Adani’s attack on scientists is a disgrace and should not be tolerated

Photo from Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint/Getty Images: Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group

Contributed by Ugly

Not much has angered my in recent times, nearly as much as learning that Adani tried to hunt down scientists checking out whether his Carmichael coal mine violated environmental guidelines.

Hiring lawyers to get personal details of these scientist can’t be called anything else.

In freedom of information documents obtained by Lock The Gate and passed onto the ABC, the hired legal firm, AJ & Co described itself as the mining mogul’s “trained attack dog.”

This smalles of gangster style methods to lean on the scientists.

And then the deputy prime minister of Australia, Michael McCormack, goes in to bat for Adani and justifies it.  It’s a bloody disgrace, and a good example of how billionaire wag the tail that are our leading politicians.

Having worked for many years in the scientific field, and having come to know many scientists, I appreciate the lengths that researches go to, ensuring that they use proper scientific method and question everything they do. Careful diligence, caution, not making claims easily and thorough dependency on proof based on facts and not opinions tested again and again. Science has a locked in anti-bias method. Without it, science cannot work.

Adani could only make his insulting and unjust claim of bias, because there has been an orchestrated campaign to attack science and scientific method and replace this with selected information of convenience.

Science is being targeted, just because it does not always suit political purposes and the business of making money. The cutting edge is on the matter of climate change.

Science is guilty of providing overwhelming evidence that temperatures are rising fast and that they are human made.

Those who have a vested interest in stopping any change, along with those easily misled by their prejudices, don’t want to know. They want to silence the messenger. They want to gather around their current poster boy – Gautam Adani.

Photo from Matthew Canavan: Construction site at the Carmichael coal mine

A spinoff of all this is an attack on the CSIRO, which happens to be Australia’s premier scientific research institution. I once worked there and have a very good grasp of the valuable work those who work there do. Now they are being treated with disrespect and devalued.

this is a great disservice to Australia. If our science community is pushed down, it will cause serious repercussions for our society and economy. We will all be left worse off. Even more so, if this succeeds in helping to prevent action on the environment emergency we are facing.

Now Adani faces a new prosecution for providing false and misleading information over land clearing at the mine site. This could lead to a significant fine. This is after the company was let off for other environmental breeches.

Isn’t it about time it was all put a stop to?

3 Comments on "Adani’s attack on scientists is a disgrace and should not be tolerated"

  1. Yes it is about time ! And thank god CSIRO is independent and can’t be bought off . We must keep our respect for there independent research and hard work.🙏

  2. Alan Hargreaves | 18 July 2019 at 10:40 am | Reply

    I worked there too in the mid to late 90’s in a support role. I was shocked at Adani taking this tack, even more so at the Deputy PM for defending it and the PM for remaining silent. For shame Australian government.

    This is disgusting. The government shall be standing up for and supporting our peak research organisation.

  3. Jennifer Dowde | 18 July 2019 at 10:55 am | Reply

    This abomination should never have been approved in the first place. This appalling attack on our scientists is proof of the lengths Adani will go to get what he wants, with the complete support of both the QLD and Federal governments.

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