ABC reporting misrepresents facts about Mt Warning Closure

UPDATED SBS report is worse! see below

Update 20/2/2021 Correction to misleading headine requested

On February I made a press announcement about the release of documents obtained through FOI/GIPA from the National Parks and Wildlife Service about the closure of the Mt Warning/Wollumbin National Park and its famous summit walk. The documents were posted to my Right to Climb blog. 

On 17 February I was interviewed by ABC North Coast Radio's Bruce MacKenzie about the documents. 

I felt it was a good interview I got to talk about the main findings of the release that revealed the following:

• A "Final Wollumbin Closure Event" planned for 25 November 2022 and show NPWS have NO intention of re-opening the park to the public before that time. It’s clear the permanent closure has been planned for many years.

• Public information released about the safety issues on the Mountain by National Parks has a critical mistake. The Service have claimed there are "extreme" and "catastrophic" risks on the mountain from landslides and other hazards but the FOI documents show these are in error and these hazards are assigned a "medium" risk in Parks own safety assessment. For the hazards listed the risk is similar to other Grade 4-5 bushwalks in the state that are currently open. 

• The medium risk conflicts with a slope stability assessment completed by geotechnical experts in 2018 that found risks to visitors from possible landslides and rockfalls in the park are very low, effectively lower than traveling anywhere by train in Australia. 

• Consultations NPWS have had with Aboriginal groups have not included or considered and paid respect to the diverse range of indigenous opinions, about Mt Warning some of which actually encourage climbing. NPWS have an obligation under the National Parks Act to take the views of owners into account. The area of Mt Warning is the traditional area of the Ngarakwal/Nganduwal peoples.  -  not the Bundjalung who are a merger  or various other northern NSW tribal groups. In an interview in 2007 before she died Ngaraakwal elder and Mount Warning custodian Marlene Boyd. Stated  "I do not oppose the public climbing of Mt Warning - how can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation!" What a wonderful inspirational message that is! It is such a joyous affirmation of the awe and wonder we all experience when we connect with nature and the natural world, and it is outrageous that her views have been ignored by NPWS.

Once again I made the mistake of not making my own recording. But I have requested a copy from the journalist involved and will post it here when (if) I receive it. 

ABC North Coast Radio provided radio coverage about the pending permanent ban on the park on the Breakfast show on the morning of the 18th of February. I was listening via the internet and recorded what was broadcast (you can listen to it HERE). The interview was truncated about halfway through just prior to my mention of the views of Ngaraakwal/Nganduwal  elder and Mount Warning custodian Marlene Boyd. I called the talkback switch and was told by ABC's producer that it was cut because ABC were unable to obtain an interview with local Bundjalung elders. 

Marlene's views are highly important because they demonstrate conclusively there are a range of Aboriginal views about the summit walk. NPWS are obligated to take these views into account in accordance with the Act.

Mt Warning is being closed because NSW NPWS have not properly consulted with the Aboriginal Group recognized as the custodian of the central part of the caldera. Instead for many years, it has promulgated the false narrative of the so-called Bundjalung Nation and ignored and discriminated against the views of elders like the late Marlene Boyd. FOI documents reveal her views have not been considered. Instead of exposing NPWS for their failure to meet its obligations under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 No 80 section 30K, ABC censored the views of this amazing woman who according to her brother "died of a stress induced heart attack fighting these scandals." (Nice going ABC!)

If that was not bad enough, in its online report about the FOI documents ABC failed to mention the clear errors in NPWS risk information (see graphic below) and it further insulted the memory of Marlene Boyd by discriminating against her and only mentioning the views of the Bundjalung Nation. 

The consequence of the poor reporting is that ABC, like NPWS have misrepresented the facts about Mt Warning and in doing so have misled the public about the diversity of Aboriginal opinions about the summit walk and insulted the memory of a strong Indigenous woman. Shame on the ABC! They have also mislead the public about the true nature of safety issues on the summit in not providing coverage for my findings in their online report. 

ABC has breached elements of its editorial policy namely:4 Impartiality and diversity of perspectives

It has only provided the Bundjalung view about the climb and not reported that there are a diversity of Aboriginal perspectives including some that are supportive of public access to Mt Warning's summit. 

