Sign In
0 Items (
Search
Comments (0)
Maurice Newman, former chairman of the ABC, has made clear his view that the national broadcaster is biased when it comes to reporting on climate change. Noting the ABC’s distinct tendency to promote the message of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, Newman said:
"A powerful group has captured the corporation, at least on climate change.”
“What it (the ABC) does have is a duty to all Australians to broadcast honestly the best available evidence on both sides of the argument so that we can make up our own minds. This is not happening.”
In particular, the ABC’s Catalyst program has earned some notoriety by the consistent way it promotes unsubstantiated and alarmist views on climate change whilst ignoring those scientists offering alternative perspectives, more rational arguments and less alarmism. Catalyst’s typical approach was seen in Jonica Newby’s interview with Professor Will Steffen on October 15, 2009, in which she meekly accepted Steffen’s numerous alarmist and questionable statements. For instance, Steffen said:
“Sea level rise is tracking at the upper level range of projections.”
Europe’s Envisat satellite shows that sea-level rise is actually decreasing. Sea-level expert, Professor Nils Axel-Morner says:
"If you go around the globe, you find no sea level rise anywhere."
Steffen told Newby:
“Ocean temperature is certainly tracking at the upper level.”
No, it isn’t! Ocean temperatures, as recorded by the network of approximately 3,000 Argo buoys reveals, if anything, a slight cooling of the oceans.
Steffen went on to warn alarmingly about the prospect of a 2 degree global temperature rise:
“What happens at two degrees? Well we’ll probably see certainly impacts on water resources in Australia and other parts of the world. We’ll certainly see more extreme events like heatwaves. The Great Barrier Reef will really struggle at two degrees, it will be absolutely on the borderline, we will lose the Himalayan glaciers at two degrees, we question about the stability of Greenland at two degrees. Two degrees is not safe. But we can maybe cope with it with vigorous adaptation.”
Again, Newby failed to point out that, despite rising carbon dioxide levels, there has been no global temperature rise for at least 16 years. It’s a pity she didn’t ask Steffen to comment on the following data sets:
- UAH temperature data show stasis since 2008;
- GISS temperature data show stasis since 2001;
- Hadcrut4 temperature data show stasis since 2000;
- Hadcrut3 temperature data show stasis since 1997;
- Hadsst2 temperature data show stasis since 1997;
- RSS temperature data show stasis since 1997.
Asking anyone from the Australian Climate Commission (ACC) or Team Catalyst if they think the planet is warming dangerously as a result of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is likely to lead to answers based on belief and vested interest, rather than empirical evidence. When uncontaminated satellite data show a large discrepancy between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, Team Catalyst should take note, be even-handed and report it.
Another example of Catalyst and ABC bias was seen in Dr Paul Willis’s dramatic portrayal of melting ice in Antarctica. His claim that “the Antarctic Peninsula is warming at an astounding rate” ignored contrary evidence. He failed to look at peer-reviewed literature and testimony from less alarmist experts, rather than the serial alarmist and activist Dr James Hansen. Why did Team Catalyst fail to mention that, in 1988, Hansen told the US Congress that the global temperature would rise 0.3 of a degree by the end of the 20th century (it didn’t) and that sea level would rise several feet (it didn’t).
Hansen was described by his former course supervisor at NASA, Dr John Theon, as an activist and an embarrassment. Hansen recommended Keith Farnish’s books on eco-vandalism, which incite violent sabotage of industries and promotes illegal activities to bring down industrial civilisation. Farnish says:
“Getting rid of civilisation is not going to be easy, but the alternative is far, far worse.”
Like Newby, Willis didn’t bother to talk to less alarmist experts on sea level, ice sheets and glaciers such as Hall et al. from the Climate Change Institute, University of Maine. In 2010 they pointed out:
“Reduced ice extent on the western Antarctic Peninsula is not unprecedented and is similar to that experienced during at least three periods in the last 5,600 years.”
No mention of satellite data which show cooling of the Antarctic region whilst annual mean temperatures at Davis station show no significant temperature change since 1970.
Willis could have interviewed any number of climatologists who would have told him that, for the bulk of geological time, the Earth has been 10 degrees warmer and we are currently living in a mild period (interglacial) of an ice age. They would also have reminded him that for at least 80% of geological time, the planet has been ice-free and, there is no evidence of unusual ice melt in Greenland or Antarctica.
