Note that they’re not meeting to hang their heads in shame and discuss the shonky science, fudged data, blocking of FOI requests or intimidation of sceptical climate journals, which is all par for the course. No, this is all about communication – it’s just that they’re not getting their message across properly, obviously. The science is just fine, the public are just too stupid to understand:

REPRESENTATIVES of scientific organisations including the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology will meet today to discuss better communication of the science behind man-made climate change, in the wake of crumbling political and public consensus on global warming.

The conference in Sydney, organised by the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), is part of a long-term bid to develop a ”national communication charter” for major scientific organisations and universities to better spruik the evidence of climate change.

The conference will hear an address from Australia’s chief scientist, Penny Sackett [who is a fully paid up alarmist – see here]. Representatives of the CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Academy of Science and Department of Climate Change, among others, will attend [all on the alarmist bandwagon, of course, because without it, they would lose their juicy funding cheques].

FASTS president Cathy Foley said although public scepticism was on the rise, scientific evidence of man-made climate change had not changed, and it was sad the community was less and less trusting of scientists. [And who do you have to blame for that? The scientists themselves – think “Hockey Stick” and “Climategate”]

Dr Foley said a well-organised and funded climate sceptics’ movement had increasingly captured attention [That old chestnut again – a bunch of retired scientists and lone bloggers are better funded and better organised than the entire global warming industry? Yeah, right].

”We are concerned the debate around climate change has become a left-wing versus right-wing debate – or a kind of religious argument – when it should really be about the strength of the scientific evidence,” Dr Foley said.

The conference was not about politics or ”brainwashing” the public, she added.

The thought never entered my head. Oops, just noticed the title. Maybe it did.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Listen here to how the ABC treats this entire story with kid gloves, and allows Cathy Foley to misrepresent the science as having been settled for hundreds of years. Yes, the principle of greenhouse warming is settled, but the science of climate feedbacks (which is what we need to understand to determing whether we will get catastrophic warming) is most definitely not.

Yet another whinging letter from climate scientists


Still an embarrassment

Climate scientists can sense they’re being found out. You can always tell, because they start writing bleating letters to journals banging their fists and saying “It’s not fair” like toddlers who don’t get their own way. And yes, another one appears today in the pages of Science. You can read the full text at the Guardian (of course) here. The opening paragraph sets the tone:

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet. [and our wallets – Ed]

And our own chief scientist Penny Sackett can’t support it quickly enough. Sackett is a regular on these pages (see here and here) for her extreme views on climate change, and she still hasn’t learnt that being a scientist is all about free-thinking and impartial enquiry, not eco-Marxist environmental advocacy:

AUSTRALIA’S chief scientists Professor Penny Sackett has backed a group of eminent international scientists calling for urgent action on climate change.

Professor Sackett said governments everywhere needed to show more leadership on climate change action.

“Even if each one of us on the face of the earth stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, not another ounce into the atmosphere, the temperature would still rise,” she told ABC radio today.

“I would say that every delay makes it harder for ourselves in the future. I’d like us to also think about how much more difficult it makes it for the next generation.”

In their open letter published in the journal Science, the group of 250 scientists called for rationale [sic] debate and not to have discussion deflected by extreme views. (source)

Rational debate? Don’t make me laugh. And “extreme views” in this context means anything that challenges the pseudoscience of An Inconvenient Truth, I guess. And then there is the inevitable victim status plea for the sympathy vote. The letter reads:

“We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them.”

You have to laugh, don’t you. So let’s get this straight: destroying emails is innuendo perhaps? Fudging data is innuendo maybe? If these guys were accountants or lawyers they would understand this concept better – because they would be in prison.

Just more evidence that the consensus scientists can see their cash cow being sent to market, and they are doing everything to keep their precious funds flowing in. Sorry guys, the public (who are far more intelligent than you have ever given them credit for) are not falling for it any more.

UPDATE: And a timely Galaxy opinion poll demonstrates that exact point:

Two out of three Australians are not convinced climate change is man-made, and even those who do believe it is aren’t prepared to pay much to fix it, a new poll shows.

A Galaxy Poll, commissioned by the conservative Institute of Public Affairs, found 35 per cent of respondents blamed humans for global warming.

Fully 26 per cent believed it was just part of a natural cycle, while 38 per cent remained uncertain. [Total 64% – Ed]

Thirty-five per cent said they would not be prepared to pay anything to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming.

Of those who believed climate change to be man-made, 27 per cent said they would be prepared to pay only $100 or less a year in increased tax and utility costs. (source)

Australian Chief Scientist: 5 years to "save the world"


Embarrassment

Embarrassment

No alarmism or exaggeration there. Mark it in your diaries for the 4 December 2014, because in five years time, it will be too late, we may as well shut up shop, and all commit harakiri. But the most astonishing thing is that this isn’t from some sandwich-board-wearing religious nut, this is from our Chief Scientist.

THE planet has just five years to avoid disastrous global warming, says the Federal Government’s chief scientist.

Prof Penny Sackett yesterday urged all Australians to reduce their carbon footprint.

Australians – among the world’s biggest producers of carbon dioxide – were “better placed than others to do something about it“, she said.

“Australians can make an enormous contribution, so why would we not rise to this challenge and this opportunity,” she told a business conference in Melbourne.

Really, it’s just embarrassing.

Read it here.

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