Great to see The Australian giving air to a thoughtful and considered response to Ian Plimer’s recently released book, Heaven and Earth. Plimer, a noted climate change sceptic, tries to make the assertion that human emissions of CO2 have not changed the climate. As usual though, his arguments are the same old, tired, worn out arguments that have been refuted again and again by the vast majority of climate scientists.
I really wonder what people such as Plimer are trying to achieve with their assertions. I can only think that there is a another agenda at play. Like Andrew Bolt, Plimer implies, as Ashley says, that “the work of literally thousands of oceanographers, solar physicists, biologists, atmospheric scientists, geologists, and snow and ice researchers during the past 100 years is fundamentally flawed.”
A colleague of mine, Brett Parris, has laid out some useful references, in addition to Ashley’s, that debunk, yet again, the points that Plimer makes. Here they are:
Kurt Lambeck president of the Australian Academy of Science and professor of Geophysics at ANU:
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/current/audioonly/bst_20090427_0752.mp3
Read Prof Barry Brook’s blog review:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/
Read Ian Enting from Melbourne Uni’s point refutation:
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/plimer1a1.pdf
Read Tim Lambert’s debunking at Deltoid:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/04/the_science_is_missing_from_ia.php
In debunking the sceptics, it is crucial that we listen with respect to them as they lay out their claims. As St Peter says, let us respond with gentleness and respect to the allegations of people we disagree with.
