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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Dr Robert Sparrow is a bioethicist and Lecturer at the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University.

“It’s pleasing to see the Vatican moving with the times and updating its list of mortal sins. It seems only fair that those who commit ‘modern sins’ should also burn in hell for all eternity alongside those who fail to confess the more traditional vices of lust, gluttony, sloth, and avarice, etc. As a bioethicist, I would admit that I’m somewhat bemused to see that merely carrying out ‘morally debatable’ scientific experiments is enough to jeopardise scientists’ souls. There are serious ethical issues about genetically modifying organisms or experimenting on embryos and I would like to see more rather than less debate about them. However, compared to ‘ruining the environment’, ‘causing poverty’, or ‘the excessive accumulation of wealth’, the sins that the Pope would encourage scientists to confess seem pretty small fry to me. I can only hope that the Catholic Church and those who pay attention to its pronouncements will spend as much time and effort condemning these everyday evils as they do the activities of scientists researching stem cells or helping infertile couples to reproduce.”

As a major international conference on the use of animals in science gets underway in Adelaide this week, veterinarian and animal testing consultant Dr Tim Morris from GlaxoSmithKline in the UK says Australia still has a lot of talking to do on this issue.

Australia has thankfully, so far, not been exposed to the type of violence and intimidation seen in Europe and the US against those scientists and organisations who use animals in their research.

The good news is that things are getting much, much better in the UK although there is some way to go (see article).

So should the scientists, animal technicians and veterinarians, meeting in Adelaide this week at the inaugural meeting of the new Australia and New Zealand Laboratory Animal Association, talk more about their work?

Maybe yes, for three reasons:

First, extreme tactics have already impacted other animal users in Australia (see article) and New Zealand (see article).

Second, there is no reason to suppose that it’s certain that extreme tactics won’t come to other areas, indeed even very close to home South Australia’s RSPCA is worried (see article)

Third, one way to address this potential risk may be to do something that, perhaps surprisingly, both anti-vivisectionists and scientists can agree on; increase the visibility of animal research (see article).

Of course anti-vivisectionists hope that increased transparency will turn the public away from using animals in research. But although new laws and strong police action have really helped turn the tide in the UK and US this is only part of the story. Academia, industry, unions, medical research charities all banded together to talk much more openly about the use of animals in research (go to www.medicalprogress.org), there has been a quiet revolution with institutions going public about their work. There have also been high profile student campaigns to support animal use and public petitions even being signed by Tony Blair.

All this work means that support for animal use in research is actually much higher in the UK than in Australia. Whilst polls always need to be taken with a pinch of salt, in the UK 89% of people support research for medical purposes, with no suffering, for life saving diseases where there is no alternative (see article), whilst in Australia , 55% are reported as agreeing with the statement; ‘It is right to use animals for medical testing if it might save human lives’ (see article).

So the discussion at this week’s conference is going to be interesting; what are the risks and benefits of greater transparency? Who owns this issue, and who should own it? Who is the audience, animal welfare and protection groups, or should it be direct to the public?

It’s worth noting too that in the UK the Science Media Centre has both been a primary driver of presenting this issue of animal use to the media, and so the public. In addition it has held training sessions for large numbers of scientists and others on how to talk publicly about their use of animals.

If you are a scientist and wish to contribute to this Science Blog, please contact the AusSMC.
Comments received are moderated by the AusSMC and placement cannot be guaranteed.

The opinions expressed in this Science Blog are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Science Media Centre.