{"id":26654,"date":"2017-10-10T06:36:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T11:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26654"},"modified":"2017-10-10T06:36:19","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T11:36:19","slug":"climate-scientists-attack-tony-abbotts-misleading-speech-to-global-warming-policy-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26654","title":{"rendered":"Climate Scientists Attack Tony Abbott&#8217;s &#8216;Misleading&#8217; Speech to Global Warming Policy Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2017\/10\/09\/climate-scientists-attack-tony-abbott-misleading-speech-global-warming-policy-foundation\">Climate Scientists Attack Tony Abbott&#8217;s &#8216;Misleading&#8217; Speech to Global Warming Policy Foundation<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-12193 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/abbott_0.jpg?itok=0hBPDDOo\" alt=\"Tony Abbott\" width=\"826\" height=\"563\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix\">\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-share-wrapper new-horizontal-email-wrapper clearfix last\">Australian climate scientists have hit back at their former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, describing his speech to a London think tank as being laced with distortions, falsehoods, misrepresentations, and\u00a0misdirection.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>Abbott <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegwpf.org\/tony-abbott-daring-to-doubt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told the contrarian Global Warming Policy Foundation<\/a>\u00a0(<span class=\"caps\">GWPF<\/span>) that rising carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning could be \u201cbeneficial\u201d and compared acceptance of human-caused climate change to\u00a0religion.<\/p>\n<p>The <span class=\"caps\">GWPF<\/span>, founded by former Thatcher government treasurer Lord Nigel Lawson, consistently pushes positions on climate change that fall well outside the established\u00a0science.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation, which claims to be bi-partisan but has accepted funding from many conservative figures, had declined requests from several specialist climate change media outlets to hear the Abbott lecture, claiming the speech \u201cwas not a media\u00a0event.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Benjamin Henley, a University of Melbourne scientist specializing in ancient climate change and climate models, who read the transcript, said: \u201cIt is precarious territory for a politician to enter the scientific boxing ring, with only a bible of conspiracy theories and misconstrued talking points in hand. His speech is full of falsehoods, miscomprehension, and basic\u00a0untruths.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abbott lost the leadership of the conservative Liberal Party and, with it, the Prime Ministership, in September 2015 to the country\u2019s current leader, Malcolm\u00a0Turnbull.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott\u2019s public position on climate science has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/planet-oz\/2014\/jun\/16\/what-does-australian-prime-minister-tony-abbott-really-think-about-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">flip-flopped over the years<\/a>.\u00a0He once described the science as \u201cabsolute crap\u201d but during office, claimed to accept the basic facts and said he took the issue\u00a0seriously.<\/p>\n<p>But he has also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/planet-oz\/2013\/oct\/29\/climate-change-bushfires-smoking-denial-tony-abbott\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">denied any link between rising temperatures and Australia\u2019s bushfires<\/a>, going against decades of\u00a0research.<\/p>\n<h3>Abbott&#8217;s &#8216;Misleading&#8217;\u00a0Claims<\/h3>\n<p>Professor Steven Sherwood\u00a0of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales\u00a0refuted\u00a0Abbott\u2019s claim that climate models were\u00a0wrong:<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Climate Scientists Attack Tony Abbott&#8217;s &#8216;Misleading&#8217; Speech to Global Warming Policy Foundation Australian climate scientists have hit back at their former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, describing his speech to a London think tank as being laced with distortions, falsehoods, misrepresentations, and\u00a0misdirection. Abbott told the contrarian Global Warming Policy Foundation\u00a0(GWPF) that rising carbon dioxide emissions from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[41,141,2956,5317,3124,11559,705,801],"class_list":["post-26654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-australia","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-science","tag-desmog-blog","tag-global-warming-policy-foundation","tag-graham-readfearn","tag-science","tag-tony-abbott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26655,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26654\/revisions\/26655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}