Back in 2006 it was revealed that scientists at the CSIRO had been forbidden from commenting on some impacts of climate change:
JANINE COHEN: Kevin Hennessy is the coordinator of the CSIRO's Climate Impact Group. One of his jobs is to talk about the potential impacts of climate change. But there are some likely impacts of climate change that are clearly a no-go zone. Some scientists believe that there'll be more environmental refugees. Is that a possibility?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: I can't really comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Why can't you comment on that?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: That's, that's, er... No, I can't comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Is that part of editorial policy? You can't comment on things that affect immigration?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: No, I can't comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Can I just ask you why you can't comment?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: Not on camera.
JANINE COHEN: Oh, OK. But is it a policy thing?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: I can't comment on that.
When Labor won government in 2007 they promised to improve things and introduced a CSIRO charter
it is essential that those who have expertise in the areas under debate are able to communicate new ideas and to infuse public debate with the best research and new knowledge. ... The engagement of CSIRO and its researchers with the community is a key component of an informed innovation system. ... The Government agrees not to interfere improperly in the business of conducting research or in the scholarly process and to respect the independence and integrity of CSIRO in communicating the outputs of its research activities and in managing its legal obligations, including to third parties.
That's certainly an improvement on previous policy, but this part concerned some people:
Governments are elected with the responsibility to govern. With this goes the responsibility for the articulation, formulation and implementation of policies that address the issues and challenges that Australia faces. In deciding how to best meet these challenges, governments must continually make choices between competing policy options.
In this context, a responsibility of CSIRO and its researchers is to inform the policy making process. They can do this by conducting the highest quality research and providing the best available knowledge and analysis to government and the public, and by engaging in the public discussion and consideration of their research and findings. They should not be asked by Government to defend or debate the merits of Government policy. As CSIRO employees, they should not advocate, defend or publicly debate the merits of government or opposition policies (including policies of previous Commonwealth governments, or State or local or foreign governments).
I think the intent is the CSIRO's role with respect to policy should be similar to that of the IPCC -- to inform policy, but not to advocate for any particular policy. But now this policy has been used to at least delay publication of research on policy. Clive Spash wrote a paper arguing that emissions trading was not the most efficient way to reduce emissions. His paper was accepted by New Political Economy, but then:
"After the article had been accepted for publication and I had informed the acting chief of the division, two weeks later he informed me that the article could not be published," he said.
Dr Spash offered to publish the paper under his own name, disclaiming his CSIRO affiliation but later he was told that was not an option.
Nature reports:
Science minister Kim Carr told Nature that he did not think this was a case of censorship, and that the government welcomed public debate on emissions trading schemes.
"We are not the slightest bit concerned about people publishing different views to the government," he said. "At no point have I seen this paper, at no point has the Government said we don't want it published. We've indicated on many occasions that this research will be published."
Morgan confirmed that Megan Clark, CSIRO chief executive, planned to work with Spash and his managers to get the data published. ...
[CSIRO staff association secretary] Popovski told Nature that Spash had sent the paper to the journal knowing that it had not been approved, after becoming frustrated with the slowness of the internal processes and discussions over the wording of the paper.
The problem seems to have been more to do with management styles and conservative interpretation of the rules, rather than political pressure, says Popovski. "I think they have taken an overly risk-averse stance on this."
I think that Spash did the right thing in making this matter public and I hope that CSIRO management will understand that the charter shouldn't be used to stop publication of research like Spash's.
One good thing about this affair is that The Australian has come out with a editorial opposing the censorship of scientists. Only a cynic would suggest that the reson why they didn't do this three years ago was because the government was different then.
See also: comments from Joshua Gans, Brian Bahnisch and Roger Jones:
The interpretation of comment policy is one of the reasons I no longer work for CSIRO. When doing research on policy there is a risk that a conclusion about a type of policy can turn into sensitivity about a particular policy. I have seen this happen a number of times. That is where I think the dividing line should lie. Having not seen Spash's paper, I could not comment on where he sits regarding that.
OTOH, he should have put it through internal review before submitting it. It sounds like it was submitted, withdrawn, then reviewed, then blocked according to an interpretation of the comments policy. Of course, this may have happened if events had proceeded according to guidelines.
The comments policy does not have a transparent and independent appeal mechanism. It's done case by case. I think it should have a formal mechanism, where the reasons for refusal of research output is placed in the public domain.
Update: The CSIRO has agreed to let Spash publish the paper.
Good post, Tim. We can all agree that CSIRO should follow the Charter.
"As CSIRO employees, they should not advocate, defend or publicly debate the merits of government or opposition policies (including policies of previous Commonwealth governments, or State or local or foreign governments)."
And what is left? Anonymous blogging?
jyyh:
> And what is left? Anonymous blogging?
He-said-she-said journalism, of course! As the maxim goes, "We report, you decide!"
