Liberal Party War on Science: Cory Bernardi joins deniers in attacking BoM

There is a 66 page document outlining the “concerns” of the deniers.

In effect, they claim the BoM is massaging the data, therefore “lying”.

They are going at the credibility of BoM.

This is dirty politics.

The following individuals are listed are signatories:

• Senator Cory Bernardi
• Joanne Nova
• Andrew Barnham
• Anthony Cox
• James Doogue
• Chris Gillham
• Ken Stewart
• Dr David Stockwell

My previous post on the good Senator:

If there is any doubt that the Australian Liberal Party is the party of climate change denial, then the appearance of South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi at an upcoming “deniers” conference clears up such much misconceptions.

The US think tank the Heartland Institute – in conjunction with Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs and the Property Rights Alliance – is hosting a free seminar in Sydney on October 1.

Heartland – for those who don’t know – have worked with companies such as tobacco giant Philip Morris in trying to question the link between second hand smoke and increased health risks.

Over he past few years they have been one of the driving forces of climate change “scepticism”. Indeed, this conference is a perfect example of the “denial machine” in action”. Is demonstrates the links the Australian deniers have with US right wing think tanks, and how they are supported by them.

Many of the usual suspects will appear, including old friends such as Jo Nova, Bob Carter, David Evans and the IPA’s Alan Moran.

The (draft) agenda indicates the speakers will pontificate on the usual hodgepodge of bad science, conspiracy theories.

Normally that wouldn’t get my attention, as these talk fests constitute nothing more than ”Blah, blah the science is wrong!”, “Boo hiss IPCC!” and “They are trying to take our freedoms!”.

What does strike me as incredible is that a politician form a major political party would not only attend, but appear as a major speaker.

As noted, the conference is free and held in Sydney.

My encounters with Ken Stewart from Ken’s Kingdom here:

There no doubt the denial movement loves to play up to the part of being the “underdog” in the climate debate. They lionize the “ordinary” Jo’s and Josephine’s who through hard work, tenacity and a little bit of commonsense (plus lots of Google searches) are able to spot the crucial flaws scientists working the field of climate science have somehow managed to over look.

A lack of qualifications in climate science – indeed a lack of qualifications in anything – is seen as a bonus. Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre are the examples par excellence.

Mr Smith comes to climate science

For the “climate sceptic” community “do-it-yourself” (DIY) is the hall mark of a true sceptic engaging in the “scientific process” . Unsurprisingly their work finds “amazing flaws”, evidence of “data manipulation” and outright fabrication by scientists.

Our local Anthony Watts: kenskingdom

A good example is a new blog over at Kenskingdom, in which the author downloads publicly available data for temperature records around Australia, applies some quick and ready analysis and “hey presto” claims the data is either wrong is being manipulated…

So the Liberal Party of Australia is going the way of the Republicans in the US in attacking science.

Dark days indeed.