A short response to Robert Manne's A Dark Victory

There are many non-scientific reasons for supporting a platform that carbon dioxide is causing global warming, which is urgently requiring an international solution. Perhaps the most important that I can identify is the geopolitical one. The USA in particular, is concerned about the fact that most economic oil and natural gas reserves are in the Middle East or Russia. The USA has a strategic reason for reducing dependency on this energy. Australia on the other hand as a net energy and aluminium exporter, has a different self- interest.

In our time, science is big business. Scientific funding in Western countries is awarded on the basis of feasibility, a researcher's track record and a project's significance. Significance is judged on the importance of the science and also sociopolitical imperatives. It would be impolitic for me to give specific examples, however, why wouldn't a hypothetical Australian 'flagship' program tout dubious values when there is leveraged government and industry funding specifically tailored for this 'flagship' program, or why would a Professor of anAGW climate program destabilise funding for his or her department by interpreting and then reporting data that suggested that the earth's climate was not influenced particularly by man-made carbon dioxide emissions? Aberrations in scientific funding influence research directions for many years and even generations.

The situation is further aggravated because big business and government often align their interests. Oil and gas companies are major solar and wind energy producers. (Just google to see who produces wind generators or solar panels). These companies win every which way because they profit from oil, they profit from government subsidies for 'renewable energy' wind and solar power sources, and they get brownie points for embracing a sustainable mission statement in synch with the politically fashionable ethos.

Finally back to the manifestly absurd assertion promulgated by Oreskes, and all who quote her like Manne or Gore, that 98% of climate scientists agree. Here is a list of some prominent persons who do not get an airing on our ABC's Science Show but who are either sceptical or who believe that the AGW – carbon dioxide story is poppycock.

Lets work together to reduce the negative impacts of humans on planet earth by employing policies which encourage reduced energy consumption, and a smaller and more sensitive footprint. Lets not mandate economic vandalism. Lets not follow contentious policies for the sake of doing something, anything.

Figure and legend from the NOAA USA government website: Top panel: change in surface temperature; Middle panel: levels of CO₂ ppm; and Lower panel: change in ocean heat energy. Measurements to April 2012. The freely available graphs show a levelling off of surface tenperature and ocean heat since 2000 while atmospheric CO₂ keeps rising.