It appears that paleontologist Willis has done little since 2010 to inform himself about basic aspects of climate science. On the ABC Science Show website he shows a graph of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels since 1880.
Willis claims, as did the discredited Al Gore in his discredited movie An Inconvenient Truth, that:
“.. the correlation between the two is very strong. And it ought to be. We have known for over 100 years that CO2 molecules can store heat energy and, as a consequence, the more CO2 there is around in the atmosphere, the warmer it will be.”
How embarrassing! One would hope that a Science Show presenter would at least do a little homework and find out how poor the correlation is between carbon dioxide levels and global temperature over most of geologic time.
Willis should also take note of the peer-reviewed, published literature which clearly demonstrates that during the relatively brief periods when carbon dioxide levels and global temperature track closely, it is rises in temperature that precede carbon dioxide levels. He should refer his readers to the following papers:
Mudelsee, M. (2001). The phase relations among atmospheric CO2 content, temperature and global ice volume over the past 420 ka. Quaternary Science Reviews 20: 583-589.
And:
Caillon, N., Severinghaus, J.P., Jouzel, J., Barnola, J.-M., Kang, J. and Lipenkov, V.Y. (2003). Timing of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature changes across Termination III. Science 299: 1728-1731.
And:
Humlum, O., Stordahl, K. and Solheim, J.E. (2013). The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature. Global and Planetary Change 100: 51-69.
Willis should also acknowledge and report with intellectual honesty how more recent increases in carbon dioxide levels have not led to an increase in global temperature. Sadly, Willis serves up climate pseudoscience and many readers will believe him. A clear case of the blind leading the blind.
Catalyst continued with its biased presentation on climate. Reporter Mark Horstman picked up the baton in the show that aired on September 8, 2011, and made the comment:
“Scientific institutions are working to combat a rising wave of attacks on the integrity of scientists and their work.”
We were told:
“Mark Horstman highlights the damage being done to the public’s trust in science and the impact these attacks have on the personal lives of hard-working and conscientious scientists.”
Attacks on hard-working and conscientious scientists? Perhaps Horstman was referring to the discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its promotion of the alarmist mantra of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW).
Horstman talked to a number of protesters clearly angry about the introduction of a carbon dioxide tax. The obvious and most likely impression left by that footage was that the demonstrators were elderly, uninformed, cranky, conservative and not to be taken seriously. No effort was made to show why the IPCC and its acolytes have come under scrutiny from the broader scientific community. No hint, either, about the ways in which that organization has systematically ignored, changed or marginalised scientific input from those “hard-working and conscientious scientists” who do not support the IPCC’s alarmist message.
Why Horstman next spoke about climate change with Professor Ian Chubb, a neuroscientist, I’ll never know. If Horstmann genuinely seeks to comprehend why there is “damage being done to the public’s trust in science”, I suggest he chats with some of the many scientists who were IPCC contributors and now publicly question the organisation’s processes and findings.
Many scientists have openly accused the IPCC of malfeasance, including Dr Vincent Gray, climate consultant, long-standing member of the New Zealand Royal Society and expert reviewer for all four IPCC assessment reports. He described the IPCC’s climate change statements as:
“An orchestrated litany of lies.”
Dr William Gray, Emeritus Professor and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado University, states:
"I am of the opinion that [global warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people."
So, is there any evidence that Team Catalyst has seen the light (or evidence they pave obviously missed) and decided to attempt being more even-handed in its reporting of climate? Apparently not. Veterinarian-turned-reporter Jonica Newby continued to push the alarmist bandwagon in Taking our Temperature, by introducing the ideas of “weird weather” and “unusual (weather) events.” She asked:
“Has the weather changed in the last 100 years or not?”
To answer her question, Newby announced that she would be embarking
“…on an investigation that’s all about the simple facts. Real tidal gauges, actual temperature records.”
She added:
“And, when it comes to weather, there’s one organisation perfectly placed to guide me. They formed 100 years ago. They are the Bureau of Meteorology.”
This is the same BOM, presumably, that made this prediction for Queensland on January 23, 2007:
“The outlook for total February to April rainfall, shows that below average falls are more likely over the northern half of Queensland.”
