Is the Prime Minister aware that the climate change report from four Government MPs, including the Member for Tangney, released today’s states “The evidence that human beings are changing the global climate is certainly not compelling” and, “another problem with the view that humans have caused warming is that warming has also been observed on Mars, Jupiter, Triton”?
Prime Minister, what planet are these Government MPs on?
To that question from Peter Garrett our Prime Minister replied:
On the planet inhabited by people who hate the Australian coal industry.
While the PM continued to spruik his carbon trading scheme (a draft paper will be released in September) four of the six Liberals on a parliamentary committee on geosequestration dissented on the link between human activity and global warming. This is an embarrassment for Howard, the new convert to AGW trying to compete with Labor in this policy area.
Crikey says the pain is self-inflicted:
When [Dennis] Jensen [member for Tangney] lost Liberal preselection last year, Crikey understands it was John Howard who instructed the Liberal Party federal executive to re-select him.
That was mid 2006, months before Howard performed his show-stopping climate change backflip. Who’d have thought the day would come where Jensen’s view would contradict the people’s, and, increasingly, the government’s?
Indeed, Howard was repaying a philosophical ally. Jensen is an enthusiastic supporter of an Australian nuclear power industry — he has a PhD in nuclear physics. He was also the dignitary who launched the Lavoisier Group’s Nine Facts About Climate Change, a pamphlet which disputes, among other things, the human contribution to climate change.
It seems that Dr Jensen and the others, Danna Vale, Jackie Kelly and Dave Tollner, believe that
climate change is a natural phenomenon that’s always been with us and always will be.
That may be true, but it doesn’t preclude human influence on the climate in recent times. I don’t know the educational background of the last three, but you would think that they could see the trend in fossil fuel usage, a trend in atmospheric CO2 over the last half century, a similar trend in temperature, plus the relentless advance of sea levels.
All those graphs look suspiciously similar, especially when there is science to explain the connections, even the apparent anomalies.
Now Gavin Schmidt has explained the role of CO2 in the story. He’s writing for scientists, and those literate in maths and science seemed to cotton on well going by the comments thread. There are explanations given in the comments thread for the symbols used.
Perhaps Dr Jensen could do a simple language version of the RealClimate post for the committee and then explain why Dr Schmidt is talking through his hat. Then if he could re-translate that into scientific discourse and have it published in a peer-reviewed atmospheric physics journal we might take some notice.
How do they select pollies for these committees?
I think what could be at work (certainly with scientifically qualified greenhouse denialists like Jensen) is a case of the wisdom being lost in the knowledge and the knowledge being lost in the information. If someone wants to disbelieve in anthropogenic global warming, they can find sufficient knowledge gaps and uncertainties in the IPCC’s technical reports (which Jensen claims to have read) and other serious climate science both to confirm their own prejudices and to put together a denialist case which will be plausible to less than fully informed laypersons such as Jensen’s three co-signatories. Of course this requires either disregarding the very obvious relationships to which Brian draws attention, or being prepared to believe the implausible proposition that natural climate variation has, by some malign coincidence, taken a sharp upward turn in the same eyeblink in geological time in which atmospheric CO2 has been increasing and just when the issue has become politically contentious.
And to reiterate what I wrote just over a month ago:
The Gang of Four’s position has the support of just one submission of the 46 received by the House Standing Committee on Science and Innovation, by a Mr. Grant Lockie who runs a denialist website.
Firslty let me qualify this in that I may have missed some of the interview, so my assumptions below may be incorrect; but…
What struck me on the ABC interview with Dr. Jensen yesterday was I heard no mention of what field of expertise he was qualified in; only that he was a PhD scientist who previously worked at the CSIRO and who was a member of the Gvt Panel. The underlying presumption or implication of the whole interview seemed to be that as a former CSIRO scientist he was qualified to speak on climate change science. Surely there is a duty by the interviewer to question and test this. As a now-politician I doubt we can expect open declaration that Dr. Jensen is not qualified in Environmental Science.
I get the feeling that the Liberals are merely shoring up a few more base votes – making sure with a nod and a wink that they’re going along for the CO2 ride but denialists can still feel comfortable with their party of preference – after all, there’s still a bunch of people out there prepared to ignore the science and they all seem to be very vocal, and 100% conservative for some reason.
David, this is undoubtedly deliberate strategy, not an accident. Jensen is a close mate of Howard’s, as is one of the other flat-earthers, Jackie Kelly.
