Researching Climate Change in an Era of Political Denial
Posted on November 15, 2013
That the social debate around climate change is a ‘
culture war’ should come as no surprise to anyone observing current political debate in Australia, the US, UK and Canada. In contrast to much of the rest of the world where climate science is rarely debated, in the
Anglo-Saxon world the culture war around climate change rages on with increasing vehemence.
In Australia, the election of the conservative Abbott Government has been marked by a targeted hostility to all things climate change. This has included the introduction of
legislation to repeal carbon pricing; the
disbanding of the Climate Commission;
cuts to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), Maurice Newman (the PM’s business advisor) publicly stating that
climate change is a ‘myth’, former Prime Minister and Abbott mentor John Howard
expressing his ‘agnosticism’ about climate change; the list goes on and on.
This focus on climate change has also extended to research funding. For instance in the lead-up to the election, Liberal MP Jamie Briggs claimed the discovery of
widespread ‘waste’ in Australian Research Council (ARC) grant funding of ‘increasingly ridiculous research grants’, with a special focus on funding for projects in the humanities and social sciences especially those that mentioned ‘climate change’. This message was amplified by the
Murdoch press and climate denial bloggers such as
Jo Nova. More recently, Government cuts to CSIRO funding
have been reported as resulting in major reductions in staffing at Australia’s premier scientific research establishment.
And on Thursday we were treated to another signal of the new Government’s attitude to climate change research. As reported in Hansard, Queensland Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald stated that he believed
far too many research grants were being awarded by the ARC to studies of climate change, a situation he thought was ‘appalling’ (pp.88-9). Based on no empirical evidence, Senator Macdonald claimed:
Quote:‘unless you indicated in your application for a research grant that you were doing something with climate change then you were unlikely to get a grant, with the result that if you applied for pure and applied research in areas that did not relate to climate change you were, as I say, unlikely to receive funding.’
So the Senator’s message seems to imply that ARC grant funding on climate change in the past has been guided by some ideological fashion dictated by the previous Labor Government. There is no evidence that I know of that supports this contention and I would think the ARC would be vehement in arguing their independence in deciding the merit of individual grant applications.
However, the tenor of the Senator’s speech is more alarming in suggesting that future funding of scientific and academic research should be less focused on climate change. Given that climate change (and associated issues such as ocean acidification) is probably the most pressing environmental, economic and social issue confronting our nation, this would appear an amazing position for a national government to adopt.
In discussing this issue with colleagues there has been much anecdotal commentary that it would be unwise to submit a grant application in the coming ARC round which focuses on climate change, and that sources at universities and the ARC had suggested that climate change research is unlikely to be funded. I’d like to think this sort of supposition is misguided, however having read the good Senator’s speech I’m beginning to wonder whether my colleagues fears might have some foundation.
Here’s hoping the Minister for Education clears up this uncertainty and takes the Senator at his word that future ARC grant rounds do ‘not run to the ideological direction of the government of the day’!
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