At a time when science should be guiding government policy, important climate research is under attack, reports Ben Radford.
CSIRO
The “final” approvals for Adani’s Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland have proven to be a flickering green light, at best. Persistent challenges by the Environment Defenders Office Queensland (EDO) and Lock the Gate Alliance appear to have borne fruit.
The CSIRO Staff Association has slammed the latest proposed cuts to jobs in vital research areas of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia’s premier public scientific body.
The union warned of job redundancies in minerals research and the Sydney laboratory that helped invent wifi internet technology.
The CSIRO will spend $29.7 million on a three-year project to conduct an assessment, separation and treatment of radioactive waste at a CSIRO facility located on Department of Defence land near Woomera, South Australia. The Woomera facility is one of Australia’s largest storage sites for low and intermediate-level radioactive waste.
One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts held a press conference on November 7 to release a 42-page document that claims the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology corrupted climate data and that global warming is an international Jewish banking conspiracy to gain global control through environmentalism.
Pressure is mounting for the replacement of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) chief executive Dr Larry Marshall as the crisis deepens over the proposed sackings of hundreds of research scientists from the organisation's climate change and other divisions. Marshall is the controversial former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, appointed head of CSIRO in late 2014.
CSIRO researchers have uncovered a unique ability in bats that allows them to carry but remain unaffected by lethal diseases.
Unlike humans, bats keep their immune systems switched on all the time. Scientists believe this could hold the key to protecting people from deadly diseases.
Some of Australia's most important climate research institutions will be gutted as 350 jobs are cut at the CSIRO. Up to 110 positions in the Oceans and Atmosphere division will go, with a similar reduction in the Land and Water division. Data and Manufacturing divisions will also be hit.
Australia is at risk of becoming a scientific backwater due to the federal government’s budget cuts to the CSIRO.
The government has proposed a $111 million cut to CSIRO funding in the May budget — about 20% of its total funding — and at least 1000 full-time staff will lose their jobs over the next four years.
Eight CSIRO sites around the country will close. Many are in regional country towns, which rely on the sites for employment.