ABC has not reported on the errors in NPWS risk assessment. 

In my complaint I have requested ABC correct its online report to:

1. include the views of Marlene Boyd to provide balance to the Aboriginal opinions reported about the summit climb.  

2. Indicate NPWS have made an error in providing safety information about the park.

NPWS erroneous risk assessment

No doubt ABC's complaints unit will ignore this clear failure and sweep it under the sand like it normally does. Will update when I get a reply.

Update 2 20/2/2021 This correction to ABC's misleading headline requested.

Further to my complaint Reference Number C3345-21 please note a factual error that requires correction. The headline reads "Wollumbin National Park summit, formerly known as Mount Warning, could be closed permanently"

The name "Mount Warning" is still current. The feature is dual named. 

refer to NSW Geographic names board:

https://proposals.gnb.nsw.gov.au/public/geonames/caffbc27-34bf-4479-8d09-5266f2709bef

Please amend the headline and article to reflect the name Mt Warning is still in current use. 

From NSW government Gazette 20/2/2006

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES ACT 1966 PURSUANT to the provisions of section 10 of the Geographical Names Act 1966, the Geographical Names Board has this day assigned the names “Mount Warning” and “Wollumbin” as dual names for a mountain situated about 6 km W by N of the town of Uki and approximately 14 km WSW of Murwillumbah which has been previously named and known as “Mount Warning”. Both names will be entered into the Geographical Names Register as dual names and neither name will have precedence over the other. The position and extents for this feature is recorded and shown within the Geographical Names Register of New South Wales. This information can be accessed through the Boards Web Site at www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/geog/. WARWICK WATKINS, Chairperson

UPDATE SBS have also had a go at misinforming the public. I fired off a complaint this afternoon....

I made a press announcement about the release of documents obtained through FOI/GIPA from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service about the closure of the Mt Warning/Wollumbin National Park and its famous summit walk. The documents were posted to my Right to Climb blog. The post may be accessed via this link: http://righttoclimb.blogspot.com/2021/02/foi-bombshell-permanent-ban-on-mt.html
The main findings of the release included:
• A "Final Wollumbin Closure Event" planned for 25 November 2022 and show NPWS have NO intention of re-opening the park to the public before that time. It’s clear the permanent closure has been planned for many years.
• Public information released about the safety issues on the Mountain by National Parks has a critical mistake. The Service have claimed there are "extreme" and "catastrophic" risks on the mountain from landslides and other hazards but the FOI documents show these are in error and these hazards are assigned a "medium" risk in Parks own safety assessment. For the hazards listed the risk is similar to other Grade 4-5 bushwalks in the state that are currently open.
• The medium risk conflicts with a slope stability assessment completed by geotechnical experts in 2018 that found risks to visitors from possible landslides and rockfalls in the park are very low, effectively lower than traveling anywhere by train in Australia.
• Consultations NPWS have had with Aboriginal groups have not included or considered and paid respect to the diverse range of indigenous opinions, about Mt Warning some of which actually encourage climbing. NPWS have an obligation under the National Parks Act to take the views of owners into account. The area of Mt Warning is the traditional area of the Ngarakwal/Nganduwal peoples. - not the Bundjalung who are a merger or various other northern NSW tribal groups. In an interview in 2007 before she died Ngaraakwal elder and Mount Warning custodian Marlene Boyd. Stated "I do not oppose the public climbing of Mt Warning - how can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation!" What a wonderful inspirational message that is! It is such a joyous affirmation of the awe and wonder we all experience when we connect with nature and the natural world, and it is outrageous that her views have been ignored by NPWS.

These points were listed in press release sent to SBS news. 

On 18 FEB 2021 - 10:50AM SBS posted the following story to its website: Wollumbin could permanently close to climbers, documents reveal, by Reporter Shaman Shad

https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2021/02/18/wollumbin-could-permanently-close-climbers-documents-reveal

SBS's report is heavily one sided, unbalanced, lacks a diversity of views, and fails to cover major parts of the story related to NPWS' erroneous safety message and most shamefully censors the views of a deceased Aboriginal woman.

