David Suzuki's reaction to the federal government's scrapping of key climate institutions can be summed up: "what the hell?"
One of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's first acts in government has been to abolish the Climate Commission and dismantle the Climate Change Authority (CCA), bodies set up by the former Labor government.
The move has angered environmentalists, including the prominent Canadian scientist who was in Sydney to talk about marine pollution along Australia's east coast.
"What the hell kind of government is it that comes into office and the first symbolic act is to shut down a source of information?" Professor Suzuki told AAP on Friday.
"The minute you shut down solid scientific information then you can run it on your ideology.
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"You can run it on the Bible, you can run it on the Koran."
He also defended the former Labor government's move to put a price on carbon as a very important step.
"Why do we not object to paying for putting garbage into landfill, but we shout like mad when we put a price on putting carbon into the atmosphere?"
