NSW Liberals call for national debates on climate change science

The NSW Liberals have formally called on the Turnbull government to conduct public debates about climate change - including whether the science is settled - in a stark reminder of the deep divisions within the party over the issue.

A motion passed at the party's state council calls on the government to "arrange and hold public debates/discussions" between scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and "independent climate scientists".

The motion says the events should cover "the global warming/climate change debate"; "the claims by the IPCC"; and the statement "is all the science settled".

It proposes the first debate be held in Sydney, the second in Melbourne and "the others to take place one in each state".

Fairfax Media understands the motion passed with support of more than 70 per cent of delegates at the state council meeting held on the Central Coast last weekend.

A second motion called on the Turnbull government to hold an inquiry into Australia's engagement with the United Nations on climate change and report back to the party by mid-year.

But an amendment by NSW MLC Catherine Cusack, supported by left faction powerbroker Michael Photios, ensured the motion was sent off to the party's platform committee for consideration at a later stage.

The motions - which were debated after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had left the room following his speech - reveal the level of climate change scepticism among the Liberal base in NSW.

Sources say Mr Turnbull - known to strongly support action on climate change - was heckled by sections of the party during his speech and a large section of delegates refused to rise when he was given a standing ovation.

The successful motion will be conveyed to federal environment minister Greg Hunt. Mr Hunt's office did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokeswoman for the NSW Liberal Party said: "We encourage robust debate of policy motions at state council".

Mr Turnbull has been accused of compromising his principles on climate policy since taking the prime ministership from Tony Abbott, who had previously described debate around the science of climate change as "absolute crap".

Conservative government MPs warned Turnbull not to stray to the left on climate change when he took the leadership.

Despite supporting the measure as opposition leader, Mr Turnbull does not now support an emissions trading scheme to cut Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

The federal government says it still intends to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which funds renewable energy infrastructure.

Mr Turnbull has also been criticised for failing to intervene to stop cuts to the CSIRO's climate monitoring and modelling units.




http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-liberals-call-for-national-debates-on-climate-chan...

Well, the Libs are dismantling the CSIRO Air and Ocean division so no nasty facts about AGW will be aired. That should fix that—for a Lib.

The Greens twice stuffed up action against AGW so they must agree with the Libs.

Jovial Monk wrote on Mar 8^th, 2016 at 8:31pm:



Labor's ETS locked in no reduction in coal pollution until after 2033.
Greens were correct in voting this down

If Labor hadn't been so tricky, Abbott would of never been PM.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1449746328

____ wrote on Mar 8^th, 2016 at 8:39pm:



Obama's agreement with China is that China will look at reducing emissions after 2030. Given Australia's emissions it would seem not a huge jump.

____ wrote on Mar 8^th, 2016 at 8:36pm:


Gravity is a universally accepted, scientifically proven fact that can be reproduced by anyone at will. Climate change is not.

Given the huge political donations the Libs recieve from fossil fuel companies, I wouldnt expect their views to change.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Mar 8^th, 2016 at 8:54pm:



This past 4th of July, a European team of astronomers led by Hongsheng Zhao of the SUPA Centre of Gravity at the University of St Andrews presented a radical new theory at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in St Andrews. Their theory suggested that the Milky Way and Anromeda galaxies collided some 10 billion years ago and that our understanding of gravity is fundamentally wrong. Remarkably, this would neatly explain the observed structure of the two galaxies and their satellites.

In 2009, Zhao led An international team of astronomers that found an unexpected link between 'dark matter' and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could revolutionize our current understanding of gravity. Zhao suggested that an unknown force is acting on dark matter.

The team believes that the interactions between dark and ordinary matter could be more important and more complex than previously thought, and even speculate that dark matter might not exist and that the anomalous motions of stars in galaxies are due to a modification of gravity on extragalactic scales.

"The dark matter seems to 'know' how the visible matter is distributed. They seem to conspire with each other such that the gravity of the visible matter at the characteristic radius of the dark halo is always the same," said Dr. Benoit Famaey (Universities of Bonn and Strasbourg). "This is extremely surprising since one would rather expect the balance between visible and dark matter to strongly depend on the individual history of each galaxy.

"The pattern that the data reveal is extremely odd. It's like finding a zoo of animals of all ages and sizes miraculously having identical, say, weight in their backbones or something. It is possible that a non-gravitational fifth force is ruling the dark matter with an invisible hand, leaving the same fingerprints on all galaxies, irrespective of their ages, shapes and sizes."

Such a force might solve an even bigger mystery, known as 'dark energy', which is ruling the accelerated expansion of the Universe. A more radical solution is a revision of the laws of gravity first developed by Isaac Newton in 1687 and refined by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in 1916. Einstein never fully decided whether his equation should add an omnipresent constant source, now called dark energy.

etc etc etc

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/11/our-understanding-of-gravity-is-fun...



The theory of Gravity isn't settled yet.
Libs witchhunt on climate science is ideological, not factual.
If they were serious about the science, then they would be debating Gravity too.

____ wrote on Mar 8^th, 2016 at 8:50pm:


That human change is why you live in comfort, and can tap out and send your thoughts & views all around the world instantly.  Without the fossil fuels you'd be swinging in the trees and prey for big furry animals with big teeth.......more likely extinct

My problem with environmentalism is that it has been totally hijacked by parties such as the Greens as a political tool to promote their hidden main agenda.....which is socialism.

If 'climate change' induced by co2 is such a doomsday issue then the Greens should be supporting the establishment of nuclear power generation.