Professor Aitkin laments he has been called a 'denialist', yet labels climate scientists as quasi-religious and says they are protecting their funding and influence.
Professor Aitkin laments he has been called a 'denialist', yet labels climate scientists as quasi-religious and says they are protecting their funding and influence.
The good cause - one that most of us support - can all too readily corrupt the conduct of science.
Australia may be lucky and sail through the boisterous economic seas without any significant impact on unemployment.
With so many competing choices for students the challenge is to excite them about science.
Thanks to Hillary Clinton's divisive campaign the Democrats will continue to splinter along class and racial lines, with real opportunities for John McCain.
The ABC's science presenter may be a 'living national treasure' but his behaviour can be pure junk.
Learning a new language is a multifaceted educational experience which offers a range of potential benefits.
Sixty years later the Palestinians are still paying for the Nazis' crimes.
The NSW Government is proposing to mandate that all standard unleaded petrol will contain ethanol while many countries are backing away from this - with good reason.
Energy and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has been as secretive as his Coalition predecessors on the issue of nuclear waste management.
Why does the evolution-creation debate persist, and why in America?
The academic bias in our education system is harming educational standards and intellectual diversity.
Increased economic equity between developed and developing countries is the best way to reduce the harms associated with public health disasters.
This self satisfied attitude of 'if its not in English then it can’t be worth saying' is a form of global provincialism.
A HECS-style loan scheme could help people in their time of need, but also would expect them to give back when times are good.
Let's offer refugees classes to teach them about their new home rather than exams.
The vilification of Islam, particularly in the West, has developed into something of a pseudo-intellectual industry.
There are times, in war or during emergencies, when individual rights have to suffer for the good of the whole.
In this US election cycle, the shadows of three past presidents - Reagan, Clinton and Bush - loom large.
Even the more extreme model projections only depict tropical oceanic warming still well within the limits that thriving reefs tolerate.
A new virtual fashion game gives young girls the message that their ultimate aim in life is to be a bimbo.
They want to put a gas pipeline through your property? So much for ownership, or at least the little person's ownership, and the right of refusal.
By 2050 the Great Barrier Reef will be unrecognisable. Bacterial slime, largely devoid of life, will be everywhere.
There is no need to tighten monetary policy after the March quarter's inflation figures - and no need to abandon or modify the inflation target either.
Despite its flaws, the Summit was a great success. It was an experiment in a new way of doing politics in Australia.
With an over-heated economy and powerful demand for labour, a wages surge would in times past be under way by now.
A contraceptive quick fix does nothing to address sexual abuse in Indigenous communities.
Implanon may be the new 'cool' contraceptive but it has some side effects that are worth noting.
Visions for Australian society and economy: what makes a 'Good Society' and should such a thing be measured in purely material terms?
Esperanto is the best choice for a general primary school strategy for LOTE in Australia.
It seems that Kevin Rudd's Government has given China a broad degree of latitude outside normal diplomatic behaviour.
The tax hike on pre-mixed drinks will yield $500 million for the next four years. That's a lot of money for a government with election promises to keep.
Providing the appropriate legal underpinning to future relations would be a significant step for Indigenous Australians.
Domestic violence policy is overwhelmingly dominated by the idea that it is something that men do to women.
Academic freedom, religious freedom and gay rights: why 'questioning the secular' is a reactionary discourse.
It is unfortunate that public school teachers get continual sniping from certain educational commentators.
To negative gear and minimise stamp duty, buy the home you want to invest in and rent the one you live in.
I wish I could be a more enthusiastic summiteer, but putting 1,000 'brainy' people into workshops produced very little.
'You'll regret it if you don't wear white.' Weddings aren’t really about the people getting married as much as what they mean to the people around them.
Are we adopting American spelling because it is somehow superior? Are we happy with this? Do we care?
The prices of food, oil, petrol and money are all going up. What is going on?
Australian public policy, and our economy, could benefit from the use of randomised trials to evaluate them first.
The odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades.
The ultimate consumer is consumerism itself, and the things it consumes are us.
Spirituality is a burgeoning industry, but is it good for mental health?
The great historical issues of our day are being decided not by historical argument, but by parliamentary vote, with judges enforcing these decisions.
To fight climate change environmental necessity must trump political convenience.
Many Australians erroneously assume the Constitution protects fundamental rights and freedoms.
Anzac day is a day of delusion: we have created a day of celebration of nationhood when we need a day of recognition that war is nothing but the ultimate human failure.
A new world is emerging that will require the recycling of waste that has not previously been recycled. And it is happening in China.
For historians, Anzac Day, is 'a martial affair with military music and ritual', while for churches and their army chaplains, it’s a 'faith event'.
How can we now get the public to take seriously peak oil concerns when these have not been rubber-stamped as 'valid' by Rudd’s Summit?
The 2020 Summit has lifted a cloud, providing 'permission' for Australians to reassess their own lives and where we are heading as a nation.
Kevin Rudd returned from overseas to be faced with the circus of the 2020 Summit and a raft of under performing Ministers.
Comparing the US sub-prime crisis to the great depression, or the 1970's oil crisis, is simply overblown.
The bottom line is that people who make poor investments or have poor business strategies should lose their money.
