George Brandis Says Climate Science Not Settled, But CSIRO Should Act As If It Is

The Guardian - Gareth Hutchens

Attorney general attacks 'illogic' of Labor's opposition to cuts and says taxpayers' money would be better spent elsewhere

George Brandis says Labor senators who think the science of climate change is settled should support the cuts to the CSIRO, not oppose them. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

The attorney general, George Brandis, has mounted a bizarre defence of the Turnbull government's funding cuts to the CSIRO, saying there is no need to keep funding climate science if the science of climate change is settled – but adding that he personally doesn't believe it is settled.
Brandis said the science body's decision to cut funding for its scientists, who have produced vital climate science research – in response to the former Abbott government's cuts to the CSIRO in 2014 – is what it ought to do if it believes climate change is real.
He said Labor senators who think the science of climate change is settled should support the cuts, not oppose them.
"If the science is settled, why do we need research scientists to continue inquiring into the settled science?" Brandis said on Tuesday.
"Wouldn't it be a much more useful allocation of taxpayers' money and research capacity within CSIRO to allocate its resources to an area where the science isn't settled?"
The attorney general's argument is similar to that used by the CSIRO chief executive, Larry Marshall, who said in an email to staff in February that further work on climate change would be reduced because climate change had been established.
The CSIRO is currently cutting hundreds of jobs in its oceans and atmosphere division, and its land and water division, according to according to reports.
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and Marshall have been heavily criticised by global climate scientists for allowing those cuts to go ahead.
Brandis – who spent more than $15,000 of taxpayer's money to build a new bookshelf in his parliament house office in 2014 – said he did not believe that the science of climate change was settled but he knew how to follow a logical argument.
He said it would be a better use of taxpayers' money to divert climate science funding elsewhere.
"It doesn't seem to me that the science is settled at all but I'm not a scientist," he said. "I'm agnostic, really, on that question. But I can follow a logical argument.
"I am simply challenging the illogic of the proposition being advanced by the Labor party who say, on the one hand, that the science is settled but, on the other hand, say it is a disgraceful thing that we should make adjustments to our premier public sector scientific research agency that would reflect the fact that the science is settled."
The CSIRO has had budget cuts from successive governments, including $110m in the Abbott government's first budget in 2014.
Late last year, the heads of its divisions were told to find millions in savings to support its funding shortfall.

Links

• CSIRO chief executive 'evasive' before Senate committee, say Greens
• Why Malcolm Turnbull should reverse the destructive, clumsy and dumb CSIRO cuts
• CSIRO cuts were about taking focus off 'public-good research', emails show
• CSIRO's use of private email looks 'dubious', says Senate clerk
• Joe Hockey on CSIRO cuts: former treasurer's letter to the New York Times dissected
• CSIRO climate cuts 'a catastrophic failure of public policy', Senate told
• CSIRO chief says row over climate science cuts 'more like religion than science'
• Australia's chief scientist says he was not warned about CSIRO climate cuts
• CSIRO climate cuts attack a national treasure when we need it most

The Great Barrier Reef: 93% Hit By Coral Bleaching, Surveys Reveal

Fairfax - Tom Arup

Although bleaching of the reef has occurred before, this event is by far the biggest.

A diver checks out the bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: XL Catlin Seaview Survey

Scientists surveying the mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef say only 7 per cent of Australia's environmental icon has been left untouched by the event.
The final results of plane and helicopter surveys by scientists involved in the National Coral Bleaching Taskforce has found that of the 911 reefs they observed, just 68 had escaped any sign of bleaching.
The severity of the bleaching is mixed across the barrier reef, with the northern stretches hit the hardest.
Overall, severe bleaching of between 60 and 100 per cent of coral was recorded on 316 reefs, almost all of them in the northern half of the barrier reef. Reefs in central and southern regions of the 2300 kilometre Great Barrier Reef have experienced more moderate to mild affects.
The mass bleaching event has been driven by significantly higher than average sea temperatures as a result of the current El Nino event, coupled with a long-term warming of the oceans due to climate change.
While the barrier reef has experienced mass coral bleaching events in the past – notably in 1998 and 2002 – Professor Terry Hughes, convenor of the bleaching taskforce, said the current event was by far the biggest.

"We've never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before. In the northern Great Barrier Reef, it's like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once," Professor Hughes said.
"Towards the southern end, most of the reefs have minor to moderate bleaching and should soon recover."
Professor Hughes said the aerial work had been backed up by in-water surveys, which are still under way, of about 150 to 200 reefs.
The presence of bleaching does not necessarily mean that coral will die, as they can recover when waters return to cooler temperatures.
Just how much of the bleached coral across the barrier reef will ultimately die off will take months to be known. Once dead it can take a decade or more for many species of coral to return.

Coral bleaching around Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Eddie Jim.

Professor Andrew Baird, from the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said north of Port Douglas, "we're already measuring close to 50 per cent mortality of bleached corals".
"At some reefs, the final toll is likely to exceed 90 per cent."
But in the southern regions corals have largely escaped damaging levels of bleaching due to cooler sea temperatures, Professor Hughes said, and it is expected most will survive and regain their normal colour in coming months.
The damage on the barrier reef is part of a global mass bleaching event that has hit corals hard in many places including Hawai, Fiji and New Caledonia. It is only the third global event in recorded history, with the other two occurring in 1998 and 2010.
It is not just the Great Barrier Reef being hit in Australia. Coral bleaching is now also rolling out across western reefs.
Dr Verena Schoepf​, from the University of Western Australia, said the coastal area she was studying north of Broome was seeing up to 80 per cent of corals turning "snow white".
Coral bleaching has also been triggered as far south as Sydney Harbour, the first time in recorded history that has occurred.
Scientists and the conservation movement say the bleaching is stark evidence of the impact climate change is having on the Great Barrier Reef, which attracts approximately $5 billion in tourism each year.
Environment groups in particular have sought to link the bleaching event to the recent mining approvals by the Queensland government for the proposed Carmichael coal mine, which would be Australia's largest, saying the eventual burning of the mined coal would cause further damage to the barrier reef through its contribution to global warming.
In the taskforce's statement on its final survey results, released on Wednesday, the head of the Queensland Tourism Industry Council, Daniel Gschwind​, was also quoted as saying: "thankfully, many parts of the reef are still in excellent shape, but we can't just ignore coral bleaching and hope for a swift recovery."
"Short-term development policies have to be weighed up against long-term environmental damage, including impacts on the reef from climate change," he added.

Links

• Is this the end of the Great Barrier Reef?
• First coral bleaching in Sydney Harbour
• Sydney's corals now bleaching in 'pretty shocking' sign of warming waters
• Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching 'concerning' govt, week after mine approval
• Air pollution increases 69 per cent as coal named top polluter