The report fails to mention and effectively censors the views of the Late Marlene Boyd. Marlene was Marlene was a Ngaraakwal elder and Mount Warning custodian. In a 2007 interview quoted in the press release she stated: "I do not oppose the public climbing of Mt Warning - how can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation!" It is to ABC'S great shame that they censored her voice and only provided one viewpoint about Aboriginal perspectives about the Mt Warning summit walk. The reporter would have been well and truly aware of Marlene's views as they were included in the press release 

The report also fails to cover the errors in NPWS' safety classification.

The report fails to correctly mention the source of the documents and fails to accurately acknowledge the "Right To Climb blog".

This is perhaps one of the worst pieces of journalism I have seen and I have been reading and contributing to the press for 40 years. 

The absence of any mention of the views of Marlene Boyd is a total disgrace. I do not know why your reporter has decided to discriminate against the legitimate views of a dead Aboriginal woman. If there was a Walkley for poor reporting she has won it.

To rectify the issue:

• SBS to apologize to the family of Marlene Boyd
• Correct the news story by including Marlene's wonderful message "I do not oppose the public climbing of Mt Warning - how can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation!"
• Accurately report on the errors NPWS have made in classifying hazards in the park. 

Missing News: Solar impact on climate seven times greater than climate models suggested

Wow, Great Story from Graham Lloyd at the Oz about a new paper by an ABC missing voice Henrik Svensmark:

From The OZ: Cosmic rays, solar activity have greater impact on climate models

The impact of changes in solar activity on Earth’s climate was up to seven times greater than climate models suggested according to new research published today in Nature Communications.

Researchers have claimed a breakthrough in understanding how cosmic rays from supernovas react with the sun to form clouds, which impact the climate on Earth.

The findings have been described as the “missing link” to help resolve a decades long controversy that has big implications for climate science.

Lead author, Henrik Svensmark, from The Technical University of Denmark has long held that climate models had greatly underestimated the impact of solar activity.

He says the new research identified the feedback mechanism through which the sun’s impact on climate was varied.

Read the rest at the link above, or at videnskab.dk you won't read this on "our" ABC.

The paper is here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02082-2

Abstract:

Increased ionization supports growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei
H. Svensmark 1, M.B. Enghoff 1, N.J. Shaviv2 & J. Svensmark1,3

Ions produced by cosmic rays have been thought to influence aerosols and clouds. In this study, the effect of ionization on the growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei is investigated theoretically and experimentally. We show that the mass-flux of small ions can constitute an important addition to the growth caused by condensation of neutral molecules. Under present atmospheric conditions the growth rate from ions can constitute several percent of the neutral growth rate. We performed experimental studies which quantify the effect of ions on the growth of aerosols between nucleation and sizes >20 nm and find good agreement with theory. Ion-induced condensation should be of importance not just in Earth’s present day atmosphere for the growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei under pristine marine conditions, but also under elevated atmospheric ionization caused by increased supernova activity.

Missing News: One Planet enough

ABCs catastrophists at it again promoting this piece of eco-activism as news...

Earth Overshoot Day: We used a year's worth of resources in seven months

It would have been worth asking for a counter opinion. Bjorn Lomborg provides this common sense reply:

One Planet Is Enough

For more than a decade, the World Wildlife Fund and other conservation organizations have performed complicated calculations to determine our total “ecological footprint” on the planet. In their narrative, population growth and higher standards of living mean that we are now using 1.7 planets and are depleting resources so quickly that by 2030, we would need two planets to sustain us. If everyone were to suddenly rise to American living standards, we would need almost five planets. The message is unequivocal – WWF tells us we face a looming “ecological credit crunch”, risking “a large-scale ecosystem collapse.”

But this scare is almost completely fallacious. The ecological footprint tries to assess all our usage of area and compare it with how much is available. At heart, this is a useful exercise, and like any measure that tries to aggregate many different aspects of human behavior, it tends to simplify its inputs.

Read the rest at the link.

