Karoly’s climate view not backed by all scientists
Letter published in The Australian Financial Review, 25 May 2011
You report that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author, Professor David Karoly, has given an unsurprising endorsement of a Climate Change Commission report by Professor Will Steffen, claiming widespread acceptance in the scientific community of the dangerous warming threat unless urgent action is taken to reduce human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases (“Climate Report may help tax plan”, May 23).
You also report Karoly’s view that “all other major academies around the world” accept the theory.
But this overlooks the recent considerable internal dissension and questioning of the scientific consensus claim within two major organisations - the Royal Society and the American Physical Society.
Similarly, a recent letter to Congress by 18 US scientists drew attention to nearly 700 peer-reviewed articles disputing the theory.
Such dissension, which extends to thousands of individual scientists, reflects the view amongst a major component of the scientific community that the uncertainties associated with the theory do not warrant policies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Also relevant are the many errors and misrepresentations in Steffen’s earlier publicly available report to the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee. These were exposed in the recently published analysis by four expert climate scientists and an economist.
Despite confirming the absence of an evidentiary basis for an emissions reduction policy, these were not reported by The Australian Financial Review.
Des Moore
Director, Institute for Private Enterprise
South Yarra Vic