The minority federal Labor government is pouring millions of dollars into cutting-edge research facilities it hopes will place Australia at the forefront of climate change research.
A new $55 million institute at the University of Western Sydney will use world-class facilities to research the impacts of climate change on the nation.
Opening the centre yesterday, federal Science and Research Minister Chris Evans said the Hawkesbury Institute would transform climate change research in Australia.
“The data produced at the Hawkesbury Institute will help determine the impact of climate change on our land and water resources and in turn, help us shape our response to these challenges,” he said in a statement.
“The facilities at the institute act as a climatic time machine.
“This will give scientists unique access to study the effects of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, changed rainfall patterns and rising temperatures on the environment,” he added.
The government spent a total of $40 million on the new institute while the University of Western Sydney contributed $15 million.
4 Responses
Why do you continually use the phrase “minority federal Labor Government”? If it truly had a minority it would not be the Government. It appears to be a subjective adjective used with the sole intention to cast doubt on the legitimacy of every one of the Government’s decisions or actions.
We use the phrase “minority Labor government” and also “the federal Labor-led government” to reflect to our many readers, particularly outside Australia, that the Australian Labor Party is is not the holders of an outright majority in the lower house of the Australian Parliament.
It is a legitimate description.
We certainly do not intend to cast any doubt on the legitimacy of the government or its decisions, in fact it probably should be commended for having achieved the legislative program it has, given the situation.
I hope the climate change institute will include studies of:
– Climate change over the past 15,000 years, its causes and effects ? (this should include an investigation of the reason why, about 4,000 years, ago sea levels were higher than at present.)
– How much did anthropogenic CO2 contribute to the success of the ‘green revolution’?
– How much does waste heat from inefficient energy conversion contribute to ‘global warming’?
– Why did the atmospheric warming trend of 1950-1998 plateau after that date even though CO2 concentrations continued to rise?
You can kiss your $55 million good-bye folks. What’s $55 million in the scheme of things anyway, there’s lots more where that came from.