From ABC News comes a report that the CSIRO is about to axe as many as 300 jobs from its climate-related departments:
The ABC understands up to 300 positions over the next two years are on the chopping block, largely in the Oceans and Atmosphere and Land and Water divisions.
The organisation will attempt to redeploy as many staff as possible in emerging areas such as data science, sources say.
Staff are due to be notified today and a CSIRO spokesman said the organisation would not comment until the announcement.
It is not clear whether any redundancies will be voluntary.
The SMH provides more detail, noting the following:
“Climate will be all gone, basically,” said one senior scientist, before the announcement. “We understand both the Prime Minister [Malcolm Turnbull] and the [Science] Minister [Christopher Pyne] have signed off on the cuts”…
Another senior scientist, aware of the planned announcement, said staff would be shocked by the news that basic climate science including much of the monitoring of changes in the southern hemisphere would be gutted.
“There’ll be disappointment, anger,” he said, adding that Australia’s counterparts would also respond “with shock and horror”…
Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of NSW, said the scale of the cuts was “jaw-droppingly shocking”.
“It’s a catastrophic reduction in our capacity to assess present and future climate change,” Professor Pitman said. “It will leave us vulnerable to future climate change and unable to take advantage of any positives that result.”
The dumbening of Australia continues…
