On Wednesday The Australian reprinted from the Wall Street Journal the now infamous Open Letter  “No Need to Panic About Global Warming”, prompting me to write the following  letter, but although the Oz has published several of my submissions in the last couple of years, this time they declined.  Perhaps they didn’t appreciate my criticism of their violating their own code of ethics in a piece last year involving Professor Tim Flannery.  

Just so Indooroopilly voters have no doubt where I stand on the issue, here is the text of my letter:

The signatories of the Open Letter “Climate change ‘heretics’ rebuff carbon dangers”  (February 1)  opens with the statement that “a candidate for public office … may have to consider what, if anything, to do about ‘global warming’”.  As a candidate for Queensland’s Parliament, I wholeheartedly embrace that challenge. 

I have amongst other things, coached a State finalist debating team, and taught university research methods and statistics courses.  If the signatories of this letter submitted their piece as an assignment in a rhetoric class, I would award them an “A”, but as a balanced view of the scientific literature, it receives an outright fail.  Their letter is replete with statements that are misleading (IPCC forecasts have actually been much more accurate than those of co-signatory Richard Lindzen), irrelevant (CO2 being an colourless and odourless gas has nothing to do with its effects on atmospheric processes), and shameless, disowned  misrepresentations (Richard Norhaus: “The piece completely misrepresented my work”).  This is compounded with grossly disingenuous cherry-picking (“lack of global warming for well over ten years now” set against relentless decadal increase for 60 years with the most recent decade the warmest of all). 

The public can be forgiven for some confusion about the facts – a situation not helped by The Australian giving so many column inches to the scientific minority – but candidates for office have no excuse for ignorance. Blithely dismissing serious potential  threats simply because they will outlast the election cycle and are complicated may suit these co-signatories (recipients of fossil-fuel industry funding amongst them), but this candidate makes it clear that he considers global warming to be a significant potential threat, that it will only be worsened by doubling Queensland coal exports and adding on coal seam gas, as supported by the ALP and LNP, and that the responsible economic, energy and environmental future for our State is to actively and constructively wean ourselves from fossil fuel dependence and the many economic distortions it creates.

At least The Australian has allowed the admirable Mike Stetekee to set the record straight (behind paywall) in today’s edition, thus preserving a tiny semblance of balance on this crucial issue.