Missing Curry: Availability Cascades

Judy Curry remains one the few sensible people in academia when it comes to Climate Change. Her latest post explores the notion of Availabiity Cascades and Climate change...


Is climate change making us stupid? I fear that the answer is ‘yes.’ This problem is exacerbated by politically correct climate change orthodoxy, enforced by politicians, advocates and the media in an availability cascade, which is destroying our ability to think rationally about how we should respond to climate change. As a result, we have created a political log-jam over this issue, with scientists caught in the cross-fire.

Missing News, something for the science show

Odd that this book has not prompted an interview with its author. Oh, that's right it doesn't say the world is going to end, so let's just ignore it then.

The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change Paperback – November 1, 2014

by Roger Pielke Jr. (Author)

In recent years the media, politicians, and activists have popularized the notion that climate change has made disasters worse. But what does the science actually say? Roger Pielke, Jr. takes a close look at the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the underlying scientific research, and the data to give you the latest science on disasters and climate change. What he finds may surprise you and raise questions about the role of science in political debates.

Missing News: Curry snubbed again

if the current crop of ABC reporters were around when Einstein published earlier this century they would have ignored it, claiming the science was settled. If they were around in the 1960s plate tectonics would not get a single mention as it went against the established concensus. With this in mind that the ABC have ignored another published article by Judy Curry comes at no surprise.  The title and abstract are below.

Research Letter

Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century†

Sergey Kravtsov1,*,
Marcia G. Wyatt2,
Judith A. Curry3 and
Anastasios A. Tsonis1

DOI: 10.1002 2014GL061416

Abstract

The bulk of our knowledge about causes of 20th century climate change comes from simulations using numerical models. In particular, these models seemingly reproduce the observed nonuniform global warming, with periods of faster warming in 1910–1940 and 1970–2000, and a pause in between. However, closer inspection reveals some differences between the observations and model simulations. Here we show that observed multidecadal variations of surface climate exhibited a coherent global-scale signal characterized by a pair of patterns, one of which evolved in sync with multidecadal swings of the global temperature, and the other in quadrature with them. In contrast, model simulations are dominated by the stationary — single pattern — forced signal somewhat reminiscent of the observed “in-sync” pattern most pronounced in the Pacific. While simulating well the amplitude of the largest-scale — Pacific and hemispheric — multidecadal variability in surface temperature, the model underestimates variability in the North Atlantic and atmospheric indices.

Ignoring sanity

ABC continue to ignore the few sane people involved in the climate science "discussion", in favour of climate ignoramuses like the cast of Monday's Q and A.

Prof. Judy Curry should be high on the list of experts called upon to help inform the public about climate change instead ABC continues to ignore her wise council. You can learn from Judy Curry via her blog.

The recent post "JC at the National Press Club"is a must read! or view

Who am I?

"A democratic society depends on diverse sources of reliable information and contending opinions."
ABC Editorial policy

Pop Quiz: Who am I?

Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at theGeorgia Institute of Technology and President (co-owner) of Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN). I received a Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences  from the University of Chicago in 1982.  Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, I held faculty positions at the University of Colorado, Penn State University and Purdue University. I currently serve on the NASA Advisory Council Earth Science Subcommittee and the DOE Biological and Environmental Science Advisory Committee,  and have recently served on the National Academies Climate Research Committee and the Space Studies Board, and the NOAA Climate Working Group. I am a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union.

Intelligent, top of their field, numerous peer reviewed publications, a world leader, articulate, concise, open, an award winning scientist. Seems someone ABC might want to get an opinion from, yet somehow this person is passed over in favour of lesser mortals.

Their latest testimony to the US Senate now available HERE.

Extract...

• For the past 16 years, there has been no significant increase in surface temperature. There is a growing discrepancy between observations and climate model projections. Observations since 2011 have fallen below the 90% envelope of climate model projections
• The IPCC does not have a convincing or confident explanation for this hiatus in warming.
• There is growing evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations
• Based on expert judgment in light of this evidence, the IPCC 5thassessment report lowered its surface temperature projection relative to the model projections for the period 2016-2036.

