Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that 350 research jobs are to be cut at the government CSIRO.
Climate science to be gutted as CSIRO swings jobs axe
Fears that some of Australia’s most important climate research institutions will be gutted under a Turnbull government have been realised with deep job cuts for scientists to be announced to staff later today.
Fairfax Media has learnt that as many as 110 positions in the Oceans and Atmosphere division will go, with a similarly sharp reduction in the Land and Water division.
Total job cuts would be about 350 staff over two years, the CSIRO confirmed in an email to staff, with the Data61 and Manufacturing divisions also hit.
The cuts were flagged in November, just a week before the Paris climate summit began, with key divisions told to prepare lists of job cuts or to find new ways to raise revenue.
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“Climate will be all gone, basically,” one senior scientist said before the announcement.
The announcement seems to leave open the possibility that jobs will be retained, if scientists can convince private businesses to fund their research positions. Given intense hostility and accusations of bias directed towards some climate scientists who accept funding from private sources, it remains to be seen whether any CSIRO climate scientists will pursue this option.
Now they can start on the BOM?
Can’t wait.
“The cuts were flagged in November, just a week before the Paris climate summit began, with key divisions told to prepare lists of job cuts or to find new ways to raise revenue.”
Enter the koala bear, stage left.
[snip – mod]
Couldn’t they all just be redeployed into some other CSIRO division that manufactures a completely ineffective vaccine against a mundane ailment that the government then buys with taxpayer $$$’s and distributes to the general population for free?
they already got that dept 😉
seems you can’t vaccinate against stupid.
just FOR it
Look ma, the Koala has no clothes!
Logic of a situation of their own making.
Oh what a tangled web we weave, claiming
the science ‘s settled, no need for more research
funded from the long suffering public purse.
You do realise surely that these employees will depart (if it actually happens which i doubt) with enormous redundancy payments. Then in 6 months time , with a new Govt and/or new minister they will be rehired to their old positions.
That is what happens, with depressing regularity from the taxpayers’ viewpoint ,in the UK civil service and NHS organisations , I doubt that the practice is any different in Australia.
No problem for the redundant scientists from the CSIRO.
Swing over to the skeptic side and collect your cheque from BIG OIL, like the rest of us.
At this point in time a lot of climate research is probably a waste of money. Climate science and renewable energy haven’t moved that much in spite of billions of dollars of research. Yes, we have had a lot of incremental improvements in energy technology but no breakthroughs. Climate science is a corrupt festering cesspool. The money can be spent better elsewhere.
Breakthroughs happen when conditions are right. An example is supercomputers. In 1900 we could have spent the entire GDP on trying to build the equivalent of a supercomputer and we would not have succeeded. Supercomputers required solid state electronics and that wouldn’t have happened for another fifty years. Nobody in 1900 was saying: “we need semiconductors”. We needed a breakthrough and we didn’t know what it would be.
Renewable energy requires energy storage and that will require a breakthrough and we can’t predict what that breakthrough will be.
Trying to focus CSIRO on income producing projects is short sighted. We need curiosity driven research and a search for novelty. Government should do/fund research that private industry won’t do. That’s the only way way we will get the breakthroughs that we need. Why Greatness Cannot be Planned
Renewable Energy requires a break in the fundamental laws of physics to be viable. Energy storage doesn’t fix it- it requires reliable high energy density from a low energy density unreliable source.
Right on, Michael. Storage does not make solar or wind more affordable. It makes them more expensive. Simply do the math.
“At this point in time a lot of climate research is probably a waste of money. Climate science and renewable energy haven’t moved that much in spite of billions of dollars of research.”
That’s not entirely true. Progress is being made. We’ve seen a great improvement of our knowledge of the relationship of solar activity and climate. We have far more understanding of the issues of site selection and deployment for climate measurements also urban/rural heating. There’s a growing consensus forming around the “lapse rate” mechanism for greenhouse warming (sadly missing on this blog). We now have a great deal more understanding of climate models, natural variation and I think my own “Caterpillar theory” of tectonic plate heating and cooling a s feedback mechanism is key to the ice-age cycle.
So there is steady progress being made – albeit I agree almost none of it was funded by that “billions of dollars”.
You are right. Bell Labs did great work. Just curious and smart guys investigating stuff.
Here it is: LPPhysics.com .
Shifting focus of our impact, we want to innovate rather than just innovate, take invention off the lab bench.
From measuring climate change we are trying to mitigate climate change.
Innovation for mitigation.
We are focussed on answering what we are going to do about it
Invest in how we adapt to severe weather events
We spent a decade pioneering this area
We are a lone voice in the wilderness
Most of the unis in the world are good at climate[models].
Put emphasis on how we navigate climate change.
We use science to predict how to grow higher value crops to export.
how do we increase the amount of renewable energy [without damaging the environment].
deeper collaboration with 41 unis.
The above is a precis of the CEO of the CSIRO s interview on the ABC just finished the seven thirty report.
Quite a few years ago, a buddy of mine working in the nuclear research division of CSIRO told me the lively discussion regarding AGW that had been taking place via email between a number of CSIRO scientists and analysts ended up being shut down by the CSIRO bigwigs.
He suspected it was an attempt to stifle debate, which wouldn’t surprise me, but, having been involved in such discussions myself when I used to feel the facts might need my help, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were just trying to make sure people didn’t forget to do their jobs.
