Murdoch’s Courier-Mail | Letter to the Australian Press Council

24 Feb

24 February 2022

Australian Press Council
PO Box 1014
North Sydney NSW 2059

Dear Australian Press Council,

The full-page advertisement published today on page 15 of the Murdoch family’s The Courier-Mail has breached the following Australian Press Council general principles:

1. Ensure that factual material in news reports and elsewhere is accurate and not misleading, and is distinguishable from other material such as opinion.

2. Ensure that factual material is presented with reasonable fairness and balance, and that writers’ expressions of opinion are not based on significantly inaccurate factual material or omission of key facts.

The advertisement – titled ‘The Greens are Lying about Climate: Four Reality Checks on Climate Alarmism’ – purports to list four false claims about climate change along with “reality checks” variously attributed to the Australian Academy of Science and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

In each case, these rebuttals are deliberate misrepresentations of the views expressed by those eminent scientific institutions. They are misleading half-truths that only appear contradictory because key facts have been omitted.

Claim 1: We are in a period of unprecedented ‘climate crisis’

The publication asserts that this is contradicted by the Australian Academy of Science. This is false. The Academy actually says:

Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions… Emission reductions are essential to help mitigate further warming, but we are already likely to exceed this 2°C warming.[i]

The Academy has also made repeated reference to the “climate crisis”. For example:

…The global pandemic does not change the fact that the world also continues to face an ever-growing environmental emergency. Indeed, COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of governments working together and we must build on this global response to address the climate crisis.[ii]

Claim 2: We have a climate emergency unless we stop producing CO2

The publication asserts this is contradicted by the NOAA. This is false. The NOAA actually says:

There’s no going back for some changes to our climate system but there is still time to slow, stop, or even reverse others by limiting warming. The report makes clear that until we reach global net zero emissions of greenhouse gases, we cannot limit warming to any temperature threshold, be it 1.5°C, 2.0°C or 3.0°C.[iii]

The NOAA has also repeatedly referred to the “climate emergency”. For example:

Panelists, representing different Hawaiian islands and who work with various federal, state, county agencies as the ‘boots on the ground,’ shared the voices of underserved communities and spoke to the issues of equity & resilience, the climate emergency, and community capacity building.[iv]

The NOAA also held a “Climate Emergency Workshop” for educators in the Pacific Islands region last June. The NOAA also funds an education program in Howard Country, Maryland, titled “Climate kNOWledge: Student Research & Action to Reduce the Impacts of the Climate Emergency”.[v]

Claim 3: CO2 is the cause of global warming

The publication asserts this is contradicted by the NOAA. This is false. The NOAA actually says:

NOAA research indicates that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations—the primary driver of global warming—continued to climb in 2020 despite the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.[vi]

Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and various chlorofluorocarbons are all human-emitted heat-trapping gases. Among these, carbon dioxide is of greatest concern to scientists because it exerts a larger overall warming influence than the other gases combined.[vii]

When it comes to causing global warming, carbon dioxide is without question the most important greenhouse gas.[viii]

Despite some uncertainty about just how much influence soot and other aerosol particles have played in climate change in the past century, there's little debate among climate scientists that the primary driver of recent global warming is carbon dioxide emissions.[ix]

The best estimate is that more than 50% of the observed global warming is due to greenhouse gas increases.[x]

Claim 4: Human sourced CO2 is the cause of global warming

The publication does not provide a source for its rebuttal. However, given the advertisement’s overall implication that the Australian Academy of Science and NOAA are trusted sources on climate science, here is what they have said:

The human-induced drivers have been dominant over the past century. Changes in greenhouse gas concentrations, dominated by CO2, caused a large warming contribution.[xi]

The best available evidence indicates that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the main cause. Continuing increases in greenhouse gases will produce further warming…[xii]

Human activities are increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. This increase is extremely likely to have caused most of the recent observed global warming, with CO2 being the largest contributor.[xiii]

We know this warming is largely caused by human activities because the key role that carbon dioxide plays in maintaining Earth’s natural greenhouse effect has been understood since the mid-1800s. Unless it is offset by some equally large cooling influence, more atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to warmer surface temperatures. [xiv]

Fossil fuels—the equivalent of millions of years of plant growth— are the only source of carbon dioxide large enough to raise atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts as high and as quickly as they have risen. [xv]

This extremely rapid build-up of carbon dioxide is happening because humans are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere faster than natural sinks can remove it. By burning fossil fuels, we have essentially taken millions of years of carbon uptake by plants and returned it to the atmosphere in less than 300 years.[xvi]

Human activities are now adding about 7 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, which is only about 3-4% of the amount exchanged naturally. But that's enough to knock the system out of balance, surpassing nature's ability to take our CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere… This is what is causing the rapid buildup of CO2, a buildup that dwarfs natural fluctuations.[xvii]

Human emission of billions of tons of carbon dioxide every year is sometimes referred to as humanity's "uncontrolled experiment on the climate system." Whether for good or ill, the experiment has convinced an international panel of climate experts that Arrhenius' hypothesis was right: the increased abundance of carbon dioxide is slowing the rate at which heat escapes through the top of Earth's atmosphere.[xviii]

Australia is a free country and the Murdochs are entitled to sell advertising space to whomever they please. However, when they do so, they have a responsibility to ensure the material they publish is consistent with basic ethical standards.

The Press Council general principles represent what the Murdochs have accepted as the bare minimum standards for media owners in this country. These standards have not been foisted onto the Murdochs by outsiders; they were crafted by the industry, including News Corp itself. These responsibilities do not vanish merely because they accept money to push disinformation onto the Australian people.

I have asked *********** to manage this complaint on behalf of Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission. They are contactable on *********** or ***********.

Yours faithfully,
Hon Kevin Rudd AC
Chair, Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission

Cc: Chris Jones, Editor of the Courier-Mail; Professor John Shine AC, President of the Australian Academy of Science; and Dr Rick Spinrad, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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[i] https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/events/2018-negative-emissions-conference-big-picture-negative-emissions

[ii] Science academies around the world call on governments for a sustainable recovery from COVID‑19 | Australian Academy of Science

[iii] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/release-ipcc-6th-assessment-report-working-group-1

[iv] https://www.noaa.gov/regional-collaboration-network/noaas-climate-and-equity-roundtables

[v] https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/noaa-fisheries-funding-bolster-environmental-education-projects-chesapeake-bay

[vi] https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-chicago-partner-on-climate-plan-to-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions

[vii] https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/GlobalWarmingFAQ_2020Update.pdf

[viii] https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/GlobalWarmingFAQ_2020Update.pdf

[ix] https://drupal-www.climate.woc.noaa.gov/news-features/climate-qa/isnt-there-lot-disagreement-among-climate-scientists-about-global-warming

[x] https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/paleoclimatology/paleo-perspectives/global-warming

[xi] https://www.science.org.au/learning/general-audience/science-climate-change/3-are-human-activities-causing-climate-change