Yet, just 10 days later, they had to issue flood warnings for coastal rivers between Cairns and Townsville, the Tully and Murray Rivers; The lower Herbert River; coastal rivers between Townsville and Bowen; The Haughton River and many others.
In 2007 Dr David Jones, Head of Climate Analysis at the BOM said:
“Climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t need meteorological data to see it. Almost every one of our cities is on the verge of running out of water and our largest irrigation system (the Murray Darling Basin) is on the verge of collapse.”
Murray-Darling system on the verge of collapse? Perhaps Jones should read this paper on water-storage:
In 2008 Jones said of the drought in South-Eastern Australia:
"Perhaps we should call it our new climate.”
Not to be outdone, the BOM’s Dr Bertrand Timbal said in 2009:
”It’s reasonable to say that a lot of the current drought of the last 12 to 13 years is due to ongoing global warming.”
And:
”In the minds of a lot of people, the rainfall we had in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was a benchmark. A lot of our [water and agriculture] planning was done during that time. But we are just not going to have that sort of good rain again as long as the system is warming up.”
I wonder why Newby didn’t remind the BOM team about the above statements and predictions when, just three years later, we learn that the last two years of rainfall have been:
“ .. record-breaking. So, over the last 24-month period, the two years, we’ve seen more rainfall in Australia for a 24-month period than we’ve ever seen in the historical record.”
In August, 2010, the BOM predicted:
“The chance that the average spring maximum temperature will exceed the long-term median maximum temperature is above 60% over northern parts of Australia, as well as southeastern SA and all of Victoria and Tasmania.”
And:
“The national outlook for total rainfall over spring (September to November), is neutral for most of the country, with the odds favouring neither wetter nor drier conditions. The main exception to this is in southwest WA, where a wetter than normal spring is favoured. There is also a slight shift toward a wetter spring in northeastern NSW, along with a shift toward a drier spring in Tasmania and southern Victoria.”
In 2010 Victoria saw a much wetter and cooler spring with, mean maximum temperatures up to 3 degrees below normal across the state. Melbourne had its wettest winter in 11 years. Australia received its second-highest rainfall since records started.
Whether we are given predictions about rainfall, maximum or minimum temperatures, the BOM can’t seem to get it right. In 2011, it declared that Australia had the third-wettest year on record. Rainfall was well above average in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Victoria experienced record rainfall, while the Murray-Darling Basin experienced its third-highest summer rainfall on record. Australia’s mean rainfall total was 699 mm — some 234 mm above the long-term average.
In 2012 so much rain fell across Queensland that rivers broke their banks and people were evacuated from their homes and businesses. In New South Wales up to 150 mm of rain led to flooding on the Bellinger River.
What a pity that Newby didn’t refer to Vizard et al. (2005) who looked at the BOM predictions of rainfall forecasts between 1997 – 2005. They concluded that the BOM forecasting system was a low-skill pursuit and that no economic benefit could have been reliably derived by users of their seasonal rainfall forecasts.
But, if it’s any consolation, weather predictions from the UK’s MET and European agencies were, if anything, further off the mark than BOM predictions.
Perhaps Team Catalyst might consider putting together a program which illustrates the limitations of weather forecasting, the chaotic nature of climate and why accurate long-term forecasting of weather and climate is currently out of reach.
Newby then spoke to Dr Kenneth Green, from the National Parks and Wildlife Service about snow cover, concluding that:
“….since 1954, snow depth in July is much the same. When you reach September, it starts to drop off. So that by October it’s noticeably less. Essentially, spring is coming earlier.”
And:
“It’s even clearer when you look at the records for the thaw, now two weeks earlier than in the ’60s. And the snowline appears to have lately moved up from 1,500m to 1,600m.”
Another of the ABC’s favourite warmists, the BOM’s Dr Karl Braganza, was quick to link this too:
“Well, hotter nights than they used to have, yeah – on average.”
Curiously, this decline in snowfall isn’t being experienced worldwide. For instance the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) reported:
“December 2012 the area of snow cover in the northern hemisphere was at its highest for 130 years at almost 3 million square kilometres, or over 200,000 sq km above the previous record in 1985.”
