The Australian newspaper is the national flagship of the Murdoch News Limited Media Empire in Australia. The Murdoch Empire controls about 70% of city dailies in Australia and has a disproportionate influence on Australian public life – hence the term , originally coined by outstanding expatriate Australian journalist John Pilger, “Murdochracy” to describe Western democracies in which Murdoch is the effective “king-maker”.
The pro-war, pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-oil, pro-fossil fuel, pro-US, pro-Zionist Murdoch media in Australia- most notably The Australian and the Melbourne tabloid newspaper The Herald-Sun - are notorious for climate change denialism.
On 17 January The Australian published an article about the devastating Queensland floods and the demand by Greens leader and senator Dr Bob Brown that the coal industry be taxed to help pay for the cost of such extreme events linked to greenhouse gas pollution. The article was entitled “Miners attack Greens leader Bob Brown over call for coal producers to fund flood clean-up”: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/queensland-floods/miners-attack-greens-leader-bob-brown-over-call-for-coal-producers-to-fund-flood-clean-up/story-fn7iwx3v-1225989350682 .
The Australian published 88 comments about the article (all but 7 anonymous) but did not publish the following carefully researched, informed, credentialed comment from a 5-decade career scientist, Dr Gideon Polya, submitted under his own name: “Dr Bob Brown is essentially correct. Fossil fuel burning successively increases atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs), sea temperature, evaporation and precipitation.
We know that breathing in pollutants from the burning of coal, gas, oil and cigarettes is associated with lung disease but we cannot prove that a specific case of lung cancer is due to any of these causes.
Similarly, while man-made global warming has been associated with a huge increase in extreme flood events throughout the world, because the weather is variable one cannot attribute a particular event such as the La Nina-linked Queensland floods to climate change.
However the message is clear from scientists that to avoid lung disease and extreme weather events such as the disastrous Queensland floods we must stop burning coal, oil and gas and remove the resultant atmospheric pollution (atmospheric CO2 must be urgently reduced to about 300 ppm; see "Climate change & flooding" c/- 300.org).”
What Dr Brown said: “Burning coal is a major cause of global warming. This industry, which is 75 per cent owned outside Australia, should help pay the cost of the predicted more severe and more frequent floods, droughts and bushfires in coming decades.”