Turnbull at Vic Council & US Congress Science Committee

Turnbull at Vic Liberal State Council Meeting

Today’s Sunday Age interprets on its front page Turnbull’s address yesterday to the Victorian State Council as a warning to the Liberal Party to avoid moving to the right and to recognise that it should “build from the centre, bringing people together”. As I have suggested previously, the problem is that the centre has moved to the right both here and overseas and, although Turnbull has very recently made conservative noises, it is difficult to forget his widely regarded left of centre position. Interestingly, President Michael Kroger told the Council meeting that the “Liberal Party has run too many weak and soft campaigns against the Labor Party”. That should have been Turnbull’s “message”.

While no details are available, it is also of interest that an attempt was made to have Council reject an approach involving “climate alarmism demonising CO2 emissions” and the rejection of nuclear power. This approach was not accepted, but it implies there is increasing scepticism within the Liberal Party about the dangerous warming thesis. Again, Turnbull has given no indication of any such scepticism but missed an opportunity to do so even in mild terms.

Although not an issue at the Council meeting, it is relevant that the now separate (in reality an identifiable split from the Liberal party) Cory Bernardi played an active role in forcing Turnbull and Bishop to not proceed with ratification of an extradition treaty with China. As indicated in the attached article by Greg Sheridan, the Turnbull/Bishop attempt to obtain support for ratification (which would implicitly accept the Chinese law and it’s judicial system’s treatment of  Chinese living in Australia who are critical of the regime) was badly handled and in fact illustrated the heightened division within the parliamentary party. Note in particular Sheridan’s argument that “the government …repeatedly slandered its own backbenchers”. Also relevant is that Abbott opposed ratification.

US Congress Science Committee  

Against the background of Trump’s attempt to “roll back” Obama’s supposed Clean Power Plan, it is of considerable interest that the House Committee on Science has held a Hearing on

Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications and the Scientific Method. This is the subject of an article in The Australian (see Curry & Christy at Congress) which reports on the presentation by Dr Judith Curry, who resigned from her academic position in January  mainly because of “my  growing disenchantment with universities, the academic field and scientists”.  Prof John Christy, who with Roy Spencer developed a system for measurement of temperatures by satellite, also gave a presentation as did Roger Pielke Jnr and infamous warmist Michael Mann. This is not the first time Curry and Christy have made presentations to Congressional committees but it is a “sign of the times” that Climate Science is being investigated. And unlike Australia’s Parliament, which has failed to arrange for our sceptical scientists to make presentations to a similar hearing and on a similar subject.

However, Australia’s  William Kininmonth, who headed the National Climate Centre at the BOM, has had a letter published criticising the current energy policy  and the usage of renewable.