Jensen in particular is up to his neck in it. He lost his preselection months ago (partly because his constituents were pissed of with his galavanting around the country spruiking nukes instead of serving their needs) and Howard stepped in to personally save his political skin. Obviously it’s convenient to have these people out there on the fringes, playing dog whistle politics. That allows Howard to sound reasonable, when in fact he’s way out there himself.
According to the Wikipedia, Jensen has a PhD in nuclear physics.
Physics degrees are typically not given away. However, in my humble opinion physicists are often of the mistaken belief that they are qualified to comment on any scientific topic, and sometimes don’t bother to fully explore the voluminous literature that already exists in the area. Case in point – Roger Penrose.
Well surely if the geosequestration committee do not believe that human activity, ie releasing copious amounts of CO2, plays any part in global warming then poking CO2 underground is pointless. End of committee, end of geosequestration, end of carbon trading, go home and feed the fish. That would be a better outcome because anything Howard and the Coalition does between now and the change of government will only have to be undone then replaced with the correct and appropriate action.
BilB, the majority report of the committee (supported by Petro Georgiou, Mal Washer and the four Labor members) does accept that human activity is contributing to global warming. Labor’s position is pro-”clean coal” and broadly pro-geosequestration, as is that of the coal mining union.
However, it is very handy, when releasing a report recommending the slowest solution to climate change, to have a bunch of dissenters muddying the waters and telling people there’s no urgency…
This ain’t no accident.
I heard the other day that the bloke who is paddling his way down the Darling/Murray (I’ve forgotten his name) was shocked to find how many people he met along the way thought that AGW and climate change were nonsense.
That concurs with what I’ve heard in my travels, Brian.
Well Paul Norton, Labour’s position is going to have to change on that one, because the whole geosequestration thing is a certain to fail approach. It took nature millions of years to build the successful oil and CO2 trapping sites with untold thousands failing. It is the height of arrogant optimism to think that humans are going to get it right (drill a hole, poke liquid CO2 down there at 600 psi and have it not come out somewhere else) first and every go. Still it is a comfortable position for the gullible to rest upon as it will be many years before it becomes clear that this can at best be a part solution. And without carbon banishment the whole farce of carbon trading is worthless. And silly me for thinking that it would be only Liberals on the committee, I am getting far too cynical.
This is a government known for its iron discipline, with all MPs singing from the same song sheet. For eleven years Coalition MPs have had it drummed into them that disunity is death. Peter Dutton didn’t get where he is today by thinking independently, whereas Petro Georgiou did.
Now these chuckleheads have mixed the Coalition message on climate change. They won’t be hauled over the coals for it, but every Liberal candidate who’s asked about this issue has nowhere to go on it. None of the chuckleheads supporting Jensen holds a marginal seat. All of them would have piled on any moderates who attempted to depart from the party line over the years.
If you’re not concerned about the cracks appearing in the government, if you’re not rushing to patch over them, just sit back and appreciate what a collapsing government looks like so that you can identify it next time.
It’s almost amusing to see politicians, whose ability to make scientific judgements is most uncertain, attempting to make judgements about this.
Hey, why not send physical science doctoral thesises to committees of the House of Representatives for examination?
Brian and Robert, they’re probably the same demographic who think the Port Arthur massacre was stage-managed by Howard to justify disarming the population so that they couldn’t refuse to pay rates and taxes to the Federal, State and local governments which have been illegally constituted since 1919 as a result of the Australian Constitution being invalidated when we signed the Treaty of Versailles. There’s quite a few of them up Gympie way.
BilB, I agree that Labor’s and the union’s policy on geosequestration should change and that it’s a good thing we have the Greens, Democrats and environmental NGOs campaigning for a stronger policy. However the time for the serious battle about that element of Labor’s policy will be after Labor wins office Federally. The key strategic task for this year is to achieve a change of government.
Robert Merckel
Jon
One wonders what you think of Peter Garret’s and Al Gore’s forays into the debate?
I doubt that Peter Garrett and Al Gore are making judgements about the science.
Totally agree with you on that Paul.
Shocking, but quite understandable when you get the enire Government holding a skeptical/denial position on climate change until late 2006, and continuing to run interference on the issue.
