Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumHottest Oz January Ever, Heat Records Tumble, So Murdoch Rag Op-Ed Attacks Climate Scientists
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Commentators are calling it the Angry Summer. Temperature records were broken at more than 44 locations around the continent, and January was Australias hottest month ever. In my home town of Hobart, which typically enjoys a pleasant maritime summer climate, the mercury topped out just above 107 degrees F, almost 2 degrees F higher than the previous high record set in 1976. The bush fire danger categories now include a catastrophic rating for uncontrolled wildfires and two more color bands have been added to the nations extreme temperature maps, both compelling indicators of fundamental changes to the regions weather patterns.
Thats why I was incensed when I read the response to the recent report both from the political sphere and in the ideological press this week. Opposition leader Tony Abbott has pledged that if his party takes control of the Australian Parliament, they will do away with the Climate Commission. Well, such a move wont stop climate change. It would just stop people from having an independent, authoritative, useful source of scientific information about the issue. Read, censorship.
The Australian, which is owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation, published an opinion piece from James Delingpole, a well-known columnist from the UK who makes a sport of misrepresenting climate science and attacking scientists. Delingpole criticized the head of the Climate Commission and suggested he be tried by a judge in a black cap, a vile reference to a type of trial traditionally reserved for passing the death sentence. Is this a return to the days of vilifying scientists for communicating important science to the public? I had hoped those days were over.
The Australians decision to publish this piece is immensely disturbing. Freedom of speech is important, but Delingpoles views misinform readers and his call for scientists to be put on trial under penalty of death has no place in reasonable discourse about climate change science or policy. Murdochs press has a history of distorting the reality of climate change and attacking scientists, as UCS analysis has shown, but this piece was more extreme than any other Ive read. Its time to take the climate disruptions seriously and move on from these ugly attacks.
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http://blog.ucsusa.org/angry-summer-down-under-murdoch-paper-hosts-op-ed-that-attacks-scientists-while-australia-sizzles/