So we have several uncontaminated temperature data-bases which show no global warming, and even the Chairman of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra Pachauri concedes temperature stasis while team Catalyst tells us:
“Overall, averaging maximums and minimums, our nation’s core temperature has gone up 0.9 of a degree. But, in 2009, Victoria’s temperature spiked in a lethal fever.”
A lethal fever?
Dr David Jones, (who predicted drought before the deluge came) appeared to agree:
“We broke the Victorian record by 1.6 degrees. You know, these are records going back over 50 years. You know, you’re not breaking ’em by… by, you know, a few tenths of a degree – you’re breaking ’em by whole degrees or more.”
Fifty years? Why not go back a little further to show that temperatures experienced today are not exceptional. In 1828, Charles Sturt reported:
“The heat, which had been excessive at Wellington Valley, increased upon us as we advanced into the interior. The thermometer was seldom under 114 degrees at noon, and rose still higher at 2 p.m.”
And:
“At 2 p.m. the thermometer stood at 129 degrees of Fahrenheit, in the shade; and at 149 degrees in the sun; the difference being exactly 20 degrees.”
In fact the world’s longest recorded heat wave is generally accepted as the Marble Bar event in the Pilbara district of Western Australia where, from October 31, 1923 to April 7, 1924, the temperature broke the 37.8 degrees (100.0 °F) benchmark over 160 days. Not much talk about carbon dioxide emissions in those days.
We were dramatically informed by Team Catalyst:
“And it isn’t just humans feeling the heat. One day, on a country golf course way down south in WA, it started raining black cockatoos. It certainly surprised the locals, let alone the birds. The year was 2010, and the temperature hit 48 degrees. An entire flock of endangered Carnaby’s cockatoos literally cooked where they roosted. And can you see what these are? Budgerigars. Budgerigars that fell from the sky during another WA heatwave in 2009.”
Birds dropping from the heat! Surely that must be a rare event, a consequence of recent anthropogenic driven global warming.
Well, not really — and not one mention of severe historic heatwaves, such as the 1932 event, which also killed large numbers of birds:
“Great numbers were killed alone by the fortnightly train to Alice Springs. These fell exhausted on the railway line. A large number flew into the fans in the carriages and perished. Thousands fell exhausted in water pools and were drowned. A letter from Minnie Downs told of the death of thousands of birds on one day. The temperature that day was 125 degrees in the shade— and there was no shade. One woman at Tarcoola filled a 40-gallon drum, with shell parrots in one afternoon. Trees actually snapped under the strain of flight after flight of birds which swarmed exhausted on them.”
Heatwaves are not unusual historic events and many examples of high temperatures from the past have been well documented. Ignoring the facts, Catalyst‘s alarmism and bias continued. We were told:
“Sea level naturally goes up and down a lot from year to year, but we can see from the Fremantle record the trend line is relentless.”
Of course there was no provision for actual sea level experts to comment on this assertion, or evidence produced to show deceleration of sea level rise. Neither was there any mention of scientific reports which show stable or no sea level rise.
Instead, we were further told that rising water temperatures had killed the coral at Rottnest Island. Dr Damian Thomson from the CSIRO said:
“In some places, up to 80% of what was there before is now no longer there.”
And:
“Gone, dead, yeah. Covered in algae.”
No mention of the Persian Gulf, where waters that are 8 degrees warmer than those off Rottnest Island do not threaten corals. Neither was there any opportunity for less alarmist comments from coral experts such as Dr Jörg Wiedenmann, head of the Coral Reef Laboratory at University of Southampton Ocean and Earth Science, or Rowan et al.
Dr Mark Howden from the CSIRO made the extraordinary statement:
“If it was just by random chance alone, then there’s only a 1-in-100,000 chance that that would have happened in the absence of human influence.”
A 1-in-100,000 chance! Now that is one calculation I would really like to see.
More recently, on July 4, 2013, we had another Catalyst report about the looming climate apocalypse. As expected – more alarmism with no input from the many scientists holding opposing and more rational views.
This time it was Anja Taylor who told us:
“Understanding exactly how a warmer world drives weather wild is crucial to predicting just how bumpy a ride we’re in for.”
Again, no mention of the fact that there has been no global temperature rise for at least 16 years. We were told:
“This past year in Australia, we’ve seen plenty of heat. At the Bureau of Meteorology, forecasters have been watching record after record tumble.”
