Maurice Newman, PM Tony Abbott's advisor

Climate change "myth"

Maurice Newman's world view Image credit RenewEconomy

In an opinion piece written for the Australian Financial Review, Newman said much of the public service infrastructure would be resistant to change because of their "vested interests" in the status-quo.

"The CSIRO, for example, has 27 scientists dedicated to climate change," Newman wrote. "It and the weather bureau continue to propagate the myth of anthropological (sic) climate change and are likely to be background critics of the Coalition's Direct Action policies."

Global cooling

Extract from article by Michael J. I. Brown in The Conversation, 2014/08/19 Michael is a lecturer at Monash University

Maurice Newman warned about imminent global cooling and cited Professor Mike Lockwood's research as evidence. But Lockwood himself stated last year that solar variability this century may reduce warming by: "... between 0.06 and 0.1 degrees Celsius, a very small fraction of the warming we're due to experience as a result of human activity." Newman's claims were debunked, by his expert, before he even wrote his article.

That this deluded man is head of our Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council is a terrible indictment on our present government and no less than a matter for national shame. How has my country sunk so low?

Global temperatures

Greg Jericho wrote an informative piece for The Drum about Maurice Newman's ignorant stance on climate change.

The facts are so different from Mr Newman's claim that you would have to wonder where he has been for the past 17 years. From Renew Economy

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US has released its global temperature analysis for 2013. It has found that the year 2013 ties with 2003 as the fourth warmest year globally since records began in 1880 and it marks the 37th consecutive year (since 1976) that the yearly global temperature was above average."

"Over land, every one of the last 13 years (2001-2013) is in the list of the warmest 14 years on record."

The most depressing thing about all this is that an Australian Prime Minister can chose to have a man who is so divorced from the facts, so ignorant of the truth and the science, as the leader of his Business Advisory Council.

Nine fallacies in one sentence

On wind power Mr Newman wrote in the publication The Spectator (not associated with Business or Climate Spectator) on January 21, 2012:   Comment: Impressive, nine fallacies in one sentence! I have given links to seven of the fallacies to provide the facts. Wind farms are less 'socially inequitable' than other forms of energy generation, consider community funding for example. Wind farms are much less environmentally harmful than coal, coal-seam gas, gas and nuclear. Whether they are a 'blot on the landscape' is subjective.   Comment: The IPCC is composed of climate scientists. There is a strong consensus among climate scientists about anthropogenic climate change. It seems Mr Newman either doesn't trust science or doesn't understand how it works. "Even before they threatened my property, I was opposed to wind farms. They fail on all counts. They are grossly inefficient, extremely expensive, socially inequitable, a danger to human health, environmentally harmful, divisive for communities, a blot on the landscape, and don't even achieve the purpose for which they were designed, namely the reliable generation of electricity and the reduction of CO2 emissions." On the issue of whether human activity is leading to warming of the atmosphere he wrote in The Australian on November 5 last year: "When Mother Nature decided in 1980 to change gears from cooler to warmer, a new global warming religion was born, replete with its own church (the UN), a papacy, (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and a global warming priesthood masquerading as climate scientists."

That a man with such opinions and capable of such misrepresentations could ever be chief of a business advisory committee to a Prime Minister of Australia can only be called depressing.

Mr Newman is, in effect, saying the Americans and Chinese are stupid Why are the Americans and Chinese building so much wind power if it is as useless as Mr Newman claims? He must think that they are incapable of seeing the facts. Is this likely? Are the Americans and Chinese stupid, or is Mr Newman's opinion naïve and foolish in the extreme?

If Australia was to follow the opinions of people like Mr Newman it would put us very much out of step with our trading partners who recognise the need to act on climate change, on reducing the air pollution resulting from burning coal and can see the value of sustainable energy, wind power in particular. For example the USA installed a record 13.2GW and China 14GW of wind power in 2012. (Australia's total wind power at the end of 2012 was 2.7GW.)

If people like Mr Newman have their way, Australia will be left behind with the most climate-polluting power generation system in the developed world while the more progressive nations change to modern, clean energy.

Is it good international relations for Australia to have a Prime Minister's chief advisor who believes our main trading partners to be stupid?

Newman threatens to sue his neighbours

While the seven signatories of the threatened suet may own land near the proposed wind farm "The letter listed the names and addresses of the seven signatories, all but two of whom lived in Gladesville, Mosman, or Phillip Street, Sydney."

One would have to wonder what grounds Mr Newman and his associates would have for any suet. There is no evidence that wind turbines make much noise (either audible or infrasound), make anyone ill, cause any substantial impact on property values, or cause neighbours any harm or significant inconvenience in any other ways.

The dishonest and aggressive Heartland Farmers group of wind turbine opponents on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula have also resorted to engaging lawyers to write threatening letters.

Removed from Consultative Committee

"Union Fenosa has withdrawn the invitation of Maurice Newman, from its Crookwell 2 and 3 Community Consultative Committee. The developer says it's taken the action because of a pattern of Mr Newman's behaviour including his support for unsubstantiated legal threats being sent to its landholder stakeholders. In a statement, the company says Mr Newman's actions also included his apparent intervention to block Office of the Environment and Heritage employees from attending CCCs because they were providing material about NSW Health findings that wind turbines are harmless."

More Newman quotes

"Man-made 'carbon pollution' has become the shorthand rallying cry that unites global warming believers. The notion is a figment. It is made up. It is rooted in anti-capitalist, anti-growth green ideology that, for too long, has been bullied into our consciousness as science." – The Australian, March 27, 2015

"Back in the real world, the poor are dying of the cold while the political elites and their friends bask in the warmth of cosy conferences, taxpayer subsidies and research grants. They seem indifferent to the hardship that their actions, based on dubious science, impose on the world's underprivileged." – The Australian, February 6, 2015

"The political left has seized on climate change as the new Marxism. It rejects empirical evidence which is inconvenient and promotes dubious and sometimes fabricated science as proven. In true totalitarian style it seeks to shut down debate and ruin the careers and reputations of those who dare to oppose the orthodoxy." – The Australian, January 20, 2015

"[Christine] Milne's prescription for a vibrant Australian economy includes 'keeping the renewable energy target at 41,000 gigawatt-hours', 'stopping new coalmines', 'no coal-seam gas' and 'no new ports'. 'Jobs will come from green energy,' Milne assures us. She could have added, there are fairies at the bottom of her garden." – The Australian, November 7, 2014

"At the same time, like primitive civilisations offering up sacrifices to appease the gods, many governments, including Australia's former Labor government, used the biased research to pursue 'green' gesture politics. If the world does indeed move into a cooling period, its citizens are ill-prepared." – The Australian, August 14 2014

It is not surprising that these quotes were printed in The Australian, which is a right-wing Murdoch newspaper that frequently prints climate science denial and anti-renewable energy material.

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