Although I’m still on paternity leave and still wading through no sleep and nappies, I wanted to share with you a little buoyant info from the land of the long white cloud. Phillip Mills, prominent NZ businessman who wrote a NZ Herald piece talking alot about my book earlier in the year has sent a copy of the book to every NZ parliamentarian. He has written his vision for NZ in a new opinion piece here, called Imagining 2020: Green opportunities outweigh costs. Thanks to Phillip, the clean, prosperous message is at least making big inroads across the Tasman. Is Australia going to lose out to NZ in capturing the immense opportunities in this new economy??
Have you ever been at dinner parties, at the pub or talking with your in-laws and the topic of global scientific conspiracy comes up over climate change? For me, I usually say something like ‘I can assure you there is no debate on the fundamentals of climate change within climate science community - you are hearing these rumblings from non-experts that are political ideologues’. No matter what you say, sometimes figures and clearer explanations of all the classic denialist arguments like ‘The world is cooling’ or ‘It’s the sun’ or SMH’s Paul Sheehan ‘It’s the urban heat island effect‘are needed. By the way Paul, I dont think there are concrete jungles in the ocean and its warming in concert with the land (see figure below) - sorry, no conspiracy here.
Anyway, Skeptical science has launched a new Climate Science iPhone app which may be useful next time you are sitting down to someone like Sheehan or other commentators who somehow believe thousands of climate scientists are conspiring against the world.
Tracy Bowden at the 7:30 Report did another piece on the eternal entertainment of the eccentric Lord Monckton who claims that climate scientists are part of a grand conspiracy to dupe the world. I was interviewed as part of the story and can be viewed here.
Penny Sackett, the chief scientist was interviewed and was spot on when she talked about the politicisation of science and the dangers of this in our society - listen in to what she has to say.
An example of this politicisation of science can be viewed at Andrew Bolts comments on my interview - this guy just cant accept any evidence beyond himself. Take a look at how Bolt tries to say I’m somehow a spokesperson for the ‘left’ in my quote about Monckton.Here is my quote from the interview:
Lord Monckton is a former political adviser for a UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. I think it’s very dangerous for us to take scientific advice from someone like that.
Then Bolt says this in his blog:
But check instead the truly pathetic kind of arguments - mere political sloganeering from the Left - advanced by McNeil, who calls himself a scientist
Andrew, I know you cant help yourself in politicising science when it doesn’t suit your world view, but the point I was trying to make was that taking ANY advice from ANY political advisor (left or right) on scientific development is immensely dangerous, just as it is for Bin Laden to take advice on the evils of western liberal democracies from his own ideological cave. Are you going to accept Lord Monckton to do brain surgery aswell? He must be an expert in that too right? It may be an ideological decision and make you feel good before the surgery but just slightly on the stupid side. Thats why the politicsation of science from the likes of Bolt, Lord M et al is so dangerous in growing the worlds future all-round prosperity.
To start the new year off I was on a climate debate on Sunrise on Monday with a conservative UK political advisor - see the video (and crazy comments) here if you can bear it. For those wanting some sort of insight into where we are in Australia in 2010, this is my summary: evidence and reason is losing the public debate. Debating what we do about climate change in a policy sense is very much needed and debating the science within the realm of science is the exactly what scientific progress is about. However somehow trying to discredit thousands of working climate scientists on national TV by a UK Lord with no scientific background is just slightly crazy - and there are many coming from the rafters that are given this platform of crazy. Have a look at the video when Monckton says ‘I’m not an expert’ - I was speechless to be honest given I teach, research and coordinate scientific syntheses on climate science every day of my working life. This is not to say there are no debates in the climate science community - of course there are - but not about the fundamentals of climate change and how humans are contributing to it (Richard Lindzen is known to be the lone contrarian among the hundreds of other atmospheric physicists - although he doesn’t dispute that greenhouse gases will warm the planet by the way) . If you would like to see the latest synthesis of climate science by climate scientists go to ‘The Copenhagen Diagnosis’ which undertook this process in writing its report. Do you think I should get national media play debating whether junk food causes cancer - NO - I’m not an expert in cancer. We have opinions but opinions do not shape scientific progress. It seems anyone is free to comment on climate science - I remember a historian being on the front page of ‘The Australian’ last year explaining how the climate science is flawed. This is going to be a big year of this nonsense given the impending Australian election - how backward has the debate become - it’s up to our national leaders to see through this right? Will they?
Harley Oliver and UNSWTV have released the second part of the book documentary with a much better and relaxed performance by Ben 
Happy holidays to all.