No mention of record low temperatures around the world as the planet fails to warm.
The agony continued:
“But even in the context of global warming, the European and Russian heatwaves are way off the charts. Is this just natural variability, or is something else happening to make temperatures soar?”
No mention of the peer reviewed published work by Dole et al. (Dole, R., Hoerling, M., Perlwitz, J., Eischeid, J., Pegion, P., Zhang, T., Quan, X.-W., Xu, T. and Murray, D. 2011. Was there a basis for anticipating the 2010 Russian heat wave? Geophysical Research Letters 38: 10.1029/2010GL046582.) Dole et al. concluded:
“Such an intense event could be produced through natural variability alone."
And:
“July surface temperatures for the region impacted by the 2010 Russian heat wave show no significant warming trend over the prior 130-year period from 1880-2009.”
And:
"No significant difference exists between July temperatures over western Russia averaged for the last 65 years (1945-2009) versus the prior 65 years (1880-1944).”
Dr Susan Wijffels , from the CSIRO, added to the Catalyst drama:
“We’re already starting to detect and see big changes in the extreme events. And we’ve only really warmed the Earth by 0.8 of a degree. If we were to warm the Earth by 3 or 4 degrees, the changes in the hydrological cycle could be near 30 percent. I mean, that’s just a huge change, and it’s very hard for us to imagine.”
Again, no input sought from climate scientists with expertise in extreme weather events, such as Dr Roger Pielke Jr. who recently testified before the US Congress. He said:
“It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally.”
Pielke pointed out that it is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases. Globally, weather-related losses have not increased since 1990 as a proportion of GDP (they have actually decreased by about 25%) and insured catastrophe losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP since 1960. Hurricanes have not increased in the US in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900. The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970 (when data allows for a global perspective);
- Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950. Flood losses as a percentage of US GDP have dropped by about 75% since 1940;
- Tornadoes have not increased in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since 1950, and there is some evidence to suggest that they have actually declined;
- Drought has for the most part, become shorter, less frequent, and cover a smaller portion of the U. S. over the last century.
- Globally, there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.
Dr Roy Spencer provided a statement to the US Environment and Public Works Committee in which he said:
“Public perception of weather is skewed by short memories and increasing media sensationalizing of weather disasters.”
Media sensationalism? Surely not! Spencer continued:
"There is little or no observational evidence that severe weather of any type has worsened over the last 30, 50, or 100 years, irrespective of whether any such changes could be blamed on human activities, anyway.”
And:
“The belief that global warming and associated climate change involve more severe weather cannot be supported observationally. And even if we were to observe a trend in severe weather, it would not be possible to determine with any level of confidence the extent to which the change was due to human activities versus natural variability.”
Back to the Catalyst, which allowed the BOM’s Braganza to dismiss the lower alarmist estimates for temperature increases:
“And we talk about climate change in the future of 1, 2, 3 degrees – that’s actually hard to imagine.”
Amazingly, Braganza appears to be totally unaware that, contrary to IPCC computer-model predictions, the Earth is not warming. He may also be unaware that, at a recent US Senate Committee hearing on climate change, Senator David Vitter asked a panel of experts, including those selected by California Senator and global warming alarmist Barbara Boxer:
“Can any witnesses say they agree with Obama’s statement that warming has accelerated during the past 10 years?”
Not one word was uttered.
Later, Senator Jeff Sessions repeated President Obama’s statement that there had been accelerated global warming over the last decade. Sessions asked the assembled experts:
“Do any of you support that quote?”
Again, there was silence.
Of course Catalyst’s Anja Taylor had to draw the inevitable Catalyst conclusion about carbon dioxide emissions and wild weather:
“When it comes to extreme weather, the connection is pretty clear. The warmer the world, the wilder it gets. And, with the speed that emissions still enter the atmosphere, we’re right on track for an unrecognisable future.”
The connection is not clear at all, and Taylor should have checked out James Marusek’s well-referenced chronological listing of historic extreme weather events, all of which occurred well before it was fashionable — and profitable — to demonize carbon dioxide.
