The other big storm last week was more about climate than weather.

With the waves it whipped up ... in politics not the Pacific ...

And it all came about after another so-called captain's call from the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's office the origin for controversial Bjorn Lomborg centre decision — Sydney Morning Herald, 23rd April, 2015

Vice-chancellor defends Lomborg appointment — The Australian, 23rd April, 2015

Denmark's Bjorn Lomborg is a controversial climate contrarian ... who has just been promised $4 million of taxpayers' money to set up a branch of his Copenhagen Consensus Centre at the University of Western Australia.

And this has caused widespread protest.

Last week, Professor Sarah Dunlop, who heads the School of Animal Biology, wrote to university managers to say:

... staff in the School have been inundated by correspondence from collaborators and stakeholders concerned about the University's decision. — ConservationBytes.com

In a long and detailed critique, posted on a university Facebook page, Professor Dunlop argued that Dr Lomborg's academic achievements fall way short of what the university normally requires for such a post. And she asked:

The School would therefore like to know by what process the award of $4m was made, in particular was independent peer review of the proposed research program undertaken? — ConservationBytes.com

Dunlop's post was soon deleted.

But not before The Australian's Higher Education correspondent Julie Hare had re-published the attack in The Australian online.

Lomborg's research rating below par The Danish researcher Bjorn Lomborg has a research impact rating - or h-index - equivalent to a junior academic and only seven of his 28 publications have been cited. — The Australian, 22nd April, 2015

Now we can't actually show you Julie Hare's original story, because it too was rapidly deleted.

So why was it killed?

Well, Lomborg is a columnist at The Australian.

So did Hare come under pressure to pull the story?

Hare says not, and posted this explanation on Twitter just before it was taken down:

Seems the facts were wrong on the Bjorn Lomborg story. It will be deleted. Mea culpa. — Twitter, @harejulie, 22nd April, 2015

17 minutes before that post, Hare had been pinged on Twitter by Griffith University's Dr Ian Hall, who had warned her:

... UWA Facebook post is just wrong, whatever you think about the motives. — Twitter, @DrIanHall, 22nd April, 2015

Followed up minutes later by sending Hare a much higher rating for the controversial Dane.

... I just ran a Harzing's Publish or Perish search for "Bjorn Lomborg" and got 4000+ cites and an h-index of 21 ... — Twitter, @DrIanHall, 22nd April, 2015

And after this a slightly panicky Julie Hare had replied:

... holy cow. Just asked for story to be deleted. Thanks for letting me know. — Twitter, @harejulie, 22nd April, 2015

But was the story really wrong ... and should it have been taken down?

Minutes after Hare's mea culpa, Twitter was abuzz with academics reaching the same low h-score for Lomborg as Dunlop had got.

And since then, Media Watch has asked others to check the result using three different databases.

Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar / Publish or Perish.

And while their figures do vary, they also confirm Lomborg's modest ranking.

As Professor Stewart Lockie put it

For a research leader, an h-index of 3 or less is very low. It suggests they are really not making much of an impact in their field of research. — Professor Stewart Lockie, Director, The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, 24th April, 2015

Or as Professor Corey Bradshaw of the University of Adelaide summed it up more bluntly:

No matter which way you slice it, his academic track record is nearly non-existent ... — Professor Corey Bradshaw, University of Adelaide, 23rd April, 2015

So ... we asked The Australian and Julie Hare if there had been any pressure to delete the story, and they told us:

... at no time did anyone from UWA or any senior editors contact Julie over this story. And in the middle of it all, Julie had to race off to help her dad, who lives in Dungog. He was hit pretty badly by the floods last week. — Clive Mathieson, Editor, The Australian, 27th April, 2015

And that's why she didn't have time to update and repost it, which she did intend to do.

And no one could be found to do it for her?

Meanwhile the Sydney Morning Herald did have staff available and was soon publishing more of Dunlop's letter and hoeing into the row

Creation of Tony Abbott-backed Lomborg 'consensus centre' has tarnished our reputations, say academics — Sydney Morning Herald, 24th April, 2015

Indeed, the Herald thought it so important they put big four big-gun reporters on the case.

Lisa Cox, James Massola and Paul McGeough with Matthew Knott — Sydney Morning Herald, 24th April, 2015

That was surely overkill.

But as so often with climate stories this one has played out along tribal lines.

And that's a real shame because The Australian has played down the conflict ... while Lomborg's critics have let some key facts go missing.

First is that Lomborg will not be doing the research himself-it will done by economists with a lot more academic cred than him.

And, second, as a spokesman for Lomborg told Media Watch :

... contrary to many reports in the media - the new Centre is not about climate change ... ... It will help frame the debate on aid, Australian prosperity, agriculture and regional issues and focus on smart, long-term priorities ... — David Lessmann, Copenhagen Consensus Centre, 23rd April, 2015

Yup, it's about getting value for taxpayer dollars.

Now of course you could say that Lomborg's views on climate change will influence everything it does.

But has anyone actually asked what they are ?

Well, Lomborg is not a contrarian for nothing. And after years of championing fossil fuels, This is what he wrote in Canada's Globe and Mail just ten days ago.

It's time to stop subsidizing fossil fuels The billions of dollars that governments could save from phasing out fossil fuel subsidies could be spent on providing better health, education and nutrition, which could benefit hundreds of millions of people. — The Globe and Mail, 17th April, 2015

Getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies in Australia would save at least $9 billion a year ... and cut carbon emissions.

And one Australian political party thinks it would be a terrific idea.

So would that be the Liberals, the Nationals, or Labor? Actually, none of the above, it is the Greens.

Lomborg talked about it on ABC Radio National last month, but no one seems to have noticed. Perhaps not even Tony Abbott ... that this is what Lomborg now believes ... or maybe it doesn't fit the narrative.