Poor petals. The ABC is selling the sob story of scientists paid from the public pocket who feel suppressed because they aren’t allowed to voice their personal unresearched opinion on things like international treaties and energy policy.
Leaked emails from 2015 reveal a bitter dispute within CSIRO, Australia’s leading science body, as management tried to prevent top scientists from breaking ranks before the Paris climate summit.
The disagreement took place after CSIRO declined to make a formal submission to a government consultation about Australia’s new emissions target.
CSIRO has guidelines for its researchers, which encourage them to speak publicly about their areas of expertise — provided they do not stray too far into policy.
Critics say these tensions between CSIRO management and scientists are a symptom of ongoing self-censorship by an organisation fearful of offending government and losing funding.
The ABC entirely misses the plight of skeptical scientists who can’t be suppressed at the CSIRO because they would never even get a grant or a job there.
Put this in perspective, the CSIRO pour out climate reports in full gloss designer color on a regular basis. They forget to mention Australias hot history, worst fires, and often don’t say that our rainfall has increased in the last 100 years.
The ABC is going “hard” – three stories this week.
- CSIRO ‘missing in action’ on climate advice
- This week’s episode of Science Friction
- Science on the frontline: What are CSIRO’s rules of engagement?
The ABC makes out John Church is a suppressed scientist, but back in 2014, CSIRO wasn’t stopping John Church star in The Guardian for bravely offering a hypocritically weak propaganda bet. Church offered to bet $10,000 on “any warming above zero” in the next 20 years, a situation which would be a complete failure of all their models. At the same time he was promoting model predictions and effectively supporting demanding billions of dollars of money from taxpayers. As I said then, show you have the balls and come and talk about a real bet — one that demonstrates you honestly really do think your models work, and you understand the climate.
As usual, the public servants in the ABC are spotlighting the ant and missing the ant-eater. They won’t touch the real suppression, but pump and inflate the irrelevant one. Surprise me — public servants support public servants who all crusade for any policy that means More Money from Taxpayers and a larger public service.
The ABC entirely misses the plight of skeptical scientists who can’t be suppressed at the CSIRO because they would never even get a grant or a job there. Skeptics face exile, namecalling, threats to be sacked, evicted, blackballed, terminated, punished, vilified and generally get bullied. The government funded suppression is so entrenched and well funded there is even support for videos blowing up skeptical kids (as a joke), as well as songs and plays about killing people like you, and in some cases, talk of a RICO investigation.
The invisible hole
Science is in a rut, a hole, and being abused and exploited by a trillion dollar industry, as well as by the largest organisation in our economy — the government. We need real science communicators to help shake it out, but nearly the whole industry of science communicators are fully government funded, and become by default, blind to the problems that government funding creates.
Thanks to the philanthropists here who keep this science commentator out of the bankruptcy file!