ON November 24 in Melbourne, Professor Ian Plimer launched his new book which aims to spread doubt and uncertainty on the science of climateย change.
Targeting school children and teachers (at least superficially) with his book, Professor Plimer told the audience: โThese children are being fed environmental propaganda and these children are too young to be fedย ideologyโ
Yet the book โ How to Get Expelled From School โ is being supported by the Institute for Public Affairs, a think-tank that exists to do little else than spread its own free-marketย ideology.
Not only that, but Professor Plimer, a geologist at the University of Adelaide, was actively fundraising for the IPA just last month when the Federal Governmentโs carbon price legislation wasย passed.
The executive director of the IPA John Roskam, former corporate affairs manager for mining giant Rio Tinto, is on the editorial board of the bookโs publisher, Connor Court.
During his 20-minute launch speech on YouTube, Professor Plimer criticised climate scientists for being allegedly part of a โpolitical movementโ. Yet in virtually the next breath, he told the audience โone of the aims of this book is to maintain the rage, because we have an electionย coming.โ
So much for spreading ideology and taking the politics out ofย science?
Since that late November gathering, Professor Plimer has managed to fit in a trip to the UK to speak at a debate in London hosted by a group called Repeal The Act. The aim of the debate was to encourage people to sign a petition calling for the repeal of the UK Parliamentโs Climate Changeย Act.
The group boasts as its patron Professor Bob Carter, the IPAโs science policy advisor and another Australian climate scienceย โskepticโ.
Plimer is also on the advisory committee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think-tank chaired by former UK chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson and which has much in common with the IPA.
Both groups aim to spread doubt and confusion on the science of climate change and the efficacy of renewable energy and both have recruited Professor Carter and Professor Plimer as speakers andย advisors.
Neither of them are prepared to reveal any details about their funders. Professor Plimer and Professor Carter are also advisors to the Australian Climate Science Coalition and the Galileo Movement โ two other climate science denial โthink-tanksโ which exist entirely to attack climate science and oppose regulation on greenhouseย gases.
A recent โresearchโ paper from the GWPF criticizing the UNโs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contained a foreword from former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, in which he described climate change campaigners asย โzealotsโ.
On Monday evening this week, Mr Howard was the star attraction at the Sydney launch of Professor Plimerโs book at the Sydney Mining Club. The IPA was again a supporter, as it will be for the launch in Brisbane later thisย month.
Mr Howard said he was an โagnosticโ on climate science and displayed an odd paranoia of the โleftโ when he said: โThe progressive left has got their grip on the commanding heights of education instruction in thisย country.โ
When Mr Howard uses the term โagnosticโ what heโs actually saying is that he isnโt able to accept the multiple lines of evidence contained in the decades worth of climate science published in journals across the world and backed by every major science academy on the planet that excessive burning of fossil fuels will very likely beย bad.
Despite Mr Howardโs enthusiasm for the new book and its author, Professor Plimer has never actually had any research published on climate change in a peer-reviewed journal.
When he published his last book โ Heaven and Earth โ it was roundly and forcefully dismissed by actual climate scientists as being riddled with misrepresentations and errors ofย fact.
This didnโt stop it from being widely popular around the world, and helping influence the likes of Opposition leader Tony Abbott and Australiaโs most senior catholic, Cardinal George Pell.
Scientists have begun responding in much the same way to his new book (despite ordering the book myself more than a week ago, my order appears to have fallen into a black hole), by pointing out its errors and one-sided ideologically drivenย narrative.
Review copies for the ABC and Fairfax newspapers have not fallen into a black hole, however.ย Rather, Professor Plimer revealed in his Melbourne speech that the publisher Connor Court had refused to send them any reviewย copies.
Media coverage so far has been relatively soft and unchallenging, with the ABCโs Radio National AM show failing to balance any of the views of Professor Plimer, Mr Howard or the receptive audience in the room of the minersโย club.
Plimer is among friends at mining venues. He is a director of mining companies Ivanhoe Australia, Silver City Minerals and the UK-listed Kefi Minerals, and is chairman of TNT Mines (he enjoyed remuneration of at least $140,000 from these companies and holds shares worth about $200,000). He resigned in November as a director of coal seam gas explorer Ormil Energy, even though he is still listed as a director on the companyโsย website.
These associations donโt tend to get a mention in media coverage and I doubt itโs in the authorโs biography of his new book either (but I might beย wrong).
But the contents of his Melbourne speech do reveal the same tired and long-debunked arguments that scientists diligently tore to shreds in 2009 when his previous book wasย published.
Professor Plimer claims that the climate has always changed (which it has) and that CO2 is a trace gas (which it is, but is accumulating in the atmosphere thanks to human activity) that couldnโt possibly affect the climate (which it can, andย does).
A recent analysis of Professor Plimerโs statements at the science-based website Skeptical Science โ titled Plimer vs Plimer โ shows how consistently he contradicts even his ownย statements.
At the Melbourne launch, for example, Professor Plimer said that thereโs no relationship between carbon dioxide and global warming. He makes the same statement in his book Heaven and Earth on page 278, but then on page 411, he says โTogether with water vapour, CO2 keeps our planet warm so that it is not covered in ice, too hot or devoid of liquidย water.โ
If Professor Plimer is aiming to target school children and families with his new book, then heโs also attune to the provocative and cynical nature of his pitch.
The book will in all likelihood help his followers and his fellow free-market ideologues to โmaintain the rageโ and their climate science denial โ even if it is maintained on debunkedย science.
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