Of course, if either Science Show listeners or Catalyst viewers feel that ABC programs are biased they can lodge formal complaints through the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA). In fact, the ACMA received four complaints following Robyn Williams broadcast of The Science Show on November 24, 2012. These included:
“The ABC should have more intelligence than to produce such a biased, evidence-free tirade such as this and call it science.”
And:
“Statements like these have no place anywhere, certainly not on ABC, and especially not on a supposed science programme. Scepticism is the life-blood of science. Without it some other climate scientists have gone beyond the supporting scientific evidence, and the ‘sceptics’ are correctly calling them to account.”
And:
“I consider [the presenter’s] defamatory description of Climate Sceptics, of whom I am one, to be a very serious matter, which must be addressed by the ABC Board openly and transparently. This will protect the ABC’s reputation.”
And:
“In [the program] the most vile comparisons were drawn between climate change sceptics and various criminals including paedophiles by [the presenter] and [the professor].”
Included in its submission to the ACMA the ABC said:
“Climate change denial might provide comfort to those threatened by scientific discovery who would prefer not to ‘think about unwelcome things’, but it is nonetheless a rejection of science and reason.” (My emphasis)
The ACMA Investigation Report 2949—Science Show—2RN—24/11/12 concluded, in terms of impartiality that:
“The Science Show deals seriously and responsibly with scientific issues. Audiences expect it to take an evidence-based approach, and to favour scientific enquiry over other forms of knowledge or belief. The ABC’s editorial principles for impartiality note that balance should follow the weight of evidence. The ABC’s coverage appropriately rests with the weight of the broad consensus – that climate change is occurring and that human activities contribute to climate change.” (My emphasis)
It seems that the ABC fails to appreciate that consensus should never be used as an argument in science. If it were then we would still believe that the Earth is flat and at the centre of the universe. We would also continue to believe that continents do not move and bacteria are a figment of the imagination.
What personnel at the ABC should note is how the consensus has shifted with a majority of scientists now rejecting the notion of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW). The following statements and petitions are readily located on the internet:
The Heidelberg Appeal; The Oregon Petition; The Manhattan Declaration; The Petition to the United Nations; The Petition to the Canadian Prime Minister; The Leipzig Declaration; The Petition by German Scientists to the Chancellor; Letter to the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the US Senate; The Statement from Atmospheric Scientists; American Physical Society Petition; Memorandum submitted by the Institute of Physics; Statements from NASA scientists.
It is also evident that the ABC has little understanding of what climate skeptics are actually skeptical about as it continues to use silly terms such as “climate change denial.”
I have yet to meet or read of any scientist who actually denies that climate change is taking place. Perhaps the ABC can point out just one such scientist.
The climate has always changed, sometimes slowly over a long period of geologic time and relatively quickly at other times. Such changes were occurring long before we came along as a species.
The climate is changing as I write this and will continue to change irrespective of what we do. The ABC’s use of the term “climate change denial” is not only silly, it is unprofessional and inappropriate. Journalists and politicians should note there are no climate change deniers. There are, however, climate change realists and climate change alarmists.
Climate change realists argue that the computer models used by the IPCC give predictions of catastrophic anthropogenic warming because they overestimate the climate’s sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide. Such models give exaggerated projections of up to a 4 degree temperature rise should carbon dioxide levels double. Peer reviewed, published literature is available (Douglass et al. 2007 and Lindzen and Choi 2011, for instance) which challenge such exaggerated projections and a range of sensitivity estimates can be seen here.
In summary, the consensus is now more likely to rest with those who acknowledge that the climate continually changes and that human emissions of carbon dioxide will have a minor, if not insignificant impact on climate. The consensus does not appear to support the apocalyptic vision of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
So can we expect Catalyst to continue promoting its message of climate doom and gloom? Perhaps a clue was provided when the ABC’s managing director Mark Scott told an audience of film and television producers that the way he had been able to secure additional funding was by convincing the government that the national broadcaster was working in its interests.
I’m sure the current government appreciates the ABC’s continued promotion of climate alarmism.
Unfortunately, when it comes to reporting on climate change, Catalyst does not offer its audience balanced science. Neither does it offer good investigative journalism. What it does offer is climate religion and taxpayer-funded propaganda.
Dr John Happs has an academic background in the geosciences. He has been a science educator at several universities in Australia and overseas