The growing evidence that climate models are too sensitive to CO2 has implications for the attribution of late 20th century warming and projections of 21st century climate change. Sensitivity of the climate to carbon dioxide, and the level of uncertainty in its value, is a key input into the economic models that drive cost-benefit analyses, including estimates of the social cost of carbon.

Missing Voices: Roy Spencer

ABC gathers its information from a very  limited number of sources.  Despite a call for diversity in its charter its staff favour those with a similar viewpoint to their own regardless of the subject. On Climate Change for years this has meant the only "experts" ABC call upon for comment and opinion share the same Alarmist views on humanity's influence on the climate as the ABC's staff.

One of the voices the ABC could have have broadcast belongs to Dr Roy Spencer, a climate scientist from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Dr Spencer looks after the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, one of the key instruments monitoring global temperatures. A voice perhaps worth listening to. However a search of ABC's news archive could locate only one interview with Dr Spencer. Perhaps with the climate crisis becoming increasingly "Lukewarm" it's time for another.

Dr Spencer an important voice missing from your ABC.
Here's a link to his blog. http://www.drroyspencer.com

Missing Voices: Garth Paltridge

Garth Paltridge, former chief research scientist with the CSIRO division of atmospheric research in the Fin Review. Doubt we shall see this re-posted on ABC's The Drum.

Science held hostage in climate debate

The broad theory of man-made global warming is acceptable in the purely qualitative sense. If humans continue to fill the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, there can be little doubt that the average temperature of the world will increase above what it would have been otherwise. The argument about the science is, and always has been, whether the increase would be big enough to be noticed among all the other natural variations of climate. The economic and social argument is whether the increase, even if it were noticeable, would change the overall welfare of mankind for the worse.

Missing Voices: Judy Curry

ABC are yet to invite climate scientist Judy Curry onto The Science show or elsewhere.
Professor Curry is the Chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology. She writes at Climate Etc. Here is an extract from her post on the deceptive behaviour of activist scientist Peter Gleick:

Gleick’s ‘integrity’

The Artless Climate Wars

If Gleick et al. view this whole endeavour as fighting a war, they would be well advised to read Sun Tsu’s Art of War; see also my previous discussion of theArtless Climate Wars:

Apart from the “why” of the climate wars, the “how” needs to be looked at also.  It seems that those fighting to defend the IPCC consensus never read the Art of War.  Translated to the climate war, Sun Tzu’s principles might look something like this:

• Outsmart your opponent so that battles aren’t necessary
• Pick your battles carefully.
• In the course of your battle, don’t lose the moral high ground.
• Divide and conquer; don’t give your enemy cause to rally together and combine forces
• Overconfidence can be fatal to your strategy
• If the campaign is prolonged, the resources will not be equal to the strain
• If you know your enemy, you can win battles without a single loss

Gleick’s strategy has failed on all counts.  I don’t think this is from the Art of War, but I read it somewhere and it seems apt:  When fighting a war, don’t waste a bullet on yourself (ouch).

The end result of Gleick’s actions are to cede the high ground to Heartland, especially in light of the fact that Heartland had invited Gleick to a debate shortly before the theft of the documents occurred.

Missing Voices: Roger Pielke Snr

Roger Pielke Snr's work on climate change science has not been reported by the ABC. We have requested The Science Show interview Roger for some time to no avail. He continues to be among the missing voices Australians would benefit listening to.

Excerpts from his biography:
Professor Roger Pielke Snr:  
Senior Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado in Boulder; Professor Emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins. He is currently a Senior Research Scientist in CIRES and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC) at the University of Colorado in Boulder (November 2005 -present). He is also an Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and has a five-year appointment (April 2007 - March 2012) on the Graduate Faculty of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Dr. Pielke has published over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 50 chapters in books, co-edited 9 books, and made over 700 presentations during his career to date. A listing of papers can be viewed at the project website: http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/pielke/pubs/. He also launched a science weblog in 2005 to discuss weather and climate issues. This weblog was named one of the 50 most popular Science blogs by Nature Magazine on July 5, 2006 and is located athttp://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/.

