Climate Body Reopens

Tony Abbot made clear his position after winning the election two and a half years ago by scrapping the position of science minister, funds to stimulate green industries and scrapping the Climate Commission, a body tasked with analysing the science of climate change.  In a small piece of good news, the Commission has reopened:

An Australian climate change body scrapped by the new government has been relaunched as a non-profit organisation reliant on public donations. 

 ...

But the group resurrected itself as the Climate Council, saying it hoped "Obama-style" public donations raised online would keep it open

Australia is the developed world's worst polluter per head of population.

Sadly, I doubt that this effort will be successful.  I'm sure that they will get a flurry of funding in the wake of this announcement, but keeping things going long term without government or industrial support will be hard.  And those industries with the most money are also those that stand the most to lose from actions to combat climate change.  I would love to be proved wrong.

Also notable from the BBC article is this closing line:

Sceptics in Australia argue that warming temperatures are the result of naturally occurring cycles, and are not caused by society's excesses, our correspondent adds.

These people are denying the results of science because it is inconvenient to them.  Because, hey, science only underpins modern society, we can afford to trash it without consequence.  These people are either ignorant, stupid or evil.