In a recent article about balanced reporting, the former director of the Australia Institute Clive Hamilton noted that to give equal weighting that reflected the opinion of those who accept climate change as human induced and a cross section of sceptics would be 39:1.
As someone who spends a lot of time on climate debates, I would say that this is kind of generous to sceptics – the ratio would be more like 100:1.
How do I come up with this figure? Recently Stephan Lewandowsky, a Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia, analysed the number of peer-reviewed articles published by scientists at the UNSW’s Climate Change Research Centre versus those who argue against anthropogenic global warming. The results since 2007? Zero to the sceptics and 110 peer-reviewed to the research centre. This is only one research centre of hundreds so maybe even 100:1 is generous. So why does the public still remain confused about the reality of climate change?
There are undoubtedly many reasons but key amongst them is the way politicians seem to be obsessed with the five-second quote they believe makes ‘good copy’ for television.
The examples are almost countless.
We can begin by looking at how Greg Combet, the new Minister for Climate Change, has begun approaching his portfolio. Mr Combet said this week it was time to bring ‘common sense’ to the debate. I am not sure what this means but he is obviously indicating that until now common sense has been missing from discussions. I hope Professor Tim Flannery gets the memo from Mr Combet explaining to him that it’s time for common sense.
Another example is the way both the Government and Opposition deal with refugees. The statements focus either on people smugglers being responsible (and the lowest form of life) or that this is somehow a lifestyle choice for the millions of displaced by war and famine. There seems to be little or no attempt to discuss the many push factors that drive people towards such a treacherous and dangerous journey.
In this election, things got even worse. For example, Tony Abbott’s contribution to a rent resources tax was ‘a big new tax on everything’ - a slogan not a policy. A discussion about the loss of trust in politicians by the electorate or politicians bending the truth led to the ALP to call Tony Abbott ‘phoney Tony’ and setting up a fake twitter account – as if that was going to convince us to vote for them.
This is a new way that politicians seem to enjoy communicating with us – and we are all much worse off. It is as if they think that we have become so dumb or that our attention span so limited that the best we can handle is an insult or two levelled at the other side.
Such simplification of complex problems means that we are then offered simplified solutions. For example, the solution that is offered to refugees is processing people in your preferred Pacific Island – like that will make millions displaced stay at home. Or issues around social cohesion in a multicultural Australia dealt with by a citizenship test. Up until recently, Afghanistan has been about ‘stopping terrorism’ not trying to unwind centuries of colonialism and bad foreign policy.
Has it always been like this or am I romanticising the past?
The answer is that we were often treated with more respect and issues of national importance were dealt with in a cooperative manner.
One of the best examples for us to draw on is the way that Australia dealt with the HIV/AIDS epidemic that threatened hundreds of thousands if not millions in the 1980s. This had all the makings of a catastrophe: it started in the gay community and few understood how it was spread, how many were at risk and how to stop it.
Australia’s response was lauded around the world. Neal Blewett, the then Health Minister under the Hawke Government, forged an agreement with the Opposition health spokesperson and made massive amounts of funds available to Sydney’s gay and sex worker communities to spread the word of the dangers and alter habits that were culturally embedded. As well outlined in the documentary film, Rampant: How a City Stopped a Plague , negotiations also took place with intravenous drug users.
The political risks that Blewett and many others took were immense. He could have been labelled all sorts of things and quickly marginalised. Despite this, Blewett stuck to his well-conceived strategy.
What is key here is the way Blewett refused to simplify debates around this issue. When asked if this was a ‘gay disease’ or ‘God’s revenge’ he did not respond with a slogan or a five second grab but proceeded to explain the complexity of the virus, how we were all at risk and that a broad response was required.
These were well conceived and articulated answers and treated the citizens of Australia as intelligent beings. They also drowned out the claims by those attempting to make political mileage out of this potential epidemic, such as the Reverend Fred Nile, making them appear unreasonable, uninformed and bigoted.
Blewett did not give us ‘good copy’: he gave us intelligent responses. At the time, news outlets responded by giving him more airtime than the five seconds. It was as if when treated as intelligent beings, everyone responded.
I would hate to think how a challenge like HIV/AIDS would be dealt with today: would the same level of cooperation be possible? How would we communicate this complex issue? Would our politicians be up to this challenge or would they react to polls telling them that this was not a priority for Australia’s so-called ‘battlers’ (who they would assume are never gay)? How would Senator Steve Fielding react?
It has all the makings of a disaster.
One would like to think at times of a national emergency we would respond appropriately. If the climate scientists are even half right, then that emergency is around the corner but we cannot get past slogans. It is time for intelligent debate on climate change – now that makes more common sense than anything we are currently being offered.
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