The Chief Scientist for Australia speaks to Geoff Hutchinson on ABC Radio Perth Mornings

• 01 April 2009

HUTCHINSON: You’re with Geoff on the Morning Show.  It’s 23 minutes after nine.  In this, the International Year of Astronomy, some of the country’s finest and most inquiring minds will be peering into the night sky in Gingin tonight to mark the launch of the state’s biggest telescope, the Zadko, among them Australia’s Chief Scientist, herself an astronomer, Professor Penny Sackett.

Good morning to you.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Good morning.

HUTCHINSON: What will the Zadko telescope enable us to see?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: The Zadko telescope is an amazing international collaboration that will actually enable us to find out where in the universe and how far away in the universe huge explosions called gamma ray bursts are taking place.  And the Zadko will be able to zoom in quickly once they’re found in the gamma ray part of the spectrum, and zoom in to find what’s called the afterglow to determine exactly how far away these objects are.

HUTCHINSON: And I understand it will enable us to see that which has gone before because it’s already detected a huge explosion in the universe that occurred a casual 11 billion years ago.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: It did actually.  Even before it was properly launched and commissioned, which as you said will happen tonight, it’s already made an amazing discovery.

HUTCHINSON: How important is it to Australia that we in fact win the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Well I think it’s not only important to Australia, it’s important to the world increasingly.  We see that with the Zadko telescope and most other projects that Australia is involved in astronomy.  The international collaboration is the way many projects are being done and winning the SKA for Western Australia will mean not only having that telescope here where it can provide a wonderful resource for researchers here and industries that are involved in helping to build it, but it also will make Australia a centrepiece for international research.

HUTCHINSON: Can you explain to laypeople the kind of things that such a telescope will be finding?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: The Square Kilometre Array?

HUTCHINSON: Mm hm.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Well, The Square Kilometre Array is a radio telescope.  So what that means is listening to the universe as it emits radio waves.  And radio waves tell us different things about the universe than optical telescopes.  They tell us things for example about the magnetism of the galaxy.  They allow us to look back in time to a place where the very first stars and the very first quasars were lighting up.

HUTCHINSON: I read something about you where you reckon that all children are natural scientists, that they’re curious and they love to question why and they won’t stop until that why question is answered.  Why do we sometimes lose that as we get older?  Why are there not more children who as natural scientists who go on and do the kind of things that you’ve done?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: That’s a good question.  I do think that children are natural scientists and I hope that our school system encourages that in them.  Sometimes asking why does not lead to a simple answer and we need to recognise that I think in the school system as well:  that often there’s more than one answer to a question.  Often getting to the answer one can only do in a series of steps.

So I think what we need to do is encourage those who ask why and then give them the tools to find the answers themselves.

HUTCHINSON: We’ve been very consciously seeking broad opinion on the climate change debate, and even though it runs a certain way very strongly I’ve been very aware that listeners are ill at ease when they think the debate has been closed down.  I wonder what you think about that, and people who say that their arguments are being closed down and saying it still only takes one piece of scientific fact to prove another thousand times it’s wrong?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: It is true that science is always and must always stay open to scientific evidence.  If it doesn’t do that it’s not science.  But what we are seeing with climate change is now not just one fact that’s being debated but in fact a whole series of evidence that’s all pointing to the same direction.  And when I speak to people who are uncertain about what that means or believe that there’s conflicting evidence, it’s often because they’re not across the most recent information that has come out.

HUTCHINSON: And it’s so hard for us to be across that …

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Absolutely.

HUTCHINSON: … because there is data, there is analysis every day and then it seems also that you have very competing interests in science too.  I’ve read many articles.  We had Professor Ian Plimer in quite a few weeks ago and pushing a geological view that he argues has been left out of the equation as other people say well, it’s really only climate scientists who know these things.

Is there tension within science that is muddying the debate a little bit?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Perhaps a little bit but I don’t see that very much at all.  I was just in Copenhagen where there were 2,000 – 2500 actual scientists collected there, people who had disciplinary work in different areas.  So in other words people who may have started as geologists, people who may have started as chemists, but they have now devoted all of their time to studying the climate.  And by the way I should say 100 of those were Australians who were there at that meeting.  And the consensus from people who study it from many different directions and that includes geologists and it includes people who study the atmosphere and the oceans, is that it is undeniable that there are changes taking place in the earth, and we see it not just in the temperature records but in lots of other pieces of evidence as well.

HUTCHINSON: And the argument to and fro is always is this part of a natural cycle?  Is it manmade?  Is that an argument that is still to be debated or do you think that it’s emphatic?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: I think the evidence is very clear.  I think where there’s still a little bit of debate is how much of it is manmade, but I think it’s absolutely clear that the majority is manmade.  That comes from again not just one line of reasoning but several lines of reasoning.

HUTCHINSON: I know you believe that we have to slash carbon emissions, that that’s absolute front and centre of the priority.  Do you think the federal government will be brave enough to do that and through an emissions trading scheme?  It would seem that the less it’s talked about and the more that industry groups in difficult times say please put this back another year, that the Rudd government might do just that?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Well you know as Chief Scientist I think not only about the science but also about the innovation possibilities that are in front of us.  And I think that there are two extraordinarily compelling reasons to act now.  And one of them is the climate change argument.  We know that the longer we wait, the more the climate changes in adverse ways and the more difficult it is for us to respond later.

But another reason which is often overlooked is that as the world as a whole works towards a solution, and it will, I believe it will —  I’m not sure on what timescale but I do believe it will — the countries and the societies that prepare themselves for a world in which there will be a price on carbon and who learn how to make innovative ways to take advantage of a new economy will be best placed to do well economically in the future.  And there are all sorts of new technologies and new areas in which Australia could excel, and that I think is the second compelling reason to act now.

HUTCHINSON: It’s great to have you in the studio.  I’m sorry our time’s rather limited this morning but the next time you come to Perth we’d very much like to get you in for a broader chat about where your love of science comes from because I’ve spoken to your predecessor, Jim Peacock before.  It’s an important and interesting role, that of Australia’s Chief Scientist.  Penny, thank you very much for coming in.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Thank you.