Andrew Bolt: Eco experts trying to hoodwink us on state of environment

Tanya Plibersek’s environment report is shocking evidence of our intellectual decline, and of the Albanese government passing off a new age Aboriginal spirituality as the last word in science.

You’ve been hoaxed. You are the victim of a monumental fraud by new Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.

Plibersek last week released the five-yearly State of the Environment Report, which she claimed was the work of “experts” who’d found our “environment is in a poor state and getting worse”.

The report was “confronting”, “depressing” and “shocking”, groaned Plibersek, who immediately promised to lock up 30 per cent of Australia in parks and reserves – half as much again as is protected already.

Yes, this report is shocking, all right. But not in the way Plibersek meant.

It’s shocking evidence of our intellectual decline, and of the Albanese government passing off a new age Aboriginal spirituality as the last word in science.

Not that the media noticed – or dared point out. The Guardian Australia, for instance, insisted this “shocking report” was “completed by scientists”. The ABC agreed it was “written by 30 independent scientists”.

But it wasn’t. Many of the authors are actually Aboriginal activists, writers and even a “curator”. One is a student.

And the authors who are indeed scientists don’t appear for the most part independent. Many are warmists of long standing, almost all working for government agencies.

A lot of this report is not science at all.

Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek just proved she cannot tell the difference between science and religion. Picture: Gary Ramage

For instance, the report says some of its research comes from “Indigenous knowledge systems” and “yarning circles” with Aborigines, and every chapter starts with a quotation in an Aboriginal language of what you’d take to be some supposed Aboriginal wisdom.

In fact, each quotation sounds more like the babbling of a Byron Bay eco-mystic. The chapter on climate, for instance, starts: “Listen to country fighting for the day after tomorrow, people arise to heal country to live.”

But check some of the named “scientists” and “experts” behind Plibersek’s report. The three lead authors include two scientists, but also Terri Janke, described as “a Meriam/Wuthathi woman and an international authority on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property”.

Straight away we’re warned: this report is not just science.

Or take the chapter on our supposedly dangerous new climate. Only one of its three authors is a qualified scientist.

The other two are Damian Moran-Bulled, described in the report as “a proud Yorta Yorta man” who “has worked within the cultural heritage and natural resource management field”, and Sonia Cooper, “a Yorta Yorta woman” with “a strong interest in culture, the environment, science, policy, law, contracts and geopolitics”.

Cooper, we’re told, is “currently completing her Bachelor of Science degree”. So a student is now co-author of an allegedly scientific report to government which the Environment Minister cites to lock up a third of our continent?

In every chapter of the report it’s the same story, with many authors apparently chosen for their race above any scientific qualifications, or so it seems to me.

Many of the authors of the State of the Environment Report are warmists of long standing and almost all working for government agencies. Picture: David Swift

For instance, one of the two authors of the critical chapter on extreme events is Oliver Costello, who identifies as a “Bundjalung man” who “believes strongly in the role of Aboriginal culture as a keystone to maintaining livelihoods, supporting identity, connection to Country and enabling healthy and regenerative communities to care for Country”.

Costello, who campaigns for more “cultural burning”, has no scientific qualifications.

The report says “he holds a Bachelor of Arts in Adult Education and Community Management”.

A co-author of two of the chapters is Zena Cumpston, described as a “Barkandji woman” who “works as a writer, curator, consultant and researcher and is passionate about truth-telling and undertaking projects that directly benefit her community and Country”.

Yet another is a senior official of the green activist group WWF.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water seems to have selected exactly the “experts” likely to produce a desired conclusion – that our environment is terrible, global warming is catastrophic and “mining and agriculture have been identified by Indigenous people as causing degradation to Country”.

Yet the most frightening about this is Plibersek, our Environment Minister, took it seriously.

She’s not just decided to keep farmers and miners out of much more of our land, but last week froze work on a $4.5bn project to make fertiliser that our farmers desperately need after a few Aboriginal activists claimed its emissions somehow hurt nearby cave paintings.

Who knows if those activists have any science behind them, but does it matter?

Plibersek has just proved she cannot tell the difference between science and religion, anyway, and all of us must now pay.