The University of Queensland (UQ) surveyed more than 300 federal, state and local government politicians about their views on climate change. The headline figure: about 70 per cent believed in human-induced climate change and rated it one of the country’s most important challenges.
But when they broke this figure down by party affiliation, this is what emerged:
- 98% of Greens said the planet was warming because of human activity producing greenhouse gases
- 89% of Labor pollies agreed, along with
- 57% of non-aligned politicians and
- 38% of Liberal-Nationals.
This presents us with two complete WTFs.
- As Jeff Sparrow points out, there must be one climate sceptic in the Greens.
- Climate change scepticism moves almost entirely along party lines.
If there were a serious, legitimate scientific debate about climate change, this would not be the case.
There would be people from all partieswho would be convinced by either side of the argument. Of course, there would be some degree of bias along ideological grounds; Greens and Labor are traditionally more pro-environment while the Coalition tends to support business. But it could not possibly be so stark.
In reality, we have people automatically taking positions on a question of scientific debate based entirely on their political beliefs.
The only conclusion a thinking person can draw is that climate change scepticism is an entirely political movement, which has nothing to do with science and everything to do with ideology. It could not be more obvious.