Leading climate scientist Professor Andy Pitman has hit back at Tony Abbott for misrepresenting him to argue against the link between climate change and the ongoing bushfire crisis in The Australian.
“From the start [of the bushfire crisis], the role of climate change has been front and centre of public discussion, even though shortly before these fires really got going one of Australia’s leading climate scientists, Andy Pitman, said that it was impossible to attribute the present drought largely to climate change and that the incidence of drought hadn’t increased over the past century,” Abbott wrote in an opinion piece, published in The Australian on Thursday.
Pitman, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes director at UNSW, who has contributed to Nobel Peace Prize-winning research work, said he was “confused as to how Mr Abbott quotes me on drought in a sentence about bushfires, when in fact for 15 years I have been warning that the risk of fires is increasing as a consequence of climate change, and have published papers on that”.
“If he can’t tell the difference between bushfires and drought, I can’t help him.”
Abbott was referencing a statement Pitman made during a lecture at the University of Sydney last year about Australia’s ongoing drought.
“As far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought … there is no reason a priori why climate change should make the landscape more arid,” Pitman said in the lecture.
The statement has since become fodder for climate denialists such as Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones to rebuke links made between natural disasters and climate change.
Pitman has gone to lengths to clarify his statement, telling Media Watch last year that he should have said “there is no direct link between climate change and drought”, but that there is an indirect link.
“But you would have to be a moron to think there is no link between climate change and drought,” he told Crikey.
“There is no ambiguity or wriggle room that the bushfires are linked with climate change … And I don’t think that there is a bushfire expert that won’t make that link. The strength of the link can be argued, but the existence of the link is not disputable.”
Pitman explained the science behind this link to Crikey: high carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, in some places, leads to “greening”, meaning more vegetation — like leaves, branches and even trees — growing above the soil. When you are hit with a drought, the vegetation become stressed and drops to the ground or dries out, becoming fuel for fires. So when a fire breaks out, the dead vegetation feeds bigger, more powerful flames that are harder to fight.
“Science is about accuracy and appropriate conclusions being reached from the data, and not about cherry picking parts of science to suit your argument. I respect that is how it works in politics … but that mustn’t translate into science, because science has to provide all sides of the argument and reach an appropriate conclusion,” Pitman said.
“It’s frustrating that years and years of research can be dismissed by a politician. The reputation of The Australian is being trashed by publishing utter rubbish.”
The straws they clutch at are aflame in their hands.
A bit like the boy(s) on the burning deck really.
“If he can’t tell the difference between bushfires and drought, I can’t help him.”
Say what you mean, Andy!
Simples isn’t it . Scientists just need to watch very carefully every word ,comma, step, sentence, breath, etc they make or take. And that’s not counting their disciplined field of expertise. .They’re right plum dead centre in the firing line of shoot the messenger.
I disagree with JL-H’s last comment about The Australian publishing “this rubbish”. Let a publisher publish all the comments of those who have an input, then let readers come to their own conclusion. After all it’s better to reach a conclusion based on the available facts at that time than have a person or organisation decide what information is out there for the populous to base their conclusion and opinions on.
Hmm, I think that the point has been missed here. Pitman’s ‘opinion’ is dissimilar to the Mad Monk’s and others like Kenny, Bolt, Jones,… Pitman’s ‘opinion’ as a scientist is based on extensive data and must navigate the difficult statistical/mathematical path of correlation, causation and correspondence. Murdoch’s gallery of monkey’s have an opinion on climate change that is of the same type as if one was arguing whether a colour is indigo or purple.
The rub here is that the Oz is supposed to be a platform for well thought out news, written by well informed individuals or groups. Anything written by Abbott on climate change should be on page 5 of the Tele or Courier Mail.
I think the phrase is “used to be”.
Anything written by Abbott should be placed in the “fiction” or “funnies” sections of the paper.
Abbott was being misleading, and hoping no one would look into it. This was repeated without any challenge to the assertion. I don’t know how you can defend that. The only thing we have learnt is that Abbott, Bolt and Jones think we’re all idiots.
There you are, Don, referring to things apparently benign – ‘comments… facts… information’ – when according to the scientist himself it’s ‘rubbish’. What The Australian routinely publishes as ‘comment, fact, information’ is mostly lies, fabrications, carefully picked cherries and exaggerations (and by no means ‘all’ of what is available from those who have an ‘input’), which duly find their way into other media (including ‘social’) and parliament itself, to be eventually and easily swallowed by sections of the populace (note spelling). Oops, sorry, I meant to say, they ‘come to their own conclusion’. If my auntie had balls…
So we just continue to run with the ‘alternative facts’?
Like the current impeachment lawyer for Trump who in directly contradicting a previously held view (on impeachment) says that …he wasnt wrong last time, he is just more correct this time…
Astonishing.
“A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”
Abbott highlights the problem for people who know what they’re talking about – they have to think so carefully about, and order, whatever they have to say – because these Abbottesque scrabbled pea-brains will pick up words and arrange them to suit their own addled agenda…..
In the tide of misrepresentation of what they said, they then have to go about explaining what they said/meant – after the horse-shit has been tossed out there.
Correct. They will even reference your scientific paper and claim that it says “X”, when in fact it says “notX”, but in carefully worded sentences, which make it hard for the average punter to figure out what exactly was said. Increasingly, the problem of our civilisation, which makes it easy for the demagogues to get people to fall for essentially anti-scientific ideologies. The Philippines, Brazil, and India come to mind as those not directly influenced by the dark lord Murdoch.