Really, they have only themselves to blame for the CSIRO’s mass axing of global warming careerists. If only the high priests of the movement had been more persuasive in casting random weather events as specific symptoms of our planet’s death agonies, the gravy train might not have been derailed
Shrinking the CSIRO’s multi-million dollar climate cookie jar in the Year of the Monkey was bound to cause a rumble in the jungle and shrieks of alarm. But the primal screams of self-preservation from near and far were a surprise. Allowing that one has no objection to rubbing salt into wounds, here’s a tweet it would be satisfying to send to those smart folk who swear they can “re-engineer global simulations to make predictions down to catchment and paddock scales”. The message: Don’t be surprised when, one day, a lot more of you are put out to grass.
Hell, however warm, hath no fury like an atmospheric astrologer scorned, as CEO Dr Larry Marshall discovered when he revealed new plans for the agency last week (ABC 7.30 report video here).
In a letter to staff, Marshall noted that
CSIRO pioneered climate research … But we cannot rest on our laurels as that is the path to mediocrity. Our climate models are among the best in the world and our measurements honed those models to prove global climate change. That question has been answered, and the new question is what do we do about it, and how can we find solutions for the climate we will be living with?
How, indeed? Just as the ‘underpinning science’ had been overcooked, so was the reaction. The purveyors of ‘settled science’ would have none of it. (See Joanne Nova here.) Professor Matthew England, Deputy Director at the University of NSW’s Climate Change Research Centre, described the letter as ‘jaw-droppingly shocking’. “There seems to be no appreciation of how much this science underpins our nation’s interests,” he said.