I think The Age editorial of 5 June 07 sums this up well:
The best (and proven) form of carbon capture and sequestration is trees and forests – with both Howard and Rudd totally committed to ongoing destruction of old growth forests (liberating up to 1400 tonnes of carbon per hectare).
These 4 recent “skeptics” are just playing the “confuse the public” card again, and this would be sanctioned by Howard. They aren’t trying to win the argument, just confuse people.
Howard is condemning us to no real action on climate change with his begrudging admissions, absent policy and back bench interference. Problem is, Rudd is really not much better at this point.
Jensen is of course perfectly free to espouse whatever views he wants. The point I’m trying to make is that his professional expertise is only fairly distantly related to climate science – frankly, it’s not that much more closely related than my own. And, therefore, the use of “Dr Dennis Jensen, physicist” to bolster the credibility of his views is pretty dubious, because it accords them authority they don’t deserve.
More broadly, I was indulging in some interdisciplinary snark about physicists being arrogant…
Gore (to take the case I’m most familiar with), doesn’t claim to be a scientist. He’s reporting the views of scientists, and is quite adequately qualified to do so considering he’s been speaking to them for decades on this issue. A lot of climate scientists have stated that he has, in large part, accurately represented their views.
Interesting preselection story.
Interesting background to the NASA Temperture Adjustment for the USA where the hottest year is no longer 1998 but:
According to the new data published by NASA, 1998 is no longer the hottest year ever. 1934 is.
Four of the top 10 years of US CONUS high temperature deviations are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900. (World rankings of temperature are calculated separately.)
Scroll to the bottom first and work backwards.
Congrats to Steve McIntyre!
And the change in average yearly temperature should be monotonic?
That should be – and the average yearly temperature function should be monotonic, mathematically speaking?
Rob: Interdisciplinary jab felt.
=)
I’d go the intervaristy jab against Jensen, but as he managed to attend RMIT(ugrad), Melb (Msc), and Monash(PhD) rules me out. (Perhaps just say the WA heat has got to him?)
and here I was thinking if only we had more scientists in government with their superior critical and analytical abilities with regards science(and more broadly), the mess of a response to climate change we have could have been avoided.
*sigh*
m
and the average yearly temperature function should be monotonic, mathematically speaking?
If the change was in the other direction it would have been headline news.
That doesn’t make sense, peter.
Because of the corrections to the GISS data 1998 and 1934 went from being in a virtual tie, to being in a virtual tie. In the US only The US is not the world. The change was 0.03 degrees with an uncertainty of 0.1 degrees.
In other words no significant change. McIntyre is making a fuss over nothing.
John G:
Robert M successfully encapsulated what I was clumsily positing: Jensen’s PhD status was being used — by himself and the Gvt, and accepted without challenge by the ABC — to represent scientific credibility on an area of expertise where he is not qualified.
Jensen is my Federal member – the shame.
I can’t fathom his position. You’d think that someone so pro-nuclear would talk up AGW and declare nuclear as the solution. Instead he plays down the AGW issue. So why should we bother with nuclear at all?
I’m not sure that he’s thought this through.
Dana Vale, and Dave Tollner. Says it all, really.
Robert Merkel. Roger Penrose is a mathematician, not a physicist. (Yes, I know he does a lot of work in mathematical physics, and the distinction is fine, but still real.)
I do agree that physicists often over step the boundary of their expertise. On the other hand, when the better ones do they often make substantial contributions, for example see Richard Feynman’s sabbatical work in biology.
Mathematical physics = theoretical physics.
NicM: Jensen apparently believes in peak oil.
His argument is that peak oil will push up the price of coal and gas, therefore making nuclear energy the cheapest game in town.
He might be right on gas (I wonder what happens to the price of gas on Australia’s east coast if somebody builds an LNG export terminal somehere – gas prices in California are double those here in Australia), but I very much doubt that brown coal will go up in price much.
I hope no one has posted this previously.
How would you like to pick up an easy $100,000.http://ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.com/
Missed the link.
http://ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.com/
Sacha. Penrose’s training is in maths, not physics.
Jensen has a poor record on climate change. He wrote a piece back in February called “The Amazing Disappearing Hockey Stick” (available on his website) claiming Mann’s Hockey Stick theory had been excised from the recent IPCC report. Problem is it hasn’t. It is included in Chapter 6 with 11 other proxy reconstructions. Back in 2001 Mann’s work was unique and therefore prominent. In the intervening 6 years science has progressed and his work has been confirmed by other proxy reconstructions hence the IPCC report now includes various reconstructions in Chapter 6 not just Mann’s. A scientist with an open and sceptical mind would know that.
