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
Claire – let me guess you’re going to make a difference, yes?
Lower your expectations in life and you may not be so disappointed.
No one really believes in it in government or as I stated before they wouldn’t fly round the world in Lear Jets (at our expense of course).
Charles Darwin was REALLY discredited by his peers but he was right. There are many others in the same position as well – fully vindicated in the long run.
The planet gets colder. The Sun isn’t taken into account in the model of climate change – ask yourself why?
That’s just a fact but because it doesn’t fit into your theory you play the man not the ball and attack him with snide smearing comments – like those used by a man called David Kelly before the Iraq war.
You remember him – the lies by this government drove him to suicide – he was right on WMD but right before the Iraq War no one believed him. I didn’t.
Shamik asks questions but doesn’t answer them himself – that is not a personal attack. Read other posts elsewhere on this blog and you’ll see he’s got form.
Billy the Kid
Joss – Why keep saying consensus?
Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (or 1%) explicitly endorse the ‘consensus view’.
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm
Of course this was ignored as well…
Shamik Das
You seem to be questioning everyone else’s credentials… Care to lay out your own? And on the subject of avoiding questions, you still haven’t given the link to the website you claim sections of this piece were copied from. You also seem to have completely ignored the point about Nick Griffin.
Julian G
Prof Ian Plimer asserts that his critics do not engage him on the science. There is an extremely careful point by point refutation by Ian Enting at the web site http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91 . If anyone is unwilling to read the 143 points of criticism, they can go straight to the Summing Up on page 35 where Enting explains how that the Plimer book fails to support Plimer’s assertions. By how much time does someone like Plimer delay effective action against climate chaos?
Henry
Sounds like Billy the Kid’s credentials are a PhD in ranting & abusing people.