His most recent post at his blog is as follows:
The Misuse Of The Scientific Method – A Nature Geoscienes Article “Changes In Hail And Flood Risk In High-Resolution Simulations Over Colorado’s Mountains” By Mahoney Et Al 2012

Recently, there were two articles in Nature Geosciences which concluded, based on multi-decadal climate model predictions, that there would not be hail in Colorado by the end of the current century. This study illustrates the misuse of the scientific method where a top-down multi-decadal climate prediction, which has shown no skill at predicting changes in hail statistics in hindcasts, is used to make forecasts decades from now.

Yet Nature Climate Change elected to publish such an untested paper. This research is another example of the epidemic of papers that purport to to be science but are actually just exercises with the models. Nature Climate Change, instead of presenting sound scientific research, apparently publishes anything that promotes their particular agenda in climate science.

The authors (and Nature Climate Change] ignore the fundamental limitations on this top-down, regional downscaled approach that we summarize in our article

Pielke Sr., R.A., and R.L. Wilby, 2011: Regional climate downscaling – what’s the point? EOS. January 31 2012 pages 52-53

The Mahoney et al Nature – Cliamte Change study is yet another example of the waste of money that I have discussed, for example, in my post

Read the rest at Roger's blog, and if you'd like to hear him on the ABC, send in a suggestion via the ABC website.

Missing Voices: Demetris Koutsoyiannis

Tony Jones, presenter of the ABC's Lateline and Q and A current affairs programs, claims to have interviewed all the main scientists sceptical of the IPCC consensus. It appears he has not spoken with Demetris Koutsoyiannis, Professor in Hydrology and Analysis of Hydrosystems, and Head of the Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens. Winner of the prestigious Henry Darcy Medal for 2009. For some reason ABC News, ABC Online and the Science Show have steadfastly refused to cover the research of Professor Koutsoyiannis. Another clear example of the devastating influence that ABC's Groupthink culture is having on the ABC's credibility.
Can we please see ABC interview Professor Koutsoyiannis, whose output is prolific and includes the following peer reviewed papers:

D. KOUTSOYIANNIS, A. EFSTRATIADIS, N. MAMASSIS & A. CHRISTOFIDES “On the credibility of climate predictions” Hydrological Sciences–Journal–des Sciences Hydrologiques, 53 (2008).

Abstract “Geographically distributed predictions of future climate, obtained through climate models, are widely used in hydrology and many other disciplines, typically without assessing their reliability. Here we compare the output of various models to temperature and precipitation observations from eight stations with long (over 100 years) records from around the globe. The results show that models perform poorly, even at a climatic (30-year) scale. Thus local model projections cannot be credible, whereas a common argument that models can perform better at larger spatial scales is unsupported.”

“In essence, they found that climate models have no predictive value.”
A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data
G. G. Anagnostopoulos; D. Koutsoyiannis; A. Christofides; A. Efstratiadis; N. Mamassis 
 Hydrological Sciences Journal, 2150-3435, Volume 55, Issue 7, 2010, Pages 1094 – 1110
Abstract
We compare the output of various climate models to temperature and precipitation observations at 55 points around the globe. We also spatially aggregate model output and observations over the contiguous USA using data from 70 stations, and we perform comparison at several temporal scales, including a climatic (30-year) scale. Besides confirming the findings of a previous assessment study that model projections at point scale are poor, results show that the spatially integrated projections are also poor. 

On the website of another voice missing from the ABC, Roger Pielke Snr, Prof. Koutsoyiannis wrote the following.
“A common argument in favour of the political orientation of the IPCC is that its aims are good for humanity and the natural environment and that reducing emissions of greenhouse gases will be beneficial for the planet, regardless of the ultimate validity of the IPCC model predictions. However, we believe that science is a process for the pursuit of truth and that fidelity to this system should not be affected by other aims. History shows that such distractions can be detrimental to science.” 
Why wouldn't this view be of interest to ABC's audience? 

a lack of diversity in the views presented

"Suitable balancing content in other recent editions of Four Corners was not found."
"there was a lack of diversity in the views presented"

