Climate data gathering to be axed by Turnbull's "innovation" gov - CSIRO to lose 350 jobs

*Update: sign petition to save the CSIRO here.

I just can't keep up with "every sinew" of this gov innovating left, right, and centre. 

Last century's broadband, last century's anti-worker Lieberal rhetoric, and now the latest innovation is to end the CSIRO's world leading climate data gathering. About 350 jobs will go.

Right in the middle of climate change, when we need to know exactly how it's changing for Australia. FFS this is against the national interest!

The CSIRO is a world leader in the study of climate change and its findings have been critical in global understanding and the development of possible responses to it.

The CSIRO’s research is vital to Australia because we are one of the nations on the planet with the highest exposure to the effects of climate change. We are already a desertified country and our population is heavily concentrated along the coasts which are at risk of inundation due to sea level rise and storm surges, as well as the effects of intensifying climate behaviour.

In the email to CSIRO staff, notifying them of the organisation’s looming structural changes. Chief Executive, Dr Larry Marshall stated that “We have spent probably a decade trying to answer the question is the climate changing…After Paris that question has been answered. The next question now is what do we do about it. The people that were so brilliant at measuring and modelling [climate change], they might not be the right people to figure out how to adapt to it." He goes on to describe the importance of moving into the digital age.

Up to 350 positions may be at stake. The problem is that the question has not been “answered”. Far from it. If we are to come up with solutions, particularly solutions for the conditions specific to our country, we must continue to develop our understanding of what is happening, how it is happening and to scientifically project what will happen in the future under emerging scenarios. If this is part of a strategy to devote more research to the mitigation of climate change, it does not make sense to discontinue tracking the change and understanding and projecting its effects.

And as far as Paris goes, Australia has hardly shown itself to be at the front of the pack when it comes to putting words into action. We have a long way to go before we can be considered to be pulling our weight internationally. With our lack of action to date, we are far more likely to be technology takers than technology makers, simply because we will be starting from so far behind – not to mention that are our hulking, aging and inefficient coal fired power stations are innovation blockers... The Climate Institute