The Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy saw some remarkable public exchanges last week, with the propagators of planet-threatening fossil fuel misinformation confronting scientists in Canberra.
Buoyed by recent polling suggesting there are even more racists in Australia than once feared, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation senator and climate science denier Malcolm Roberts was at the centre of most of the action, flanked by his fellow Queenslander and coal enthusiast, the Nationals’ Matt Canavan.
On the side of sanity was Greens senator and Committee Chair Peter Whish-Wilson, who seems to be getting braver as retirement approaches, Labor senators Lisa Darminin and Michelle Ananda-Rajah, and independent senator David Pocock. Preoccupied by their own dramas, the Liberals sat this one out.
Also appearing before the Committee were representatives from organisations including Meta, TikTok, Coal Australia and Surfers for Climate.
Speaking with the protection of parliamentary privilege, UTS senior lecturer Dr Jeremy Walker let loose on the local horsemen of the apocalypse when it comes to climate misinformation, the ‘aggressive propaganda vehicle’ ADVANCE and ‘ostensibly independent’ think tanks such as the Institute of Public Affairs and the Centre for Independent Studies. He explained that both of these organisations were under the influence of the US-based umbrella organisation Atlas Network.
Propaganda versus reality
As Dr Walker put it, ‘For nearly four decades, Australians have been daily exposed to professionally produced disinformation campaigns secretly funded by fossil fuel interests,’ even as internal science produced by the companies involved, including Exxon Mobil and Shell, proved that continuing to burn fossil hydrocarbons would cause irreversible and catastrophic runaway global heating.
‘Rather than act, they deceived the public about what they knew to be true and funded a permanent transnational propaganda campaign to protect their vast profits by undermining climate policy, manipulating public opinion, capturing or rolling governments in countries around the world – including this one – repressing clean energy and neutralising the United Nations and the effectiveness of its climate treaty negotiations…’
‘Climate policy has not failed; it’s been defeated,’ said Dr Walker.
‘Disinformation has eroded trust in scientific truth and evidence, which is the foundation of democracy and our justice system, and has eroded the capacity of democratic governments to act in the interests of prosperity, equal rights, public health, environmental protection, peace, international law, the rule of law and intergenerational justice.
‘All these things are diametrically opposed to the narrow profit interests of coal, gas and oil corporations, billionaires and banks who have shown themselves willing to literally roast, boil and fry our children and all future generations.’
A bicycle divided by the square root of a banana
Later in the inquiry, there was an exchange that went viral on social media, between popular science communicator Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, appearing via video link, and One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts, who did his best to stare down Dr Karl over his glasses but failed.
After some initial scuffles Dr Kruszelnicki asked Senator Roberts if he agreed that climate records showed that the last 10 years have been the hottest on record worldwide?
Senator Roberts: ‘No, I don’t.’
Dr Kruszelnicki: ‘I feel like I’m talking to a schoolchild who says seven times two is not 14 but instead seven times two is a bicycle divided by the square root of a banana.’
Senator Roberts: ‘That’s one way of making out that I’m a fool.’
Dr Kruszelnicki: ‘No, but all the scientists disagree with you; 99.999 per cent of the scientists disagree with you.’
Senator Roberts: ‘So now you’re into consensus, which is a political tool. Let’s continue.’
Dr Kruszelnicki: ‘Hang on. Consensus is a political tool?’
Chair (Senator Whish-Wilson): ‘Scientific consensus is not a political tool.’
Dr Kruszelnicki: ‘So, if all the scientists agree that seven times two is 14, that’s a political tool?’
Senator Roberts: ‘That’s obviously a stupid comment, in my opinion.’
Maybe the sky is pink?
Pushing on with his case for denial in the face of overwhelming evidence, Malcolm Roberts then attempted to put a scientific patina on his absurd position by saying, ‘Scientific proof is the basis for understanding nature and the physical world. Is that correct or not?’
Dr Kruszelnicki: ‘Pretty correct, yes.’
Senator Roberts: ‘Thank you. Science is never settled; it’s always enhanced in the future as new knowledge is unearthed and science is debated. A key point of science is debate.’
Dr Kruszelnicki: ‘Yes and no. With regard to gravity, the big step forward was Newton. Newton finally understood what was going on, but his theory of gravity could not explain why the closest point of approach of the planet Mercury to the Sun would tick around slowly over the decades. They measured this, and they couldn’t work out why. They had to hypothesise a planet.
‘It was Einstein’s theory of gravity that then explained what was going on. So Newton was not disproved, but he was a small subset of a bigger, more comprehensive theory… You don’t go back.’
Senator Roberts: ‘Isn’t it true, though, that, some hundreds of years ago, people thought the Sun revolved around the Earth? That was the science.’
Dr Kruszelnicki: ‘Some did; some did not.’
Senator Roberts: ‘Then it was proven that the Earth revolves around the Sun, so science is always advancing.’
Attempts by this merchant of doubt to equate historic errors with the current consensus on climate led to another interjection from the Chair, Peter Whish-Wilson, who said: ‘That was before there were 40,000 climate scientists studying climate sciences.’
If you can stomach the contributions of Roberts and Canavan, the complete transcript of these hearings provide a rare peek behind the curtain of the misinformation industry, and the machinations of those who value extra yachts and mansions over life on Earth. The latest Hansard chunk can be found online here.
The Senate Select Committee’s findings will be delivered next month.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
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