News & Views item - January 2007

 

 

"It's just not worth the possible risk to my program's future funding." -- Senior CSIRO Scientist When Refusing to be Interviewed -- Rosslyn Beeby. (January 9, 2007)

    On July 14, 2006 TFW reported CSIRO Publishes Revised but Still Ambiguous Policy on Public Comment by Staff. which said in part:

Dr Garrett said that the review team of senior scientists, chaired by Dr Tony Haymet, consulted widely throughout the organisation, holding 10 separate consultation sessions with staff all over Australia and the review team found that the previous policy had sometimes discouraged staff from speaking about their science in public.

 

According to Dr Garrett, "As a result of the Review we have totally rewritten our policy. We have taken out the word 'permission'. We encourage our scientists to communicate the outcomes and implications of their scientific work and, where relevant, suggest policy options and scenarios stemming from their scientific findings.

 

"We also ask them to avoid making direct comment for or against government or opposition policy, from State or Federal governments. Our job is to inform policy, not to prescribe it, and to be an authoritative and honest broker, rather than an advocate."

Now in a January 4, 2007 Canberra Times opinion piece by Rosslyn Beeby, "Climate of fear silencing scientists when they must be heard", we are told, "Here in Australia we've seen intimidation, exclusion from influence, political ridicule and censorship of scientists. We've also seen a dumbing down of the political debate on climate change as a result, with rhetoric rather than science the weapon of choice adopted by government and opposition."

 

Ms Beeby goes on to report:

In May last year, The Canberra Times obtained a copy of a confidential report by the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development. It stated that solar thermal technology was capable of producing Australia's entire electricity demand and was the only renewable energy capable of making deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Written by five CSIRO Energy Technology scientists, the report said solar thermal technology was "poised to play a significant role in baseload generation for Australia" and would be cost-competitive with coal within seven years.

 

But sources claim that until details were published by The Canberra Times, the draft report was passed around "like a political hot potato", with no date set for its release. Despite federal government claims that the CRC "just hadn't got around to releasing it", the view taken by senior climate change scientists was that the report had been deliberately suppressed.

 

There are also rumours circulating that a second CSIRO report on the feasibility of geosequestration (carbon capture and underground storage) was so damning that all copies have been confiscated and possibly destroyed.

And in regard to CSIRO scientists communicating their results to the media: "many scientists working on developing renewable energy options are quite literally

 terrified of the implications of

 speaking to journalists or giving a background briefing to elucidate some of the complexities of their work... In one instance, a scientist who merely provided the correct details for a photo caption was subsequently carpeted for 'unauthorised contact with the media'".

 

But it appears that is not only within Dr Garrett's CSIRO where he has told his charges that, "CSIRO staff have the same right as all Australian citizens to speak as an individual rather than as a representative of their employer." But they are reminded that, "All staff, especially senior scientists and managers, should be mindful of the reality of modern media, such that they are likely to be identified as being employed by CSIRO whether they wish to be or not," that threats are present. Ms Beeby tells her readers:

Sources at the Australian National University say two of the nation's leading solar researchers, Professor Andrew Blakers and Profess Klaus Weber the inventors of the solar sliver cell which is predicted to revolutionise the rate of global uptake of solar energy have been warned against speaking out publicly.

And this past July the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop informed us that Australia would suffer a likely shortfall of 19,000 additionally required scientific professionals within six years.

 

Well with conditions such as described by Ms Beeby, thanks, but no thanks, we'll find something else to do or place to go?