Were you to take an inquisitive interest in ‘string theory’, the field of physics that predicts all particles are different vibration modes of fundamental filaments of energy, you would likely be thanked for your interest. Discuss the ‘saturation’ of carbon dioxide, as many distinguished scientists do, and inquire whether the gas’s warming properties in the atmosphere rapidly decline after it reaches a certain level, and you will be lucky if the only insult you get is the ubiquitous slur that you are morally equivalent to a Holocaust denier. Slowly, the politicisation of climate – and medicine – is leading to the widespread demise of empiricism. Last month, the Australian Academy of Sciences (AAS) made a disgraceful call for broadcast news and the internet to censor what it called “climate denialism misinformation” as well as “disinformation” about the Great Barrier Reef, Covid vaccines and other issues that result in “societal harm”.
It went on to call for all social media platforms to proactively promote “trusted information” to “inoculate” people against misinformation. Platforms should be “held accountable” for content that challenges the official narrative on any of these issues. According to the Australian climate writer Jo Nova, the head of the AAS is Anna-Maria Arabia, who spent five years advising local Labour politicians and has been calling for legislation to silence climate sceptics since 2011.
Ms. Nova goes on to note: “Once upon a time the AAS had esteemed scientists. If there are any left they had better speak up while they still can.” She quotes the atmospheric physicist Professor Garth Paltridge, who said: “I just cannot understand how any science academy that is supposed to operate through rational debate can behave like this – that is, to use pure political brute force to prevent one side of the argument from putting its case.”
The shutters on serious climate science are coming down everywhere. As the Daily Sceptic reported recently, computer models are being developed at Exeter University to track down “climate disbeliefs”. These ‘disbeliefs’, tracked by Associate Politics Professor Travis Coan, such as the ‘saturation’ of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere, along with suggestions that the climate moves in natural cycles and the Sun plays a part in climate change, as does water vapour. The fact that these are central issues in the study of climate and the atmosphere does not seem to have occurred to this academic nincompoop. Over in the Geography Department of this same seat of unlearning, Associate Professor Saffron O’Neill has written a paper suggesting a “solution” to the dissemination of climate misinformation might be “fines and imprisonment”. I hear they’re keeping a table in the Wormwood Scrubs canteen free for the staff of the Daily Sceptic. (Note to fact-checkers: that’s a joke.)
Much of the AAS’s recent comments can be fairly described as trade protection. The Academy holds itself out as providing “independent, authoritative and influential advice” to government, bringing science “to the service of the nation”. Disinformation on health matters, or ecological and environment matters, such as material ‘misrepresenting’ studies of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, ”are a barrier to good policy and a healthy society”.
Writing on Watts Up With That?, Eric Worrall suggested the AAS was in no position to claim the mantle of gatekeeper. “Their inclusion of criticism of Great Barrier Reef science in their censorship proposals is particularly outrageous,” he wrote. Imagine not being able to criticise the alarmist statements of AAS-affiliated scientists like ARC Centre for Coral Excellence Director Terry Hughes, who told us in 2021 that coral bleaching is caused by record-breaking temperatures driven by global warming.
Just a year later, the Reef was restored to full health with record coral cover. The Reef’s had a difficult past decade and alarmists took full advantage to peddle their global warming agenda. Cyclone damage, starfish attacks and two powerful El Niño oscillations causing sudden spikes in the water temperature around the Reef led to considerable damage and bleaching. Once conditions stabilised, the coral sprang back – in the process, thoroughly debunking the politicised tantrum that it was all due to human-caused global warming.
The AAS is not just prepared to beat up on free speech on the internet. It also has professional mainstream broadcasters in its sights. Sky Australia is a thorn in the side of the green propagandists with a pesky inclination to present all the facts. Or as the AAS notes, “some Australian news outlets are havens for climate science misinformation”. Sky’s media personalities are said to be a “key source of climate science misinformation globally”. Particular irritation seems to have been caused by the news broadcaster’s coverage of the recent COP26 meeting in Glasgow. Australia has a ‘Code of Practice’ on digital “disinformation and misinformation”. AAS says that Sky and others should not be excluded from being penalised for broadcasting “misinformation” under the Code, despite following their own editorial legal requirements.
Thankfully, there is a growing push back against these anti-free-speech movements within science, as practised by outfits like the AAS. As we have reported, nearly 300 professors from around the world have signed the World Climate Declaration, stating there is no climate emergency. Climate science is criticised by the signatories for having degenerated into a discussion based on ideological beliefs, not sound self-critical science. One of the lead signatories is the Australian geologist Professor Ian Plimer, who has been a long-time critic of global warming scaremongering. Another signatory is the noted coral reef expert Professor Peter Ridd. In 2018 he was fired from his post at James Cook University in Queensland for pointing out the quality assurance deficiencies in reef-science institutions.
Unlike the coral, Professor Ridd’s position remains the same. He is still fired.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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What’s sauce for the goose …
I would support a movement to lock up people in positions of influence who are actively working against democracy. Or for what they themselves are now calling ‘guided democracy’. It used to be called tyranny.
Does promoting barely tested ‘vaccines’ count as ‘societal harm’?
Not at all! That counts as being a good & model citizen.
