Sitting here, head in hands, all I can think is what a terrible day for Australia.

Only minutes ago the Senate voted to repeal the Carbon Tax. Sure, it might not have been the best option available to limit future greenhouse gas emissions, but it was a start and it seemed to be working! Even Big Business admits that very little, if any, of the financial ‘burden’ was passed on to energy consumers! The tax seemed to be absorbed pretty well by the economy and has been linked to a boost in the renewable energies sector and the creation of new manufacturing jobs… and god knows we need it! For all its faults, the Tax at least sent a message to humanity that, yes, Australia is serious about climate change and a ready, willing and valuable player on the World stage when it comes to climate policy and global action. As a Nation, we deserve to be shunned by the rest of the world over this farce.

And for all those who think that climate action falls along party lines, please explain to me why some of the most conservative governments in the world, including UK and Germany, are able to deal with climate change effectively whilst maintaining their conservative ideologies and solid economic growth?

What makes me sad is that the Senate’s decision today sends a clear and powerful message to the rest of the world that, in Australia, Science is simply considered to be another system of dogma, belief or ‘opinion’ by serious policy-makers, rather than a philosophy of objectivity and evidence-based consensus and decision making. I suppose it explains why the Government is continuing to take the advice of a teaching ‘expert’ who thinks that physically assaulting and abusing a child is fine, if done in the ‘correct way’, despite the wealth of scientific evidence to the contrary, and why we’re slowly dismantling the CSIRO. Oh yeah, we don’t have a Science Minister either… forgot about that bit.

To those who think that climate change is ‘crap’ and simply someone’s ‘opinion’, please answer these questions: do you trust your car mechanic to test your brake-pads, doctor when checking up on your STIs, electrician when installing the wiring on your granny-flat extension, phone when making an electronic funds transfer? If so, you should trust and believe a climate change scientists. It’s all the bloody same philosophy!

Just because you don’t understand how something operates, doesn’t mean that it’s not TRUE! I don’t know how quantum mechanics works, for instance, but my mobile phone operates regardless of my ignorance. Likewise, I’d be hard-pressed to explain how vaccines enable disease resistance in my body, but I know that they do and that’s enough for me to get the jab! Again, just because I don’t understand it, doesn’t mean that it’s not an accurate model to explain how the physical world operates.

Trust a scientist and the scientific process – it’s the best system we have to weed out the loads of crap in this world that make our lives difficult. Fundamentally, an attack on climate scientists and the philosophy that has driven their discoveries over the past two decades or so is an attack on all who hold Science as fundamental to human enterprise.

I thought we finished fighting this corner 400 years ago or so…