In commissioning the TV documentary ‘I Can Change Your Mind About Climate’, to be broadcast on Thursday 26 April, the ABC has been duped by the climate change denier tactic of doubt-mongering, says Professor Clive Hamilton, the Vice-Chancellor’s Chair of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University (CSU).

 

The program pits former Liberal senator Nick Minchin, who famously claimed that climate science is a communist plot, against youthful climate change activist Anna Rose.

 

“Climate change deniers realised they could not win the argument over climate science, so they set out only to create the impression that there is a serious debate among climate scientists,” said Professor Hamilton, who is based at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) in Canberra.

 

“By reinforcing the impression that there are ‘two sides’ to climate science, the ABC program is a victory for climate denial even before it goes to air.

 

“There are not two sides in the debate over climate science. What we have is an enormous body of scientific evidence on one side, compiled by a large number of researchers over many years and published in professional journals, and on the other an assortment of disgruntled ‘experts’, political ratbags, and anti-science fundamentalists.

 

“The ABC has a sorry history of promoting climate deniers. It should wake up and follow National Public Radio (NPR) in the US, which has revised its ethics handbook to place truth before attempts at spurious balance.

 

“NPR has committed itself to be ‘fair to the truth’. The ABC has a duty to present the truth and not pander to climate change deniers’ political objectives.”

 

Professor Hamilton is the author of three books on climate politics and has been invited to lecture at the University of Oxford on the subject.