Due to the Bush administration's policy blunders, Iraq has now become an Iranian issue as well.
Geography is an essential tool in determining the future direction of the Australian economy.
Rewarding farmers for more sustainable practices will allow our children to enjoy their desserts without expanding our deserts.
Senator Clinton needs to win the Pennsylvania primary not just by a little, but by a wide margin, to re-establish her credibility and to re-energise her supporters.
To achieve better educational outcomes for Indigenous Australians we need to give tangible evidence that we value their cultures as much as we value our own.
Rather than waging history wars about the honour of the victors, perhaps we ought to try to understand the experience of those who were conquered and suffered.
As the countdown to the 2020 Summit continues, participants have been getting in early with their favourite ideas.
As anyone who has tried to call an electrician or plumber knows, we have an overheated economy, bumping up against supply constraints.
Friedrich Hayek theorised, quite rightly, that central planning is a dysfunctional way to run an economy.
Achieving an Indigenous treaty in Australia would be a long, hard process but it could help bridge the gulf between Indigenous people and the rest of Australia.
Persistent questions in our media about the US's readiness for a black or female president ignore some interesting facts.
The 2020 Summit is a chance to switch the focus of public debate from complaints about our system of government to ideas on how to improve it.
Book review: 'Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA', by Tim Weiner, reveals a failing and deficient CIA.
The 2020 Summit could well present that critical podium Indigenous people have been seeking for so long.
Kevin Rudd needs to know that Australia has a big repair job to do at the UN.
How can Pakistani politicians, who have not earned a single day’s bread in their lifetime, fathom and solve the real issues for ordinary Pakistanis?
Many in society do not value the disabled and equally do not value the disability support workers who help them achieve.
The question is how many of those attending Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit will be able to afford to disagree with the Government?
Technology has resulted in teenagers and young adults having a very different conception of privacy.
When partial compliance is as bad as none: the Paradise Dam in Queensland has a fishway for the Australian Lungfish that is all but useless.
In this financial crisis, Australia is no more than a subordinate, neo-colonial, financial and economic dependency dancing to the tune of Wall Street.
The ACT may have self government but it passes laws that diverge from federal policy at its peril.
'Global Haywire' is a cunning film about the evolution of man and the politico-economic power structures concocted to divide and conquer.
It's widely accepted and little-talked-about that we are running out of oil. The 2020 Summit continues that silence.
Kim Carr lays out his plans for the future of Australian manufacturing.
Each year in Alaska fur bearing animals are killed in a 'glorious hunt' by people like the Mighty Trapper.
It is not the job of the ABC to act as a counterweight to other media or mainstream ideologies perceived to be too right wing.
A satirical perspective on the US primaries - dead people have been known to vote!
What about having one official day when music debasing women is banned from the airwaves?
Sadly the dissemination of scientific findings is one of the lowest priorities on the agenda.
International Law, as embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, is controlled and interpreted by the five Permanent Members of the Security Council largely for their own benefit.
Anti-dogmatism is alive and well. There are many clergy in the Anglican and Uniting denominations who proudly turn their back on the formal study of theology.
The media needs to stop portraying people experiencing mental illness as violent criminals and stop presenting them as the enemy of civil society, public order and themselves.
The judges chosen for the PM's Literary Awards are populist but are they credible?
There are many countries which are waiting to see how Australia will reposition itself now that Rudd is in power.
The Beijing Olympics are an opportunity for the West to positively engage with China. Boycotts and ill-informed, empty rhetoric will destroy that opportunity.
On the world stage Israel has been traditionally cast as David in a battle against Goliath. But this is too simplistic.
The future under a ‘conservative’ Rudd Labor Government: Kevin Rudd continues Howard's policies with some minor tinkering.
A tale of six women with a readiness to stand up and be counted and a determination to defend human rights.
Palestinians and Jews once again marched for peace in Parramatta on Palm Sunday.
Of all the policy debates in Australia, school funding is perhaps the feistiest. If you have children at school, you’re an instant expert.
Which is it to be for Australia - Labor run on Rudd’s principles or dump those principles and cosy up to corporate mates?
ECT, or electro-convulsive therapy, is used as a treatment for people with depression. The trouble is, not much is known about it.
Any emissions trading scheme revenues must be matched by a reduction in other taxes.
Book Review: The P*rn Report, by Alan Mckee, Katherine Albury and Catharine Lumby, fails to debunk current misconceptions about p***ography.
Book review: 'Unimagined: a Muslim boy meets the West', by Imran Ahmad, is a light-hearted memoir which dispels Muslim stereotypes with deft.
The IPCC's evidence for dangerous, human-caused global warming, always slim, now lies exposed in tatters for all to see.
Are Indigenous Australians so economically useless and menacingly unattractive that they need to be relocated away from their birth place or removed from public view?
Finger wagging about what to eat is easy, but it's totally out of touch with reality.
China is the big winner from the change in government to Kevin Rudd and the ALP, and Japan a major loser.
Joel Fitzgibbon needs to demonstrate a better grasp of reality in Afghanistan.
Skimping on supporting carers ultimately ends up costing us as a society through lost productivity and increased health-care costs.
The 2020 Summit: we can barely begin to assess the security implications that climate change will place on Australian defence.