Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:57:49 +1000WeeblyMon, 06 Jul 2020 06:15:17 GMThttp://www.stevebishop.net/more-climate-change-nonsense-from-the-australian1/more-climate-change-nonsense-from-the-australianThe anti-climate-science Australian continues to refer to self-described nuclear power lobbyist Michael Shellenberger as a highly credentialed environmentalist - despite his only degree being in cultural anthropology.

Chris Kenny, responsible for much of The Australian’s reporting of skewed articles on climate science, obviously failed to see the irony of his description in today’s paper of biased media”.

The Australian’s role in aligning itself with the views of pro-fossil fuel think tanks such as the Institute of Public Affairs and the Heartland Institute is an affront to journalistic standards.

The current controversy arose when The Australian published an article in which Shellenberger said he was “apologising for environmentalists everywhere for the climate scare we created over the past 30 years.”

As mentioned, Shellenberger’s cv makes it clear he is first and foremost a nuclear lobbyist.

Call it scaring or alarming, the media should be cutting through disinformation, ignorance and she’ll-be-right attitudes by reminding people and governments of the warnings of climate scientists

In his praise of Shellenberger, Kenny talks in his article about “the verifiable reality of facts”.

But the nuclear lobbyist makes claims in his article such as there being research which  “proves natural disasters aren’t getting worse” despite the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA determining last year that “Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.”

And, as I pointed out in my earlier article, he claims:‘Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”’.

This assertion contradicts the work of more than 1,000 scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services which found ‘1,000,000 species threatened with extinction’ and warned: “We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

There’s more irony in Chris Mitchell’s quarter-pager diatribe on another page about ”media promoting panic over climate change”.

Mitchell writes: “People who are disposed to moral panic about about race, climate or capitalism love to consume media that confirms their bias. But it is a fool’s game. Mainstream media is just surrendering its trust advantage to social media extremism.”

The Australian obviously has lost all trust from the vast majority of people who accept the evidence of anthropogenic climate change.

Mitchell also refers to Shellenberger as an “environmental activist”.

He goes on to say other media have made “false claims abut a 2030 climate emergency” which relates only to a worst case scenario called RCP8.5 and The Australian regards it as a false scenario.

Tell that to The New Scientist which has reported: “Worst-case climate change scenario is even worse than we thought.”

It says: The phrase “worse than we thought” is a cliché when it comes to climate change. There are lots of studies suggesting we’re in for more warming and worse consequences than thought, and few saying it won’t be as bad. But guess what: it’s worse than we thought.

A study of the future global economy has concluded that the standard worst-case scenario used by climate scientists is actually not the worst case.

How much the climate will change depends on how much greenhouse gas we emit, which in turn depends on the choices we make as a society – including how the global economy behaves. To handle this, climatologists use four scenarios called RCPs, each of which describes a different possible future.

The RCP8.5 scenario is the worst for the climate. It assumes rapid, unfettered economic growth and rampant burning of fossil fuels. It now seems RCP8.5 may have underestimated the emissions that would result if we follow the economic path it describes.

“Our estimates indicate that, due to higher than assumed economic growth rates, there is a greater than 35 per cent probability that year 2100 emissions concentrations will exceed those given by RCP8.5,” says Peter Christensen of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.”


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