The Sydney Science Festival (August 8-20, if you want to put it in your diary) has booked an Opera House berth on August 16 to discuss the government’s role in climate change – or rather, a presentation to reinforce the ruling orthodoxy of alarmist warming led by the designer of the discredited hockey stick graph, Michael E. Mann, along with warming activist Anna Rose and a psychologist, Stephen Lewandowsky.

In case you ask why a psychologist, Lewandowsky’s research, which originally pertained to computer simulations of people’s  decision-making processes, has recently focused on the public’s understanding of science and why people often embrace beliefs that are sharply at odds with the scientific evidence.

In the expectation that he is planted to ‘call out’ those pesky deniers as nutters, it is ironic that the scientific evidence being referred to in the context of warming is not so much evidence as a hypothesis promoted to ruling orthodoxy.

Nevertheless, this panel will discuss The Madhouse Effect: What is Stopping Action on Climate Change?  It might be more apt to have presented a session titled: The Madhouse Effect: What Will Stop Irresponsible Action on Climate Change?

Sad to say, the otherwise no doubt worthwhile Sydney Science Festival is produced by the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and the Australian Museum as part of National Science Week, in partnership with Inspiring Australia. They should all know better than to further discredit the public’s perception of climate science with such a transparently unscientific presentation.

Mann’s visit to Sydney in August will follow Al Gore’s visit to Melbourne this July, the latter to attend the Eco Cities World Summit.

Australia is indeed blessed to have two high priests of global warming descend on our shores in quick succession, to keep the faith alive.