Page 2602 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 October 1992
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Global Warming
MR STEVENSON: My question is also to Mr Wood, but this time in connection with his responsibility for the environment, land and planning. I ask: How much money has been expended by the ACT Government on matters relating to the claim of an increase in global warming? Was the Minister aware before I mentioned it earlier today that NASA, in taking satellite temperature measurements globally since 1979, found no significant increase or decrease in global temperatures until the last year when, according to NASA figures released last week, there was a sharp drop in global temperatures of 0.7 of a degree?
MR WOOD: There has been no specific expenditure in any of my departments on issues relating to greenhouse. Certainly, officers with responsibilities stay informed of the various views on this and other scientific issues. For example, they prepare documents for me; they attend meetings here and across Australia from time to time - all as part of their duties. Those duties include a whole range of matters, and we do not isolate the cost of what they do in connection with greenhouse, nor would it be possible or desirable to do so.
In relation to the second part of the question, I have not seen that NASA data. I suppose that in time Mr Stevenson will table what he has. It is the case that you can always get someone to support your view - - -
Mr Stevenson: NASA?
MR WOOD: I will come to that. Mr Stevenson can always find someone to support a variety of his views. Even the other day, coming from my point of view, I see that someone is telling me that it is now safe to eat chocolates. It is in a national paper, so it has to be right. The person has "doctor" in front of his or her name, so it has to be super right. I am told, after some study, that I can eat chocolates. I like that idea, so I can believe in it.
Mr Stevenson has not even said - this is in response to his interjection and his laugh - what NASA is. It may be a significant American body; more likely, it is the National Association for Stupid Assessments. It might be Never Accept Stevenson's Authorities, or perhaps Nondescript Assumptions Sadly Askew. We could go on in this vein. Mr Stevenson did not identify particularly what he meant by NASA, nor did he say what NASA did with this documentation. I can well accept that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would be monitoring it and might well have brought out information about temperature changes over the period that it has done this. I would like Mr Stevenson, when he tables the document, to indicate what it has actually said about that information, other than the fact that there might be that bit of information there. I do not know that NASA, or any scientific body, would draw a conclusion in this area based on just 13 years, which is a relatively short timespan, or on one year, which is the point Mr Stevenson made.
Mr Stevenson, if he wants to expound these ideas, might table that document. I guess that he has it there somewhere. He might also table a vast range of other documents - hundreds of them; perhaps thousands - on this subject. Because they may not support his point of view, I do not expect that we will see them tabled. There is a whole range of other information about what we are doing in
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