This is what we have know about opinions on climate change. In Britain a recent survey found that 40 per cent of people believe that the science on climate change is open to question, while in the US 41 per cent believe that concerns about climate change are exaggerated. A minority report from the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public works has documented the climate skepticism of over 700 internationally respected scientists. So scientists who disagree with the conclusions, methods, assumptions, etc… of pro-AGW scientists maybe in the minority, but they do exist and there are many prominent scientists amongst their ranks. Including Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever. UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh. Dr. Will Happer, Professor at the Department of Physics at Princeton University, etc…
So now we turn to the ABC’s coverage of the debate. The ABC has set-up a special web page to deal with the issue and even a cursory look at the content reveals that it is wall to wall pro-AGW and pro-ETS propaganda. Either no dissenting opinions are presented or if they are they are quickly discounted. Only climate ‘porn’ designed to scare people into ‘action’, headlines written to cast doubt on the National Party (they oppose the ETS), the demonisation of anti-ETS people – including being compared to pro-slavery advocates of the 1800s, reporters almost universally editorialising in articles to support ‘action’, the promotion of photos designed to support ‘action’, special interest groups and lobbyists are given free reign to write and publish articles – warning of a ‘new dark age’ if we don’t ‘act’ – as if they were impartial observers, and on and on and on.
At no point has the ABC published an article questioning the need for an ETS, even though as I blogged a little while ago a number of Nobel prize winning economists have recently argued that ETS style legislation is amongst the least effective ways of dealing with the supposed negative effects of human carbon emissions.