Environment Magazine

In the last six months a book called Heaven and Earth was published by a well known Australian geologist Professor Ian Plimer.  The book, which it must be said does not deny climate change, has been widely and vehemently criticised by the climate change lobby.  Two websites will give you the level and frankly the scrapiness of the debate are www.realclimate.org and www.monibot.com.

Ian Plimer argues in the book, and this is a summary, that the climate has always changed, and that mankind cannot "stop climate change".  He then goes onto argue that carbon dioxide is not a proven culprit in global warming.  His argument looks across billions of years, not just evidence from the last 200,000 years.  He points out that carbon dioxide has been much higher at various times in history, that the world has been much warmer and it has survived and even flourished.  He argues that the world moves in climate cycles.  His book is well referenced even if you don't agree with all his sources.  As a Professor of Geology, Plimer is very well respected and after 40 years well followed.  You only need to cintact some of his former students to check that.  

The criticism of Plimer and its sneering tone is wrong.  It has a smell of McCarthy about it.  It tends to play the man, not the ball.  It seeks to shout down, not argue, alternative views. 

We must always have a full, levelled and frank debate about the human impact of climate change.  This is particularly so, if we consider it to be the most important issue of our day.  In any issue where we have sceptics, we should give them full air, because often sceptics make big contributions too.  Just ask Mr. Monibot who has made a career out of doing just that.