“All right lads, let’s get back to work now, shall we?” I can see that. Not all unfavorable outcomes require evil motivations.
David Suzuki coming to Australia. Bet any talks he gives will be much more carefully managed so he does not get another slap down.
This is what he is attending https://www.womadelaide.com.au/ Any ideas on his fee?
Why does Canada have all the Nuts. David Suzuki,Elizabeth May, Justin.
You forgot Maurice Strong, the ring leader.
Maurice Strong: RIP He ate the UN’s world health organisation dietary goals. Which kills people. Please Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1vvigy5tQ
because you need to be crazy to live here in winter.
http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/live-expectations-high-as-trudeau-and-notley-meet-in-Edmonton; The 700 Million will go to SOLLAR Panels just watch. Be careful what you wish for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley speak to media after ……also
Kathleen Wynne
Does David Suzuki have a death wish? Didn’t he get shown up as ignorant on an earlier visit to Australia?
Ian M
Ah, a Canadian thread. Sorry, I cannot answer your question, it’s a disturbing observation. Here in Ottawa, we are having a mercifully mild winter; no one is complaining about the lack of cold.
“Climate will be all gone, basically,” one senior scientist said before the announcement.
This is excellent news for all Australians as it will mean an end to all those droughts, floods, wildfires, and heat waves that have so pestered us in the past. And it all has been achieved with a notable saving to the cost of government employment. This is what I call a win-win situation.
CSIRO. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research. Maybe “Climate” shouldn’t be part of this institute’s mission anyway.
The organisation is too massive. The research of everything with tiny departments that did little and just picked up money along the way. It should be totally broken up, then it would become productive and useful.
CSIRO. Climate Science Idiots Research Organization.
What will happen if all the other climate scientists in the world come out on strike in support of the ‘CSIRO 350’ ?
Where will we be then ?
without a climate for the strike duration?
…taking rapid strides forwards?
‘Fears that some of Australia’s most important climate research institutions will be gutted’
Plural. One would seem sufficient, if not excessive.
The annual cost of these 350, assuming average salaries of $60,000, is $21,000,000. Big Green could afford to fund them without too much of a strain. Maybe BG could use supporting them as a rationale to donate to it part of its fund-raising drives.
Roger, obviously you are familiar with US rates of pay, but here in AU you can easily double your $60,000. No one would work for the CSIRO at under $120,000PA, except, maybe the cleaners !
My nephew while he was working at CSIRO to attain his PhD earned a lot less than $60,000 p.a. He lost a lot of weight.
Love it. Lying has cost them their jobs for all the wrong reasons, but hey who cares?
Maybe. Sometimes you can lose your job for knowing something. Depending on your point of view, are you sure the right people are losing their jobs? Some people could be starting to question. Oh, we have to get rid of them.
If you read Dr. Marshall’s comments he seems to be suggesting many of the current CSIRO senior scientists need to go. Because why would you get rid of senior scientists just to make a career path for junior scientists, unless the latter showed more promise than the former?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-04/climate-science-on-chopping-block-as-csiro-braces-for-shake-up/7139224
I hope other countries follow this lead! Lets get back to sanity!
Although I bet they will get good payoffs/redundancy and retain their gold plated pensions.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Hopefully, through government funding cuts and a shift to a commercial model, the only “climate [that] will be all gone…” is the climate of global warming alarmism and fear mongering.
For too long, so many of our most revered scientific and learning institutions have become the breeding grounds for the great global warming scare – cultivated by ideology and activism, and nourished by an unlimited diet of unregulated taxpayer billions.
With ‘environmentalists’ in control of our institutions, a culture of one-way science has been allowed to flourish through the forces of ‘monopolistic funding’, whereby government money is directed into “man-made” global warming research, whilst studies and funding into “natural” climate change are non-existent.
This oneway flow of money ultimately skews and distorts the science that is output.
Joanne Nova notes, a “lack of funding for alternatives leaves a vacuum and creates a systemic failure. The force of monopolistic funding works like a ratchet mechanism on science. Results can move in both directions, but the funding means that only results from one side of the equation get “traction.”
The systemic failure self-perpetuates :
* Where’s the motivation in proving anthropogenic global warming wrong?
* How serious are they about getting the data right? Or are they only serious about getting the “right” data?
* “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair, 1935
The oneway flow of government funding leads not only to an unhealthy distortion of science, but also to an unhealthy bias in the scientific and media reporting we receive on climate change.
https://climatism.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/climate-money-monopoly-science-jonova-judith-curry-ipcc-update/
This may sound strange but I am wondering if the death of Prof Bob Carter is a factor here .
It is not hard to imagine that there may have been a push for special arrangements involving
government representation . Which in turn may have provoked influential people to watch
some of the videos Prof Carter produced.
Sadly that is probably wishful thinking .
Hmmm… 350 “scientists” hitting the job market with no demonstrated ability to do anything but political science. Many of these newly unemployed will likely need to change professions. Their inability to follow let alone understand how the scientific method works will soon become apparent to those naive enough to hire them.
well, assuming they can’t do statistics either, they all immediately qualify as PhD psychologists.
or cartoonists…
So it was budgetary allocation that drove the climate noise and volume-based hype, much like budgetary allocation drives unwanted ethanol volumes in the U.S.
I suspect there will be a whistle blowers convention very soon.