We need to start witch hunts against lefties like McCarthy did in the usa. He was 70 years ahead of his time. Lefties destroy society whilst trying to perfect the world with more governance, then assume the cure to the ailment they created is yet more government.
If you were counting the pennies at Exeter University then Dr Coan’s ability to attract millions of euros of project funding, such as in computational social science and analysing “Far-Right Online” social media content, would be a significant factor in assessing his worth.
Its a fear of hearing something they don’t like, immature and childlike
It really isn’t though. What it is, is Power. “Sovereign is he who defines the exception.” They’re fine, rigourous, liberal, rule-following, until you threaten their power, whereupon
No, it’s a fear of not being able to win an argument against something they don’t like …. and the consequent impact on their considerable income.
The Climate Emergency has nothing to do with the climate…
Cult members of ‘The Science’ trying to shut down real scientists.
Worst Megadrought And Heatwave Ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1q1oD_ydPA
Experts say we are having the worst drought and heatwave in more than 1,200 years – and the only way to stop it is cover the country with giant bird choppers.
Tony Heller
Too many people around us a Comfortably Numb – as in the Pink Floyd song in this video
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Utter rubbish – your heatwave lasted only 2 days that doesn’t make it even a heatwave. What about the colder than normal June we suffered before it. Check your “facts” and listen to some real scientists William Happen etc who have properly studied climate
I think Lockie was being purposefully sarcastic, SomersetHoops
If three years ago you had said to me that there will come a time when all scientific debate is shut down unless it supports only one side of an argument, I wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are. All rational discourse is emphatically shut down. They don’t want to hear about the coral growing back because they’ve already said that the world’s oceans are acidifying at a rapid rate and coral is dying because of…climate change of course. Forget talking about ice caps or how miniscule the amount of CO2 is in the atmosphere – these are trifling concerns for ignorant people i.e. us. I’m trying to think of suitable metaphors to explain this. What about one-sided football teams? The team just gets to win every game and all the trophies and be top of the league but mention the absence of an opposition and there will be derision and ridicule and anyone saying this will be banned from games and shunned. Climate change fanatics – and yes they are fanatical – ignore inconvenient truths (to borrow Al Gore’s pet phrase and throw it back in his face) that challenge their faith – and yes, it is a faith, a religion because it’s based on belief only and not supported by science or facts. This move by the laughably named Australian Academy of Sciences is just another manifestation of this insanity – and yes, it is insane – led by chief climate comedian – or should it be comedienne? – well, clown anyway Anna-Maria Arabia – and her pronouncements are just…well, sorry for this…torrents of Arabia! One of their number even suggests fines and imprisonment for those disseminating what they judge is climate misinformation! Oh, so when I said that coral is flourishing in record numbers what I really meant was… Honestly, this is a world gone insane. Let’s hope common sense returns before it’s too late.
“Stay back, I got climate misinformation on me, don’t make me use it on you!”
I find myself in a state of disbelief that the term “disbelief” now gets used in a context such as this. Was the term re-invented yesterday? Rather than its traditional usage to describe the state of shock and denial one may experience when something extraordinary has happened, it now serves a new purpose: The latest in the long lexicon of newspeak terms designed to narrow the public’s collective focus down to what the state and the establishment media decide to tell us.
Used here as a noun (“a disbelief”), it slyly confuses the terms “information” and “belief”, and twists language to suggest objectivity in belief systems; Whereas previously I may hold a belief that is a product of my subjective experience, i.e. a personal belief, the newspeak term “disbelief” means I either hold the correct, objectively correct belief, or I hold the wrong one (objectively false).
Plus, talk about a Freudian slip… Using the term “disbelief” at all blows the cover on the veneer of authenticity and sound science that institutions such as the AAS, SAGE and WHO try to present to the public to obscure the reality of the situation within “science” these days: The degeneration of the open, dispassionate, empirical scientific method into hyperbole surrounding a narrowly-defined set of scriptural commandments.
“The degeneration of the open, dispassionate, empirical scientific method into hyperbole surrounding a narrowly-defined set of scriptural commandments.”
Well all religions need their commandments and “The Science” is now a religion.
Given our Orwellian circumstances I think it is to our benefit to refer to the garbage put out by the likes of AAS as “The Science,” in order to completely differentiate it from what we understand as science.
“By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox” – Galileo Galilei
The Climate Change Zealots are reacting the same way the Catholic Church did when Martin Luther challenged their Dogma. This is a modern religion, we’re dealing with, not science.
What we are witnessing is the start of the Climate Change Inquisition.
Sky News Australia is one of the most accurate reporters on climate change and its causes and effect and has interviewed some class leading scientists who know what they are talking about on the subject. I hope most Australians realise this and don’t fall for the censorship being forced upon them. It seems opinions on climate change are valued on the basis of how big a celebrity is, rather on the years of precise scientific study of the subject they have put in. For example what right has Harrison Ford got to lecture anyone on the subject?
Hi Folks, a point of clarification: the original and most detailed account of the Academy’s censorship drive in mine, here: https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2022/08/shut-them-up-argues-the-academy-of-science/
Joanne Nova is a good and admired friend of mine who has re-blogged my piece with a link to it plus her own take on the issues.
I’ve been tracking the Academy’s wayward politics for a decade, starting with this:
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2012/06/our-planet-saving-science-lobbyist-the-integrity-of-the-australian-academy-of-science/