On this day, May 25, 2011 noted climate scientist and deep thinker Alan Jones [that is irony – the man is a particularly shocking “shock jock”] tried to undermine a climate scientist on his radio show.
The context was that the minority Labor government of Julia Gillard was trying to get a carbon price (“a carbon tax” according to its opponents) through Parliament. There was an extremely virulent agitation against this.
Jones had David Karoly, Professor of Meteorology at the University of Melbourne and a contributor to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on his show.
Jones: Are you being paid for being on the Government’s Climate Commission Science Advisory Panel?…
Karoly: No, my salary is not being paid by that.
Jones: Are you in any, and in receipt of any, benefits or funds or anything at all from the…
Karoly: I am receiving a travel allowance to cover the costs of going to meetings of the Science Advisory Panel and I am receiving a small retainer which is substantially less than your daily salary.
Jones: So you’re paid by the Government and then you give an opinion on the science of climate change. Have you ever heard about he who pays the piper calls the tune?’ (Cited in Barry 2011b) (Ward, 2015: 235)
Why this matters.
This is a classic technique, to say that if someone gets any money at all from Them, then they and their work can be dismissed without any discussion of its merits, shortcomings, implications.
It’s a lazy (but necessary for the thick) shortcut to “winning.”
What happened next?
The Gillard legislation got up, and was then repealed by the next Prime Minister, Tony “Wrecking Ball” Abbott.
Gillard lost a leadership challenge in 2013, was replaced by Kevin Rudd.
Jones finished as a radio presenter in 2020. His Sky News Australia contract was not renewed.
Karoly retired in 2021.