If Spash had included in his paper the opinions of a bunch of emissions trading zealots, or -- even better yet -- a bunch of wingnuts, then the paper would probably have passed muster!
Remember, the duty of researchers is to inform, not to advocate!
I happened to meet a senior person from the Bureau of Meteorology a couple of weeks ago. He told me that most Bureau staff are forbidden from commenting on global warming.
In the UK, we've had a related problem, regarding the Government's drug policy and categorisation of illegal drugs according to risk. Different categories have different penalties for possession etc. Government drug policy is supposed to be science-driven. However in reality, it's the complete reverse with policy decision first, science afterwards. Much like the Red Queen in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
We do live in a topsy-turvy world! It's very like Ian Plimer's science!
Oops!
My post may not have been as clear as I'd hoped for non-UK residents.
I omitted to mention that Professor Nutt the UK's Government advisor on drugs was sacked for criticising Government drug policy, because although it was supposed to be science-based but the science didn't support the policy. Government policy had already been decided before the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was due to recommend downgrading cannabis.
And
"It's very like Ian Plimer's science!" should have read
"It's very like Ian Plimer's alleged science!"
I hope that clears any confusion. Sorry for second OT post.
The trick is that the government only has to assert that its policy is based on science for the prohibition on debating government policy to cut in. Neat.
I'm glad you cleared up that confusion, ScaredAmoeba. You have to be very careful using Plimer and science in the same sentence.
The quote from me above was written after the first notice of this news and turned out not to be totally accurate - Spash says above that he sent it off after internals took too long. I have since read more detailed explanations from Spash and think his version merits a lot of support. CSIRO is being very risk averse. One of the problems is that any such paper that doesn't seem to line up totally will an exising policy will be translated into lurid headlines - CSIRO scientist/economist slams ...
And Spash's was turned into such headlines. Without people reading it. A mature organisation should be able to take this into its stride and communicate the research - which on trading/tax/hybrids contains a number of competing views.
As far as I see it, with CSIRO and the research publications, the two tests that the article must pass are:
1) It meets the CSIRO charter;
2) In meeting the CSIRO charter, the intellectual and scientific research integrity has not been compromised.
The CSIRO process of external publication of research involves probably involves checking that some conditions like 1 and 2 are met. Item 1 is fairly easy to check, while item 2 presumably involves both the author and the internal review staff for the article, with some discussion.
If as a researcher you cannot find how to meet 1 and 2, or whatever it is that CSIRO has as its criteria, for a particular article, then it is that researcher's responsibility to bring that to the attention of their manager, as far as I can see.
Like most processes involving bureaucratic activity, the movement of the article through the system might be painfully slow on busy occasions, taking literally months.
NOTE: I am not suggesting that the above is how the CSIRO process works, or that 1) and 2) are sufficient. Not having ever published any research through the CSIRO publication process, I can only go on their public documents on their website.
Meh. A fine distinction, but an important one.
"Will Micronesia get inundated?"
A scientific question about sea levels. Answer: yes.
"Will there be refugees?"
A question about international law, what nations and individuals might choose to do, etc etc. Not a scientific question. No comment.
Over the past thousand years 'there have been several changes in sea levels of up to twp metres,' according to Dr Robert Baker of the University of New England.
He went on to say that each of these large changes took less than 40 years from beginning to end.
This all happened in recorded history, so I assume adaptation must work.
He may be right right, wrong, or indifferent, el gordo ... but were those his exact words ?
http://www.une.edu.au/bcss/geoplan/palaeo-group/enviro-change/
Check that first dot point mate.
I assumed Jim Scanlan was paraphrasing Baker's words, but he may have got it wrong.
http://www.une.edu.au/news/archives/000327.html
http://www.une.edu.au/news/archives/000327.html :
Yeah that's such an urgent message. El gordo's a real live-wire with the latest.
For crikey sake its peer reviewed, this takes time. You're a hard lot to please.
But you would have to agree it was a lovely story about the tube worms?
There seem to be a lot of things getting missed here.
Reportedly (I read it in the Australian so it must be true!) Spash originally had a co-author who took his name off in response to pressure and doesn't seem to have been re-instated.
There seems to have been a change in policy to remove the scope for CSIRO scientists commenting in a private capacity, e.g. Raupach and colleagues putting in a submission to a senate ETS inquiry this year (which may well have been what triggered the policy change). Spash may have got his paper published because the policy change happened in the middle of the process (and CSIRO decided that approval was a better option than a "personal" publication). However, it would seem that it is going to be a lot harder for anyone else from now on.
The distinctions above in post 10, (sea-level vs refugees) are fine for most scientists in negotiating the charter, but Spash is an economist and presumably was employed as such. CSIRO got into "socio-economic integration" ( a recommendation of the academy of science circa 2001) to ensure "relevance" of CSIRO science. It is really hard to see how that sort of activity could avoid falling foul of the charter pretty often.