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The Center for Media and Democracy PR Watch [6] reports that an Australian corporate funded think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs [7] (IPA) is not renewing the contract for Jennifer Marohasy [8], one of its Senior Fellows and a global warming skeptic.

The news is actually somewhat surprising. IPA is a right-wing, corporate funded think tank with close ties to the Liberal Party of Australia (which is actually on the political right). Its Executive Director John Roskam is a former Howard government staffer and one of the organization’s key positions is to refute the science on issues such as climate change. A position that Marohasy promoted with vigor during her six-year tenure at IPA, though not all of her attempts to spread global warming denial came to fruition.

“I had great hopes for the planned collaboration between the IPA and University of Queensland on evidence-based environmentalism but the University proved too timid and conservative – at least for me.” - JenniferMarohasy.com [9]

Marohasy has also left her position as Executive at the Orwellian named Australian Environment Foundation [10] (AEF), which was established to help protect timber interests in Australia and founded by the IPA. The former Executive Director of the IPA described the AEF as “pro-biotechnology, pro-nuclear power, pro-modern farming, pro-economic growth, pro-business and pro-environment.” That last pro might be questionable.

Marohasy wrote of the resignation on her blog, “My five years with the organisation was always challenging and at times very rewarding. I gave the organisation a lot, and it is now time to move on.” Which is generally the case when an organization doesn’t renew your contract.

While the climate change denier community may miss her (though given her failure to mention Roskam in her departing blog post, one is left to wonder if the IPA will miss her), the Australian environmental community will not. Among her accomplishments at IPA, she contested the severity of reduced water flows in the Murray-Darling river system [11] although she failed to disclose that her work was being funded by Murray Irrigation Limited.

She also publicly asserted that global warming will be good for the Great Barrier Reef and that coral bleaching is no big deal:

The expected rise in sea level associated with global warming may benefit coral reefs and the Great Barrier Reef is likely to extend its range further south. - The Australian [12]

How does she know? It’s unclear. Why should we believe it? Because she says so.

Or there’s this nugget of Marohasy logic regarding suggestions that Australians both put money into the Australian economy AND choose lower emissions foods to eat:

But should government on the one hand be suggesting low emission sources of food, and on the other suggesting Australians buy more “stuff”?

The reality is that you cannot have it both ways.

Huh? That’s the reality?

Or how about using Former Senator (R-NM) and astronaut Harrison Schmitt [13], who is also chairman emeritus of The Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, an organization funded by ExxonMobil, as the authority on climate issues. A man whose views run counter to atomic science:

Schmitt has apparently figured out that CO2 concentrations are increasing because the temperature is increasing. That’s a really amazing scientific breakthrough. You see, the conclusion that the atmospheric CO2 increase is due to burning fossil fuels is based on isotopic data, which in turn is based on fundamental atomic and nuclear theory. So Schmitt’s conclusion overturns not only global warming science but all of atomic and nuclear theory. - The Green Grok [14]

But, climate change deniers will still be able to get plenty of Marohasy’s strongly held and decidedly unscientific opinion:

This blog will continue to provide an opportunity for me to share ideas including with those who never agree with me, discuss radical new theories and occasionally even break news. The plot in my dystopian fiction [inspired by Ayn Rand’s ‘The Art of Ficition’] revolves around an environmental campaign that spins out of control.

Should be the same kind of fiction Marohasy has spouted as a supposed expert.