He also claimed scientists had ignored the sun. No they haven’t, they just haven’t found any evidence to support that theory. He then confuses himself by immediately saying it is warming on Pluto, Mars, Jupiter and Triton and they don’t have “evil greenhouse belching industries”. This leads him to conclude it must be increased solar activity causing the warming. Big problem with that theory – there has been no discernible increase in solar activity since the early 1980′s. And surely the closest planet to the sun, Mercury, would be warming then! Uh oh, it’s not. Mercury is cooling according to scientists.
His third argument is that ice cores show CO2 increases lag temperature increases in the past so increased CO2 is caused by temperature increases not the other way around. Don’t go there please Dennis you already look stupid! It doesn’t seem to matter to him that temperature increases NOW (NOT IN THE PAST) correlate with CO2 increases, they don’t lag. For simpletons like the good Doc that means that just because something happened in the past doesn’t mean it is what is happening now. The lag in the ice cores is 800 years by the way.
The good Doc ends his piece with a call for a proper scientific debate. With his scientific credentials I can only guess that the howlers above were deliberate attempts to muddy the waters and if this is proper debate god please save us from Jensen and his ilk.
Robert Merkel wrote:
Where did you read this Robert?
Did you see who did the “fact checking” for the dissenting report?
A veritable who’s who of denialism.
I always thought Jackie Kelly had more sense. The other three are fruitloops.
This seems a pretty pro-elitist and anti-democratic stance.
If the argument is that we should leave it to scientists, then I am afraid that will lead us all to annihilation. Science is politically influenced too, you know. If you are told you can’t understand the science then it makes it easier to believe the politicans who deride the science.
To argue that only specialist scientists can understand this and therefore have a valid opinion on climate change – whether it exists, is a worry, or what can be done about it – is dangerously self-defeating for anyone who truly gives a brass razoo.
And it will lead to the futile Howard options: at one end of the spectrum, denialism, at the other the “solution” of market mechanisms and technological fixes, which, even in combination, are completely inadequate mechanisms for combatting the effects of climate change. And which, again. are beyond most people’s comprehension.
Deuce.
carbonsink: It’s on Jensen’s website.
While obviously I don’t agree with him, there’s no obvious logical contradiction between believing in peak oil and being a climate change denialist.
This “peak oil” calculation always surprises me.
They only calculate it on known and expected reasonably easily extracted ” mineral or fossil oil reserves.
What about the oil sands in Canada, the oil shale resources in both Canada and the Usa.
Australia has enormous oil shale deposits. ie 5 deposits with the biggest, “Condor” at Proserpine holding enough oil to meet global oil needs at 1990 levels for 400 years est.
This one deposit is 45 Klms long, 15 klms wide and 1000 mts deep.
The yanks might be keeping it up their sleeves as a back up reserve.
To fill in some links, the report itself Between a Rock and a Hard Place can be downloaded from here. Quiggin has done a brief post (there’s some interesting comment on the thread) and plans an article for Thursday’s Fin Review. Trevor Cook is short and pithy. As Quiggin points out, they noticed at the Washington Post.
Zarquon, I think you nailed it on the GISS temperature revisions for the US. I noticed in a European study that they reckon the older measurements were inclined to be a bit high because they didn’t properly protect their thermometers from local sources of heat. I’m not sure how you could retrospectively correct for problems like that.
Scorpio wrote:
The reserves in the oil sands of Canada are undoubtedly vast, but the rate at which oil can be produced from these reserves is inherently limited by the amount of energy and water required by the refining process. Currently they use natural gas to provide the heat, and I believe Total is thinking of building nukes if gas gets too expensive, but the real limiting factor is water. There simply isn’t enough water in the rivers to get production above a few million barrels a day. I should also mention that a lot of the oil sands are buried deep underground, and they’ve obviously mined the easily accessible oil sands first.
FYI: The Canadian oil sands currently produce around 1 million barrels a day. The world consumes ~85 million barrels a day, and the U.S consumes ~20 million barrels a day.
The economics and energy requirements of oil shale is even worse than oil sands. As production of convential oil peaks and we turn to these emission-intensive alternatives it will undoubtedly increase emissions from the transport sector and probably wipe out any gains we make through energy efficiency.
