Dirty coal, heat waves and floods - and the last straw for Clive Hamilton

Earlier this week, in an embarrassing childish display, some of Australia's elected representatives pushed to increase carbon emissions more quickly than we already are. This wasn't juvenile backbenchers behaving in an unseemly fashion. This was our Federal Treasurer, Scott Morrison, and the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Barnaby Joyce.

Coal plant-ed question

In the video below, Scott Morrison responds to the Dorothy Dixer (planted question) from his backbench colleague, Andrew Hastie, the Member for Canning in Western Australia. Morrison was keen to play the fool in Parliament. He embarrassed Australia in the eyes of the world by portraying everyone who accepts science as idiots or worse.

Betrayed by political cowardice from Australia's "One Nation" Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull

You might have seen the appalling comments from Australia's Prime Minister yesterday. He was doing a good imitation of Malcolm Roberts. They both linked the worst storm in living memory in South Australia with renewable energy, and not in the manner one would expect.

Australia's Prime Minister and his act of political cowardice. September 2016

What you'd expect is that our political leaders would view the storm and statewide blackout as a stark reminder that we have to hurry up and reduce carbon emissions. Instead Malcolm Turnbull, in an incredible display of political cowardice, turned his back on Australians and all of humanity and used it as an opportunity to say we've got to slow the shift to renewables.

Australia's CSIRO dims the lights on climate and environment

If the article at the Sydney Morning Herald is true, then the CSIRO and Australian government have decided to dim the lights on climate science. Instead of researching climate science and climate change, the CSIRO management has decided to research how we can adapt to it.

It should not be a case of either/or. We need both.

Now applied research and development is the stock in trade of the CSIRO. That R&D organisation was established primarily for the "D" in R&D. It exists for the economic benefit of Australia. As with a lot of universities these days, it is expected to earn money through patents, licences, contracts and partnerships with industry and business. I've no problem with that. CSIRO has some very worthy successes. The problem I see is that in order for development there has to be research. Research precedes development in the R&D chain. If we don't properly understand what is happening and what is going to happen, then we won't properly understand what it is that we need to adapt to. So the question becomes - how are we going to adapt if we don't understand well enough what the future holds?

Moaning about the demise of Maurice Newman, Australia's high profile climate conspiracy theorist

On Anthony Watts' climate conspiracy blog WUWT, Eric Worrall is moaning about Maurice Newman (archived here). In another move showing that he does take climate change seriously (albeit within political constraints), Australia's new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, will not be re-appointing Maurice to the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, which he chaired under Tony Abbott.

Maurice Newman is an uber conspiracy theorist of the Tim Ball kind. I've written about his wacky ideas on a number of occasions. He's not just a denier, he's a hard core conspiracy nutter who thinks, for example, that the sustainability action plan, Agenda 21, is some sort of evil plot. Eric Worrall couldn't be more wrong when he writes:

Releasing outspoken skeptic Maurice Newman from his advisory role seems unlikely to help Turnbull’s credibility on climate issues. 

Contrary to what Eric thinks, it will be a relief to almost everyone. I'd say most especially to the other members of the council. And it will lift the PM's credibility in regard to climate.

Breaking - Malcolm Turnbull ousts Tony Abbott and will become Australia's new Prime Minister

Australia is about to get a new Prime Minister. Malcolm Turnbull has defeated Tony Abbott in a ballot taken by the Liberal Party just now.

This will, I hope, mean a change in Australia's position on climate action. I've been told that Malcolm may have done a "deal" to keep a low profile on climate, but I know he has strong views on the subject. So let's hope that he adopts a leadership stance and doesn't kow tow to the deniers in the party room.

I'll see if I can dig up some of what he's written on the subject. And contrast this with Tony Abbott's stance.

Meantime, while I don't usually blog on politics, this is potentially big news for climate, so I'll make an exception.

You can read more about this news:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-14/liberal-leaderhip-tony-abbott-challenged-by-malcolm-turnbull/6774546

Watch this space!

If you can tolerate talking heads from down under, the ABC NEWS 24 website has removed the geo block for the occasion.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/

UPDATE: Malcolm Turnbull has said that he supports the current government policy on climate change. Julie Bishop, the (continuing) deputy has said that Australia has already announced the targets for Paris and they won't change.

He also said that his government will be a collaborative, consultative government. So it looks as if it will be up to us to persuade the government to change direction.

Added by Sou at 10:55 pm Monday 14 September 2015