From ABC Upheld complaints: Four Corners, 23 August 2010
Summary published: Friday 29, October 2010
Complaint: Four viewers* raised concerns about a Four Corners program ‘Overdose’ which looked at events leading up the global financial crisis. Concerns included that the program was a one-sided propaganda piece.
Finding: Upheld against 5.2.2 (e) and 5.2.2 (d) ABC Editorial Policies (revised 1 March 2009)
Audience and Consumer Affairs response: ‘Overdose’ was produced by an external company and was acquired for broadcast in the regular Four Corners timeslot in order to augment the program’s previous coverage of the global financial crisis. Much of that coverage had addressed the risky activities of private sector companies which had in turn prompted government intervention, whereas this program examined and was critical of government fiscal and monetary policies. Nonetheless, the ABC acknowledged that ‘Overdose’ reflected the established perspective of the author on whose book it was based; that while the program did include interviews with some relevant and appropriately qualified individuals, there was a lack of diversity in the views presented; and that the tone and style of the presentation was not consistent with expectations of objective journalism. Suitable balancing content in other recent editions of Four Corners was not found. Accordingly, the program did not meet the high standards of impartiality and balance which are required of ABC news and current affairs content.

(*-not us)

Missing Voices: Pielke Snr on Climate Models

Roger Pielke Snr considers the performance of climate models in this post titled "When is a model a good model" unlikely to feature on the ABC.
"The obvious answer to the questions posed regarding a “good model” in the Hawking and Mlodinow 2010 book is that the models used in the 2007 IPCC report are not “good models” as they fail all four of the requirements."

Missing Voices: IPCC more like a weblog than an academic report

Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph, has an interesting article in a Canadian newspaper that would interest ABC's audience. Titled "Fix the IPCC process" it outlines problems with the IPCC review process. We wonder if ABC's opinion site "The Drum" will be posting a copy?

Here's an extract:

"The IPCC “peer review” process is not like the one academic journals use, in which reviewers actually have the authority to recommend rejection and require changes; instead it is more like a limited, voluntary public comment process. Since the IPCC gives Lead Authors the sole right to determine content and accept or dismiss comments, it is more like a weblog than an academic report."

Read more: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/08/27/fix-the-ipcc-process/#ixzz0y1qEL7sN


Update: ABC cover the release of the IAC report, the subject of McKitrick's comments, HERE

Missing voices

Some voices missing from our ABC.
First Prof. Bob Carter discusses the perils faced by scientists who prefer evidence over authority.
The phenomena of disinvitation and the brotherhood of silence
Scientists who venture to make independent statements in public about environmental myths soon come to learn about two post-modern-science tactics used to suppress their views – namely, disinvitation and the application of a brotherhood of silence. How these tactics work is explained in this article. Read it at Quadrant.


Second, Anthony Cox and David Stockwell take ABC's The Drum to task on the issue of Balance (Something Prof Carter and yours truly are familiar with). 
Suing the skeptics
In her ABC Unleashed article Kellie Tranter recommends litigation under the Trade Practices Act (TPA) and its state equivalents against sceptics. This is a novel suggestion. Generally litigation under Part V of the TPA requires two things: firstly the creation of a perception of expertise, and secondly, the use of that perception of expertise to promote a product which people rely on to their detriment because it is defective. The novelty here is that it is the believers in anthropogenic global warming (AGW) who are promoting the product not the sceptics. And it is the general public who are being forced through their power bills and the cascade throughout the economy of the cost of the AGW ‘measures’ to rely on the product of AGW to their detriment.
Read the rest at JoNova, I doubt it will be on the ABC.


Update: Jo Nova unleashes the evidence against Tranter's woeful Unleashed piece:

This article is an good example of how taxpayer’s dollars are not just wasted, but are actively used against the taxpayer. Tranter should be free, of course, to sell her articles and convince the masses, but things that are so easily proven wrong, so unresearched, unreferenced, and unsubstantiated are the communication pollution that makes the country poorer.

That the ABC did not even allow or invite a rebuttal questions their partiality. That they thought this piece was worth stamping the ABC logo on in the first place, is a mark of how low standards of logic, reason and analysis have become. This is not robust community debate, it’s putting the uninformed on national soapboxes. Read the rest at ...Got baseless smears and innuendo? Perfect for the ABC.