Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Nobel Laureate Stands Up for Climate Scientists

Brian Schmidt, who yesterday won the Nobel Prize in Physics, did a good thing and stood up for the climate scientists now under attack. Schmidt is Australian, and their fights over global warming and a carbon tax have also seen a lot of ugliness:
"I think that (the carbon debate) has maybe in the short-term diminished in some people's mind the standing of science," Professor Schmidt, 44, said.

"But in my mind it's just part of the scientific debate.

"We need to make sure we don't mix policy and science directly. Science is science, the policy is policy. And I would really like the scientists to continue to debate what's right and what's wrong about everything.

"And I would really like the policy people to debate how to deal with what is coming in from the scientists."

2 comments:

Steve said...

Thanks for highlighting this David. The Australian (federal) government is a minority one, but it has put together a majority of votes in both houses for the Emissions Trading legislation that is currently before parliament.

It should pass both houses by mid November.

The usual suspects are mounting a hysterical campaign against the legislation.

I have seen very little reporting in the international media on this development. I hope that the legislation gets wide publicity, internationally, when it is passed.

Is it too much to hope that the example of little Australia could influence the decisions made by very important countries like the US?

Lars said...

It would be a helpful example for us here in Canada, Steve. The two countries are comparable - large area, small population (largely urbanized), and climates which require energy expenditure over a good part of the year, just so that people can be comfortable in their homes. Given the fools that we currently have in power federally, however, it will likely go disregarded.