As arguing against climate change action gets harder, the naysayers get louder
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Version 0 of 1. Shouting down or starving out those with whom we disagree can seem so much easier than confronting their arguments. Take the mining industry’s latest effort to diminish the power of environmentalists seeking to stop new coalmines and coal seam gas wells. Their submissions to the innocuous sounding parliamentary “inquiry into the register of environmental organisations” start with reasonable-sounding arguments – that environmental groups entitled to receive tax deductible donations should not use the money to pay court fines for protesters who have broken the law. But they quickly get to their their real point: that conservationists should only be allowed to receive tax deductible donations if they limit themselves to “on the ground activities”, unthreatening things such as tidying up or planting trees, and give up on advocacy about touchy things things like, say, climate change policy or keeping coal deposits in the ground. The Minerals Council of Australia insists campaigns to stop new fossil fuel projects have an “ideological” rather than “environmental” objective. Climate change is, apparently, nothing to do with the environment. And it says “the right to free speech should not be conflated with an entitlement to taxpayer funded political activity”. Estimates of the value of the tax concession to the environment groups’ donors are hazy, but the organisations are sure their funding would decline if they were taken away. And of course if environmental groups are starved of funds they would be less effective in countering the highly successful multimillion dollar political advocacy and lobbying efforts of the mining industry, such as the $22m advertising campaign that squashed the former government’s proposed mining profits tax, the recent advocacy that shelved any notion of an inquiry into iron ore pricing or the campaign that helped defeat the carbon tax and replace it with a system that does not require any emission reductions, or place any real restrictions, on mining. The industry probably has even more cash for such advocacy given the now well-documented tax minimisation strategies employed by the big miners that are under investigation by the tax office. The reasonable debate about the extent to which tax breaks can be used for “illegal” activity looks like cover for a push to defund and weaken critics. The environment groups are lining up to give evidence to the committee to defend the public value of their advocacy. Accusations of “shouting down” have also been made the other way – against those concerned about climate change who protested so long and so loud against Bjørn Lomborg’s proposed “Australia Consensus Centre” at the University of Western Australia that the uni finally pulled out of the $4m government funding deal Guardian Australia revealed in April. “It is surprising that individuals at an institution of higher learning claiming to embrace the notion of academic and intellectual freedom would display intolerance and shout down a voice in the debate they simply don’t agree with,” the education minister, Christopher Pyne, said at the time. “A society which thrives on debate and a diversity of views should be a priority for all regardless of how fervently they oppose those views.” Human rights commissioner Tim Wilson called it a validation of a culture of soft censorship. We need “a culture that tolerates dissent and allows for challenging ideas to be voiced, heard and debated,” he said, but lamented that “Australia’s culture of open debate is increasingly sick”. If the academics’ concerns were only based on them not liking Lomborg’s conclusions about climate change – usually that it’s much more cost effective to spend money on research and development or reducing fossil fuel subsidies than on reducing greenhouse emissions – Pyne’s and Wilson’s responses might have some merit. But most of the considered criticism was of Lomborg’s methodology – the way he reaches his conclusions – a sort of cost benefit analysis of different policy options with rankings overseen by eminent economists, and also of the way the government funding decision was made. And we learned from Senate estimates this week it was this very “methodology” the government bought for the $4m it secretly set aside for the Lomborg “consensus centre” in 2014. The education department learned about the decision from the prime minister’s department. We’re not sure where they heard about it, or what kind of due diligence was done before it was made. But we know the government did not allocate the money to a university, but rather to Lomborg’s “idea”, encouraging him to scout around to find a host institution. Now he’s back on the hunt for a new academic home for his centre and our $4m. For a publicity-keen fellow, Lomborg has been remarkably quiet during the furore over his funding deal. But before he takes his taxpayer cheque to another Australian institution, it might be a good idea for him (and the government for that matter) to debate the criticisms of Lomborg’s methodology and address the charge he’s found government favour because his research methods are slanted to reach the conclusion we shouldn’t do much to address climate change, either directly or in allocating our foreign aid. Otherwise it could look like Lomborg’s defenders were conflating the right to free speech with an entitlement to reach convenient taxpayer funded conclusions. |