Science Blog

The Salinger dismissal: Is there more to it?

Peter Griffin, Manager, NZ Science Media Centre
26 April 2009

See the original article and comments from the SMC NZ website

Peter Griffin from the NZ Science Media Centre discusses the dismissal by the NZ Government of one of that country's most senior climate scientists.

A few weeks ago I was sitting on the couch watching weather man Jim Hickey rip through his weather bulletin when he made a quick comment that NIWA’s Jim Salinger had been in touch with a weather update.

“That’s great,” I said to myself. Here’s a scientist who works for the Government’s water and atmospheric research institute, given the freedom to contact the weatherman with tidbits of up-to-date information. A symbiotic relationship that helps everyone, not least the public.

Well, according to news reports of Dr Jim Salinger’s dismissal from NIWA, contact with Hickey that wasn’t sanctioned by NIWA contributed to Salinger losing his job after 27-odd years working for Government research institutions.

Journalists and scientists I’ve heard from since the news broke are shocked at Salinger’s dumping. Salinger is one of the country’s most respected climate scientists, has done a lot of valuable science communication over the years and by no means can be considered a maverick for his research in any area. When it comes to climate change, he contributed to the IPCC research. In other words, he endorses the consensus view among scientists that humans are significantly contributing to climate change and that we need to do something about it.

Salinger has not been all that familiar with controversy. Last year when the US lobby group the Heartland Institute tried to use Salinger’s research to push its position that burning fossil fuels does not contribute to global warming, Salinger was outraged and asked that references to his work be removed. The Heartland Institute refused, and that’s pretty much as far as the issue went.

If Salinger was a renegade, blogging views that were completely out of line with the official line NIWA takes on climate change,you could understand the grounds for conflict. But he wasn’t a renengade. So would a few other unauthorised media interactions with a seasoned science communicator really be enough to justify giving him the boot?

It’s hard to say - NIWA can’t tell its side of the story as it is an employment matter and may go legal. Of all the CRIs, NIWA is among the most media friendly. It’s communications people keep tabs on what their scientists are saying to the media, but are known to encourage science communication.

However, CRI scientists, unlike their colleagues at universities have the doubled headed beast of commercial interest and political oversight to deal with. As such, observers are already suggesting that political interference has played a part in Salinger’s dismissal. Consider this comment from a reader left on climate blog Watts Up With That?

“The incoming liberal /conservative National Government is busy replacing staff & stamping its authority on all departments, budget cuts are a certainty, job cuts will follow. NIWA bosses will be under the gun like everybody else Jim Salinger’s demise will be a clear warning to the AGW [anthropogenic global warming] camp that the current government is much more sceptical about AGW and the need for Carbon taxes etc.”

Others are coming to the same conclusion. This from local blog Hot Topic: “Salinger’s dismissal raises questions of free speech and academic freedom, and if the government is to avoid suspicions of censoring inconvenient truths — at a time when cranks are being given time to spout nonsense before the ETS Review committee — then it needs to act swiftly to reaffirm that New Zealand scientists are not being muzzled.”

It’s premature to compare Salinger’s case to that of Jim Hansen, the NASA scientist who claimed political interference by the space agency when he urged action on climate change. But given Salinger’s international reputation, there needs to be some reassuring signal from the Government that the sacking of its most senior scientist wasn’t politically motivated. Otherwise the implications for New Zealand and its place in the scientific community could be far-reaching indeed.

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