In estimates, I chipped the ABC for propagating the fraudulent temperature records being put out by the Bureau of Meteorology.
Needless to say the Head of their News Division was clueless as to what I was talking about.
The guy should get a gig in comedy with his statement “The commitment I can make is any reporting on climate change will be reported in scientific evidence.”
There is nothing about the ABC, Climate Change or the BOM that is grounded in scientific evidence.
Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
05/11/2024
Estimates
INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT, COMMUNICATIONS AND THE ARTS PORTFOLIO
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Senator RENNICK: I refer to an article that was posted on the ABC website back on 3 August, where the ABC talked about the warming over the last 100 years. I asked the ABC about this a number of years ago. When you talk about weather temperatures, you need to distinguish between actual temperatures and homogenised temperatures. When you’ve quoted the bureau’s homogenised figures, you haven’t distinguished those figures from the actual observed figures. Can I get a commitment from the ABC that when they report on weather records they will make it clear which temperature dataset they’re going to use and report on?
Ms Kleyn: I might ask our director of news to respond.
Mr Stevens: I’m happy to follow up on that specific article, Senator. It’s not coming directly to mind, but we will follow up and have a look at the nature of that article and the terminology you refer to. The commitment I can make is that any reporting on climate change will be grounded in scientific evidence.
Senator RENNICK: This isn’t grounded in scientific evidence. This is grounded in changing weather records, then creating a whole new dataset, and then reporting that new dataset without distinguishing it from the observed records. In the field that I’m in, in finance, if I amended a prior set of records I’d go to jail. It’s very important that people understand the quality assurance that’s used by the bureau when they report historical weather records.
Ms Kleyn: Could I ask—and I do apologise because it may be that you have provided that particular article previously—are you able to provide that to us?
Senator RENNICK: Yes, absolutely. I’ll table it. It’s not hard to understand. There are a variety of weather records that have now gone from an observed set of records to homogenised datasets. They’ve now got decimal points. They do 1.2, 2.2, 2.3. I actually can’t keep up with it. They’re making numerous changes. I think it’s important that the ABC reports the fact that what people are reading in these so-called weather records has been homogenised by over half a degree over the last century.
Ms Kleyn: We will review that document. Thank you.
Senator RENNICK: No worries. Thank you.