Much as I disagree with Jensen’s views on climate change, I agree with him that an oil peak will push up prices of coal and gas, because coal-to-liquids (CTL) and gas-to-liquids (CTL) are also processes that can be used to produce liquid fuels. These processes are also very emissions intensive.
In short, yes there is no shortage of oil in the world but only if you are willing to completely dismiss the greenhouse consequences. This obviously isn’t a problem for Jensen, and his views (peak-oil believer, climate change denier) are more widely held than you might believe, especially in the Bush White House!
The argument is not that one should “leave it to scientists” but that scientists help inform society’s policies. There are, in fact, many things that people find difficult to understand if they don’t have a lot of background knowledge – climate science is one of them. That is a statement of fact – it is not elitist. For instance, very few people in Australia fully understand how one can construct topological invariants of closed, connected 3-manifolds from quantum superalgebras as understanding it requires a lot of background knowledge and most people don’t have it. Of course, practically anyone can learn the background material if they wish and there are no barriers to anyone learning climate science.
If people wish to have an opinion on the construction of topological invariants of three-manifolds from quantum superalgebras, well fine. But why should anyone listen to them if they don’t understand the construction of the topological invariants?
Thanks for that, carbonsink and Sacha.
To answer my own question, the geosequestration committee membership is co-extensive with that of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Science and Innovation. It is no comfort that so many of them have so little understanding of science and respect for scientists.
At Quiggin’s there was an interesting reaction from Roger Jones who I understand to be a working climate scientist with the CSIRO.
Brian, that’s a great comment by Roger Jones. A fair fraction of it expresses my thoughts. I am more optimistic about the content of “the wide open spaces” though – I think that people can be reasoned with. Perhaps that’s misplaced optimism.
Something I learnt from mathematics is that one has to always be aware of the gaps in one’s knowledge or understanding – this is an essential part of science but one which is not fully appreciated by many non-scientists.
Science is only one way of understanding the world and is not as objective as it claims. Climate science may have blindspots. One thing is for sure. Governmental regulations, environmental NGO’s, scientific and academic programs have manifestly failed to check the overall pace of ecological decay either in this country or globally. Indeed the breakdown in crucial areas such as carbon emissions, the loss of barrier reefs and deforestation of has actually accelerated and even begun to assume an exponential character.
I’d be hard pressed to explain the science behind climate change but I am convinced by it for reasons other than just science. I am sure I am not alone in being much more interested, as a matter of principle, in what scientists and others have to say whose primary aim to to contribute to broader understanding and popular engagement with one of the most important issues of our time.
Stating that a lack of appropriate scientific qualifications negates the legitimacy of any person contributing to the debate is elitist bollocks.
Using scientific qualifications inappropriately is illegitimate.
jinmaro, I wonder whether you are putting up a straw man here. In my view non-scientists can make all sorts of contributions, perhaps by asking questions, maybe by seeing relationships not heretofore seen, identifying implications for society, identifying intrinsic value positions etc. But I don’t see how they can flatly reject the science without the requisite scientific knowledge.
In that sense I don’t think Jensen is entitled to think whatever he likes. His position calls for him to act responsibly when he expresses a view.
Most of us can only hope to have the most superficial understanding of the science, however we can make a reasonable judgement in other ways. For me its the fact that every scientific institution in the developed world explicity endorses the view that climate change is due to human activity. I cannot fathom how this would happen without the evidence being compelling and overwhelming. The idea that AGW is some giant leftist hoax perpetuated by scientists desperate to protect their funding seems totally absurd. OTOH, the fossil fuel industry clearly has huge self-interest at stake in maintaining the status quo and continiuing with business-as-usual.
Money talks. Trillions of dollars are at stake with fossil fuels, compared with a few hundred million (at most) in climate science funding.
I am detecting the ugly rise of credntialism in this debate. The idea that only those with a Ph.D in “Climate Science” are qualified to comment is ludicrous. Anybody with a reasonable undergrad exposure to physics should have no trouble reading and critiquing any of this “climate science.”
Where the really hard stuff in this debate is predicting the social and economic fallout and if there is anything at all that can be done to change the course of these predictions.
Anyone with an appropriate level of education should be able to read and comment upon this debate in general terms.
However, unsurprisingly, much of the modelling and observation is significantly more complex than undergrad physics, and hence critiquing this work in detail is likely to require a higher level of education and/or much more experience with the field.
