THE ABC’s “favourite science communicator” Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, has clashed with Senator Malcolm Roberts in a Senate committee hearing on “climate disinformation”.
Dr Karl, and most of his journalist buddies at the ABC, are members of the climate cult. They passionately believe the end is nigh for the planet unless we all join the Global Environmental Salvation Crusade and work to end the evil presence of fossil fuels and turn everything electric with batteries, wind and solar.
These clowns forget how small we humans are in relation to the climate systems that envelope the globe, as can be seen on our featured Earth-from-space image.
Dr Karl, on a video link to the Senate, was displaying a bit of attitude towards Senator Roberts and fired off some insults along the way. Roberts maintains there is no empirical evidence linking carbon dioxide emissions to “climate change” and says Australia’s own CSIRO was not able to refute this belief.
Roberts kicked of his questions for the doctor by laying down a foundation on the accepted definition of science as “the systematic, objective, rational study of our physical world through observation, experimentation and testing of theories against empirical data”.
“Oh, what’s that word empirical? I notice you love that word to pieces,” he sneered, attempting to conceal his contempt with a fake grin. Incidentally, Kruszelnicki appears on his latest TV series to have unusually pink lips and we wonder whether he actually uses lipstick for reasons related to sexual identity or something.
“Can you definite it (empirical data) for me,” Kruszelnicki asked Roberts, who shot back “sure, it’s a measured or observed data”.
Kruszelnicki bristled at this, suggesting that the phrase “empirical data” was in effect saying “data data”, but he would mostly agree with the definition.
Roberts went on to define scientific proof, which “involves using solid data as evidence in logical scientific points to prove cause and effect”.
“So it’s not only having data, physical data, it’s putting it within a logical scientific point that proves cause and effect,” the senator added.
“Right, so are you building a little assembly and where you’ll suddenly say and therefore climate change isn’t real, I fall over unconcious?” said Kruszelnicki, throwing in a bizarre non-sequitir and offering another silly grin.
“Why do you think that?” asked Roberts, looking somewhat bemused.
“Oh you, you’re laying out a boilerplate set of logical debating steps, but hit me with the next one.”
“So do you agree or not?” asked Roberts. “Data overwhelmingly, yes, depending on the data,” Kruszelnicki conceded, and then jumped in to ask Roberts a question.
“Do you agree that climate records show the last 10 years have been the hottest on record worldwide?”
“The last 10 years have been cooler than the 1880s and 1890s in Australia,” said Roberts, in reference to heatwaves, one of which in 1896 resulted in the deaths of 435 people and sent thousands of others fleeing for cooler locations.
Newspaper reports described temperatures in Bourke reaching 48.9 degrees Celsius on three occasions, and the maximum temperature remaining above 38C for 24 consecutive days.
Kruszelnicki repeated his question, stressing “worldwide”. “No I don’t,” said Roberts without hesitation.
“Hang on, I feel like I’m talking to a school child who says seven times two is not 14, but instead seven times two is a bicycle divided by the square root of a banana,” Kruszelnicki countered, resorting to an absurd argument (reductio ad absurdum).
“That’s one way to making me out to be a fool,” said Roberts. “But no 99.999 per cent of the scientists disagree with you,” said Kruszelnicki, citing highly dubious statistics.
“So now you’re into consensus, which is a political tool, so lets continue here …”
Kruszelnicki saw his chance and jumped on the comment: “Hang on, consensus is a political tool?” Two other voices in the background chipped in “Scientific consensus is not a political tool.” Cairns News would suggest it definitely is, when you have a political agenda behind your “scientific crusade”.
NewsLtd, aka Limited News, cast the story with the headline “One Nation Senator’s Wild Claim”, with reporter David Wu suggesting Roberts’ consensus statement shocked those listening.
The reality is that there is no 99.999% consensus on the issue of alleged anthropogenic global warming.
A paper published by the US National Institutes of Health notes a letter signed back in 1993 by over 50 leading members of the American Meteorological Society warned against policies promoted by environmental pressure groups.
“The policy initiatives derive from highly uncertain scientific theories. They are based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuel and requires immediate action. We do not agree.”
Those who signed the letter then represented the overwhelming majority of climate change scientists in the United States, of whom there were about 60.
However, up until 2021 the world was flooded by more than 88,000 “climate change studies”. According to Cornell University, 99.9% of these that agree that humans have accelerated climate change, largely due to carbon emissions and these are cited as the so-called consensus on the issue.
Funding for many of these studies has been provided by multiple environmental NGOs and government environment departments pushing environmental policies that justify themselves with dire warnings of alleged environmental catastrophes caused by human activity.
News Ltd cited the World Meteorological Organisation reporting that the last three years “have been the hottest on record” (or more accurately since records began). “That was backed up by non-profit Berkeley Earth, which said 2025 was the third warmest year since 1850, according to its independent analysis,” News Ltd reported.
“It combined 23 million monthly-average thermometer measurements from 57,685 weather stations with 500 million temperature observations collected by ships and buoys.
“The warming spike observed in 2023 to 2025 has been extreme and suggests an acceleration in the rate of Earth’s warming,” the organisation stated last month.
“The spike has multiple causes, including both natural variability and man-made global warming from the accumulation of greenhouses gases.”
The claimed fact that we have experienced the third warmest year since 1850 should raise questions about the claim that “increasing CO2 emissions are causing an increase in global temperatures” – a claim Senator Roberts says is not supported by empirical data.
The Senate last year announced, at the initiation of the Greens and Labor, an inquiry on the alleged “prevalence and impacts of misinformation and disinformation on global warming and energy”.
“
