Editor’s note: feel free to go to Jim Hoggan’s response to this ridiculous op-ed and add your voice to the conversation.
“Global warming is something humans should welcome and embrace as a harbinger of good times to come.”
That remarkable quote was the conclusion of an op-ed published this week in the Vancouver Sun that gushes over a denier book by Australian mining professor Ian Plimer called Heaven and Earth.
The over the top article is so enamored with Plimer they almost describe him as a Christ-like figure, persecuted by 21st century eco-Pharisees:
“Purging humankind of its supposed sins of environmental degradation has become a religion with a fanatical and often intolerant priesthood, especially among the First World urban elites But Plimer shows no sign of giving way to this orthodoxy.”
In contrast, here’s the book reviews by real scientists of Plimer’s pot-boiler. Imagine if these found their way onto the back cover…
“Naive, and reflected a poor understanding of climate science, and relied on recycled and distorted arguments that had been repeatedly refuted.” – Professor Barry Brook of Adelaide University’s Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability. He also described the book as a case study “in how not to be objective”.
“Given the errors, the non-science, and the nonsense in this book, it should be classified as science fiction in any library that wastes its funds buying it. The book can then be placed on the shelves alongside Michael Crichton’s State of Fear, another science fiction book about climate change with many footnotes. The only difference is that there are fewer scientific errors in State of Fear.” – David Karoly, a meteorologist at Melbourne University and a lead author for the IPCC
“Largely a collection of contrarian ideas and conspiracy theories that are rife in the blogosphere. The writing is rambling and repetitive; the arguments flawed and illogical.” – Michael Ashley, an astronomer at the University of New South Wales
“Fails to establish his claim that the human influence on climate can be ignored, relative to natural variation.” – Ian G. Enting, a mathematical physicist at University of Melbourne
“A cacophony of climate skeptic arguments that have been discredited by decades of research… statements that are at best ambiguous and in many cases plain wrong are repeated, figures purporting to demonstrate climate change is all natural are erroneous, time and spatial scales are mixed up … the list goes on. Plimer’s thesis of inaction is a course we follow at our peril ” – Chris Turney of the University of Exeter’s Department of Geography, a past winner of the inaugural Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal for his research into prehistoric climate change.
“Sloppy…not a work of science; it is an opinion of an author who happens to be a scientist.” – Dr. Kurt Lambeck, president of the Australian Academy of Science
Strange that the Vancouver Sun would gush over a book that was unabashedly eviscerated by the scientific community. It is certainly not the first time that their parent company CanWest Global has taken utterly irresponsible editorial position on climate science.
This mindset of ideology over objectivity might explain why their stock price is now hovering around $0.14.