Sure, which is why it is so frustrating to see so many people stuck in the “It’s not happening, stoopid grant-chasing scientists forgot all about volcanoes/urban heat islands/solar variation” mode.
And how is that the fault of science and scientists? As opposed to the governments and societies they advise for not heeding their generally good advice?
not too many independent scientists these days Hilker, and government employed ones tell what their masters want to hear.
NGO’s and academia. Well, I would have to insert a history of neo-liberalism here, but this is abc really.
Have you ever been a technical adviser to a government? I have (in a minor capacity), and you know what? Governments, (and business, and individual citizens) largely hear what they want to hear, especially if your advice goes against their ideological desires. Far too often money and populism and naked power lust decide the outcome at the political level, not the generally honest and competent technical advice.
You have the wrong target. But, hey, nothing like a bit of ill-informed slander to bolster your argument, is there, jinmaro?
Hilker, from what I’ve seen sometimes scientists are brave and fearless in the advice they give to those who pay the bills, but sometimes they either tell their paymasters what they want to hear or at least avoid telling them what they don’t want to hear.
Sometimes, if they are really clever, they can achieve seemingly incompatible goals.
I recently read a large university-generated report ostensibly evaluating that loopy scheme where the Feds give money directly to parents who want special help for literacy remediation.
The report could be read as saying the scheme was a raging success, but if you read it carefully with knowledge about what was going on it was clear that it was one of the crappiest schemes ever.
On that occasion the academics were able to satisfy their paymasters and give themselves an excellent chance of picking up the next government contract without destroying their academic credibility.
An example from climatology was the National Hurricane Centre or the NOAA, I’m not sure which, who said flat out that humanly caused climate change had absolutely nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina. Just a flat statement without any reference to research.
When they had no money to contribute to a satellite replacement they said aeroplanes will do just fine.
By contrast the NASA GISS mob who say awkward things about AGW and climate change are having trouble finding the funds for their next series of satellites.
Recently when a couple of academics were about to publish some research showing an increase in the frequency of hurricanes overall in the Atlantic over the last century as well as an increase in severe ones the NHC were rubbishing it before it was published.
Brian, not saying scientists are free from bias and brown-nosing and ideological crap, but the opposite claim that jinmaro was throwing about is defamatory rubbish. Think about what the consequences would be if that claim was true, how would anything have been achieved over the last 50 years? It wasn’t all by blind luck. An awful lot of social good has been based on largely impartial competent (and behind the scenes) advice from government technical advisers. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a ideological moron. I have read an awful lot of technical advice documents and most of them are of acceptable quality and integrity. (Though I agree there is always one or two hacks who will tell those in power whatever they want to hear, but a proper public service process will not rely on single sources of advice). My experience has been that the main stumbling block to good technical advice is not the advice itself, it is the unwillingness of the powerful to either ask for it or accept it.
Oh, BTW, academics are not necessarily scientists, or advisers to the government. Careful with your terminology there
/Rant
Good Night
In my mind I was broadening the point to those with expertise giving advice to those with money and power.
I worked for government for about a quarter of a century and I’d readily agree.
I am amazed that people can continue to run this argument with a straight face when it is obvious that we have a government that does not want to hear about AGW and government scientists that are telling them about it.
Don’t you people think that your arguments should have some cursory relationship to the evidence?
Martin B, thanks for your clear comments. I’ve got the worst head cold in years, so any cerebral effort is difficult. So here’s this morning’s effort.
I thought that jinmaro was too black and white and unjustifiably impugning those who work for government, who often have restrictions on speaking at all in public. I’d have to say that whatever cynicism I have about academics (and Hilker’s right, I blurred the distinction) giving advice their paymasters want to hear stems mainly from the social sciences.
I think the problems mostly come when government commissions research from universities or commercial outfits. I think here in particular of the various efforts to model the impact of the US FTA and the recent Econotech report that looked at the impact of returning to an IR regime pre-1993, then pretending that this is where Labor would take us. A completely rubbish exercise intended to deceive.
Many would say this stuff isn’t science, but it is a rational process designed to discover meaning in the world where methodology is important.
On climate change, the CSIRO in particular seems to have been playing with a straight bat and calling it as they see it.
Now I’m going to shovel mulch for the rest of the day, which will either blow it all out or put me in bed.