Q & A fuels climate change hysteria

Television is such a powerful medium for stimulating discussion about current topics of debate. A good televised debate among members of a panel has the incredible potential to inform and engage the public about important issues and decisions that we face as a community.

Previously I might have agreed that the ABC’s Q & A program promoted these types of constructive debates, but last night was a disgrace.

Last night’s one hour episode (transcript here) sped through a number of controversial topics, including the canonisation of Mary MacKillop, the prosecution of Australian commandos in Afghanistan, bias in the Australian media and, lastly, the family favourite, climate change policy and carbon taxes.
Q & A seemed to take great pleasure in seating Tim Flannery, a scientist and a prominent climate change activist, next to fellow scientist but passionate climate change denier, Jennifer Marohasy. The two visibly squirmed in their chairs for 45 minutes in anticipation of the big face-off between them, so that the audience was positively baying for blood by the time discussion of climate change finally started.

This is not the appropriate forum for a “balanced” debate (whatever that means anyway) about climate change. In fact, Q & A last night served to actively promote and encourage the hysteria and fervour that clouds any notion of reason surrounding this topic.

Climate science, and all science for that matter, is founded on evidence-based research and hypothesis testing. It is based on real data, numbers and statistics that are meticulously and thoroughly presented in well-respected peer-reviewed publications. A “balanced” view, as the media so often piously claims to strive for, requires thorough review of this peer-reviewed scientific literature. A “balanced” view does not come from 10 minutes of two people from opposite sides talking over the top of each other, reeling off numbers and percentages to support their argument. Quoting facts and figures in this scenario becomes hear say rather than hard evidence. How can people be expected to develop informed opinions if neither side is given the opportunity to provide any substance and evidence for their argument? How can someone possibly effectively demonstrate the credibility of their evidence in such a highly emotionally-charged forum?


A debate such as this does not empower people to develop informed opinions and is far more destructive than constructive. At a time when we need society to start forming some sort of consensus for making policy decisions on this issue, the Q and A debate will serve only to further polarise public opinion rather than encouraging any common ground. The media needs to start accepting responsibility for the chaos that they continue to create.

Lamentably, debates about climate science are no longer based on careful review of available evidence, or even any sense of reason or logic, but are “won” by those who can yell the loudest. I don’t endorse the behaviour of the representatives of either side of the debate last night, even though I do agree with the opinions of one and not the other. Both Marohasy and Flannery showed gross disrespect for each other and for the subject they were attempting to discuss, and this was largely the result of their desperation to cover too much ground in such a short time slot. Both scientists became visibly flustered, interrupted each other and unnecessarily raised their voices to express completely futile arguments on both sides.

Whatever your opinion on climate change, decisions made about climate policy have serious ramifications for everyone and do not deserve to be trivialised in emotionally-charged debates such as this. What Q & A staged last night was no better than a melodramatic conflict better suited to a reality TV show. The debacle produced no clear result, rather just two frustrated, flustered and, dare I say, embarrassed scientists. The real victim of last night’s fiasco was neither Marohasy nor Flannery, only our prospects of rational and constructive debate about how to tackle climate change.