FORMER ABC chairman Maurice Newman claims ABC staff are biased and preach the global warming faith.

"A powerful group has captured the corporation, at least on climate change," he says. ABC managing director Mark Scott denied that last month, but I hope he heard his ABC hyping the Climate Commission's alarmist report this week.

Take ABC 24's interview with Climate Commissioner Will Steffen and retired admiral Chris Barrie. Host Virginia Trioli didn't ask why an admiral with no climate science qualifications was helping to launch its report.

Nor did she ask if Barrie was joking when he claimed there was an even chance no human would be left alive only 87 years from now if we didn't face "the climate change consequences and some other behaviours".

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"There's a one in two chance that by 2100 there'll be no human beings left on this planet," burbled Barrie, citing British scientist Lord Rees. In fact, Barrie misrepresented Rees, who was freaking over many dangers beyond warming, including terrorism, super-eruptions, engineered viruses and asteroids.

But neither Trioli nor Steffen questioned his end-of-the-world-is-nigh tosh.

The ABC's AM program was just as credulous with the two alarmists. This time Steffen cited weather as "convincing evidence" of dangerous global warming: "Heatwaves in Europe, heatwaves in Russia, heatwaves in the US during the last decade, heavy rainfall and more rain."

Steffen was cherry picking outrageously. Why did he not mention England just had its coldest spring in 50 years, or 122 years in many areas? Or that France had its coldest spring in 26 years? And why did Steffen not give the most obvious measure of warming, the temperature of the planet?

Check and you'll find no statistically significant warming of the atmosphere for more than 15 years.

Renowned climate scientist Judith Curry said this week debate "seems to be moving from the 15-17 year 'pause' to the cooling since 2002". Yes, cooling, which Curry said "provides a rationale for inferring a slight cooling trend over the next decade or so".

So why did the ABC not check the temperature? Why did it quote the unqualified Barrie but not one sceptical scientist? But the ABC rarely questions warming scares. It didn't question Chief Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery in 2007 when he said "even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems". Nor did it question Steffen this week claiming warming was instead bringing us more of this "heavy rainfall" that's made Flannery look such a fool. No bias, Mr Scott?