Posted by Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has come out as a global warming denier in a speech to the ABC.
Michael Ashley replies here:
Scientists are fairly measured in their public statements. Years of training instils a care with words, and avoidance of value judgements. Well, sod that, I’m angry.
What has me fuming is your speech last week to ABC staff in which you accuse your senior journalists of “group-think” in favouring the scientific consensus on climate change. You refer to “a growing number of distinguished scientists [that are] challenging the conventional wisdom with alternative theories and peer reviewed research” and you claim that these poor folk are being suppressed in the mainstream media.
Who are these distinguished scientists? I don’t know of a single credible climate scientist who doubts human-induced climate change.
In his speech Newman claims:
Climate change is a further example of group-think where contrary views have not been tolerated, and where those who express them have been labelled and mocked. … This collective censorious approach succeeded in suppressing contrary views in the mainstream media, despite the fact that a growing number of distinguished scientists were challenging the conventional wisdom with alternative theories and peer reviewed research.
In fact, the mainstream media amplifies contrary views. Look at the massive coverage Ian Plimer gets. If you’re wondering how Newman could pretend that Plimer has been silenced despite massive media coverage, well, that’s how group-think works. And compare the media coverage (including the ABC) of Monckton’s visit to Australia with that of Hansen’s visit.
A contributing factor for the review was the revelation that the CRU emails were known to Paul Hudson, the BBC climate correspondent one month before the story broke – but not reported at the time.
That’s completely false. Since there was no basis to the story, the only mainstream media it appeared in was the Daily Mail and the (London) Daily Telegraph. Newman most likely got from a blog and like the bloggers he got it from, he never bothered to check if it was accurate. That’s group-think.
Newman continues:
More significantly, we see too how media have failed us by not being rigorous and questioning enough, resulting in many misrepresentations taking too long to be discovered.
Like Newman’s misrepresentation.
Then came the sensational revelations of unprofessional conduct by some of the world’s most influential climatologists exposed by the hacked or leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Institute. This was followed by more evidence of dubious research and politicised advocacy contained in scientifically unsupported claims and errors in the IPCC 4th Assessment, including in the carefully vetted Synthesis Report. Questionable methods of analysis resulting in spurious temperature data have added further doubts on the underlying credibility of the science.
The lack of moral and scientific integrity shown by the IPCC serves only to reduce clarity and increase confusion, disappoint believers and give fuel to doubters.
It is Maurice Newman who lacks integrity for smearing scientists using Anthony Watts’ bogus analysis.
In defending the indefensible, Mr Gore, university vice-chancellors and those in the media, do a disservice to the scientific method and miss the point that no matter how noble your work, your first responsibility must always be to the truth.
If Newman cares about the truth he will retract his indefensible and false claims.
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