The Today programme have given another climate change denier airtime - unchallenged. ‘Scientist’ Ian Plimer sees no link between carbon dioxide and temperature.
For the second time in a matter of weeks, the Today Programme this morning offered a platform to a climate change denier. Once again, the person invited on was somebody without any credentials to talk about climate science since they are not a climate scientist and have never published a peer reviewed paper on the subject.
Australian contrarian author Ian Plimer was left unchallenged to spout nonsense on the primetime BBC slot despite his argument having been systematically pulled apart by real climate scientists over at realclimate.org – a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists.
He said:
“The fundamental point is that over the history of time, climates have always changed, we’ve had rapid changes, they’ve been large, they’ve been driven by extra-terrestrial forces, they’ve been driven by many other forces in the past, but not one great climate change in the past has actually been driven by carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide is plant food, we cannot stop carbon emissions because most of them come from volcanoes, it is a normal element cycled around in the earth, and, my science, which is looking back in time, is saying we have had a planet that’s been a warm, wet greenhouse planet for more than 80 per cent of the time, we’ve had huge climate changes in the past, and to think that the very slight variations we measure today are a result of our life, we really have to put ice blocks in our drink.
“If you put 2 and 2 together, then you have to explain the three periods of cooling since the little ice age finished and during those three periods of cooling we’ve actually had carbon dioxide increase, so there is a disconnect between carbon dioxide emissions and temperatures because since 1850, we’ve had a warming period from 1860 to 1880, then we’ve had a cooling until 1910, then we had a warming until 1940 – in fact the North-West passage was open – then we had a cooling until the 1970s, and the people who are trying to frighten us witless now about runaway global warming were in fact those who were frightening us witless about an oncoming glaciation in the 1970s, then we’ve had a warming, up until the late 90s, now we’re in a cooling phase, so if we’d only had warming, then there would be a connect between carbon dioxide and temperature. There is not.”
Plimer added:
“When you look at my critics, they are people who are rent seekers, they have everything to gain by continuing the process of frightening people witless by following the party line … I’m saying that they are taking advantage of the current situation … Now we have a war against climate change and there’s a huge number of people out there that have their careers staked on it and are the beneficiaries from this process … The word belief is a word of politics and religion, it’s not a word of science; my scientific opinion is married to evidence…”
Leading NASA climate scientist, Gavin Schmidt, who has dissected Plimer’s argument in detail, found it to be based amongst other things on a “basic logical fallacy”. Needless to say nobody from NASA, the IPCC, the Royal Society or the Met Office was invited on to explain why Plimer was talking rubbish. Neither did Justin Webb, interviewing, explain Plimer’s lack of authority on the subject.
Listen to the interview in full below and download it here:
76 Responses to “Today give carte blanche to ‘scientist’ who denies link between CO2 and temperature”
Billy the Kid
Shamik you ok?
Let’s try again:
Which impartial scientist (not one on the Climate-Change-Nutters payroll) derided him?
Why is the global temperature getting colder?
Go on Shamik, break your New Labour instincts and answer the question.
Shamik Das
You mean this site? http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8356000/8356114.stm – which says, in bold, PLEASE NOTE: We are unable to offer transcripts for our programme interviews.
Plimer’s quotes have not been “copied and pasted” from anywhere.
Claire Spencer
The citations for the Wikipedia article on his book are a good place to start re: reactions from the scientific community, Billy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_and_Earth_(book)#Reactions_from_scientists
Shamik Das
On the point about Nick Griffin, totally irrelevant to this post, he received 3,363 votes in the BNP leadership election – nowhere near 1 million. About 996,637 votes short. http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2007/07/bnp-leadership-election-result-no.html
Billy the Kid
Claire it was “Global Cooling” in the seventies – so why are we right now and they were wrong then?
The planet is getting cooler Claire and I ask you, as I did Shamik (but he has no courage of his convictions and just rants in blogs – get a real job Shamik if you’re old enough to work) where are the impartial scientists without a vested interest (eg on the payroll) that agree with this?
If this Global Warming (man made) Nonsense is true that my opinion of this crooked government has gone even further down if they agreed to the third runway at Heathrow and coal fired power stations.
Challenge everything Claire – don’t act like a lemming without checking the facts first. If people had adopted that attitude before Iraq then thousands of people wouldn’t be dead in Labour’s illegal overseas adventures…