Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 10, 2010, Maurice Newman, a neoliberal warrior from the 1970s onwards, gave a climate denial speech to senior ABC staff. Prime Minister John Howard had appointed him as chair in January 2007.
In a speech to senior ABC staff on 10 March 2010 he said climate change was an example of “group-think”. According to an ABC PM account of the speech: “Contrary views had not been tolerated, and those who expressed them had been labelled and mocked. Mr Newman has doubts about climate change himself and says he’s waiting for proof either way.”
(wikipedia Maurice Newman)
and
“The media hasn’t been good at picking these things up and it’s really been the question of what is conventional wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical.
“And I brought in as well in that vain what’s been going on in climate change where there’s been clearly a point of view which has been prevailing in the mainstream media, and the fact that again perhaps consensus and conventional wisdom may not always stand us in good stead.”
https://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2842177.htm
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 391.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
People like Maurice Newman, long time neoliberal soldier, want to be within the commanding organisations such as universities and media, for obvious reasons. And he did what he (was) set out to do….
What I think we can learn from this
What’s interesting, what we can learn is that these terms like “groupthink” gets thrown around as if there’s some sort of profound statement. And they’re a shortcut for avoiding actually engaging with the fact that the science around the basics of climate change has been settled for a very long time. Unable to combat that. Newman and his ilk resort to name-calling and pseudo profound smears. But it’s quite effective…
What happened next
In an article in The Australian on May 8, 2015, Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council, said that the United Nations is behind the global warming hoax. The real agenda of the UN “is concentrated political authority. Global warming is the hook,” Newman said. “This is not about facts or logic,” he added. “It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN. It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.”
James Powell Could Scientists Be Wrong
http://jamespowell.org/resources/CouldScientistsBeWrong.pdf
The ABC has continued to be a site of struggle, and has been almost entirely hollowed out by the neoliberals and their chums. You can always track individual journalists and stack the board with non entities and lackeys and if they persist in being independent, reduce their funding until they get the message.
See also organisational decay.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs...
