The Australian
By: Andrew Trounson
The head of the peak university body has denounced "tabloid'' attacks on climate scientists and called on researchers to better communicate with the public.
Addressing the National Press Club in Canberra, Universities Australia chairman Peter Coaldrake said scientific researchers were always vulnerable to attack when identifying "uncomfortable'' trends such as climate change.
He expressed concern that prospective students could baulk at science because of the fallout from the climate wars.
"Science and research do struggle to gain traction if they challenge orthodoxies or question behaviours, or suggest that behaviour may have to change, and of course if they suggest uncomfortable trends,'' he said.
Professor Coaldrake, a public policy academic and vice-chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology, cited the example of Italian astronomer and philosopher Galileo Galilei, who was persecuted by the Catholic Church in the 17th century for supporting the Copernican view that the sun, rather than the Earth, was at the centre of the universe.
The release of hacked emails from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit fuelled allegations that data were being manipulated to support the theory of man-made global warming. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has also been embarrassed by mistakes in its 2007 report on climate change.
Professor Coaldrake said the resulting debate had amounted to little more than a "tabloid-style decimation of science''.
"Scientists have to be prepared to debate; they can't afford to be defensive,'' he said. "Our scientific community has to communicate.''
He also attacked the tendency of politicians to exploit the debate for political purposes.
"What is (this debate) going to do for the people . . . who we'd like to do science and technology at school and pursue those disciplines at universities?'' he said.