Comments on: Debunking Ian Plimer’s “Heaven and Earth”

By: matt

matt — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 07:19:24 +0000

Hi Alan, have you read Ian Enting’s paper on the Plimer book?
If not, you really should, to get a bit of perspective on the quality of Plimer’s assertions: http://bit.ly/entingplimer

By: Alan Chew

Alan Chew — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 07:54:28 +0000

Oops….not sure how to haul it back…..
Let us focus on the big picture here……which in my view is the logical issues surrounding causal linking.
Part of my work as an engineer involves solving problems associated with the failure of high tech control systems. My company designs, builds, installs and maintains these systems on a world wide basis. Another part of my experience is the writing of mathematical models to study the failure modes of complex process systems.
These two matters have provided me with skills which are particularly closely aligned to the current debate and the logic which relates to it.
One of the most important criteria which must be met in trouble shooting and modeling is to be able to accurately explain the past in an historical sense. If this can not be done to a very high level of certainty, the hypothesis fails.
Ian Plimer makes this point on numerous occasions throughout the book. It is the challenge which the climate change model fails to meet on every count.
Further, Ian Plimer sets out to emphasize that he does not have the answers, but he does have the questions.
Can the modelers explain (using only one version of the parameters) the variations in climate over (let’s make it simple) say, the last 50,000 years? (And of course demonstrate the causal link to man made CO2 and the climate change).
For the zealots the argument is not actually about climate change but about the causal link between climate change and man made CO2 ( it is not even about CO2).
I have noticed that none is challenging the point raised regarding the fundamental shift in the IPCC dialogue from global warming to climate change, carbon pollution to carbon reduction and so on. These are subtle yet significant changes in the conversation.

Alan Chew

By: Alan Chew

Alan Chew — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 07:27:36 +0000

Congratulations to Ian Plimer on placing a large about of solid logic on the table regarding the man made CO2 debate and it’s effect on climate change. His book Heaven and Earth addresses so much of the debate it appears to be futile to cover the same ground. I have read the book twice now and do not pretend to be qualified to attempt a peer review of the science. I note that some of his critics have the audacity to admit that have offered criticisms of the contents of the book, based on comments by others yet have read the book themselves. What a startling and amazingly stupid statement to make.
I recommend that people read the book with an open mind before forming any consensus view.
It may will be true that the book contains errors……for the nit pickers this is a big deal. I think they make much ado about nothing. Let us focus on the big

By: John Curtis

John Curtis — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:44:02 +0000

The moment information is transferred to another party,It is there either true or untrue. Both sides of this very emotional anthropomorpic global warming debate are inclined to ridicule the other side. ridicule will not help. Is not science about asking why and how.
If someone suggests a different reason should that not be tested. Unfortunately money and reputations and politics has gotten involved with this problem and I distrust all 3 of these things.
my 2 cents worth is that our world is changing very fast for us and at present it will pan out like this; Co2 will not be a worry because the oil crisis will put a hault to that. Then our travelling companions Famine Disease and war will kick in followed by a drop in our population which was the main problem in the first place. Why can,t our wise ones solve overpopulation in a peaceful way Educated self imposed birth control.

By: Mary Nokleby

Mary Nokleby — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:52:11 +0000

Reading the scientific rebuttals was helpful…and informative……..but good gracious….some of the comments amaze me.

1. Being a “scientist at heart” doesn’t make you qualified to read the data…….and reams of data is coming in from all over the world…..our computers make the gathering and collating of it easier and more far reaching than ever before. Yes, science begins with hypothesis…instead of “forgone conclusions”…but it persists in gathering the data…lots of data…and those hypothesis move, under the influence of the data…into theories….and then into versions of scientific fact. the process is a long one, time consuming, precise: a life work.
Being a scientist at heart, as one commentator claimed…should mean knowing this process, and having some respect for it.

2. Science is different from “common Sense”…people writing in to say they are using their common sense to refute “the false gods of climate change” make me want to cry…..as a retired school teacher I have to take some responsibility for their silly conflating of categories. Hundredes of years ago, common sense suggested the sun moved around the earth: It doesn’t….and it was science that proved the common sense picture of how the world worked, wrong.
A simple suggestion: When reading claims that we have nothing to worry about…do a quick check on the credentials of these “scientists”………find out who they work for…….and how long they’ve been at it.
But also………..look at the scientific consensus…global warming is not the brainchild of a few renegades in the scientific community…….its the conclusion that follows evidence gathered in many places over the last 25 years.

Just to be objective: consider the possibility that most of these men and women might be honest professionals…….and that the scammers might be on the corporate side of the ledger. Corporatism is something different from science.

Try to figure out the differences…when you are weighing the data

By: Graeme Bird

Graeme Bird — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:05:54 +0000

My goodness Monbiot made an idiot of himself. He would not answer any science questions. And he put about this idiocy that emissions from underwater volcanoes is about the same as emissions from those above the ground.

This is self-evidently a lie. It amounts to claiming that the magma wants to flow through a tall mountain, above sea level, where the crust is thicker, in preference to magma wanting to go through rift-zones, in the deep ocean, where the crust is more thin.

When I heard this fraudulent claim I immediately tried to find out where it came from. The liars involved in this new scandal had to go back to 1991 to find anyone stupid enough to make such a claim. And the claim itself is not based on any direct evidence. Its not as if there was any survey involved with the Gerlach 1991 study.

Nevertheless this has not stopped the usual fraudsters locking this claim in as the revealed truth. Though it is self-evidently wrong and they can find no evidence for it.

By: Sin Fong Chan

Sin Fong Chan — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:48:41 +0000

What’s the point to write in if “Your e-mail (required, will not be published)”?

To be precise, it should read “Your e-mail address (required, will not be published)”

Many climate change / global warming theories claimed to be so, but they are nothing more than hypotheses. Many scientific facts can easily be viewed as fictions.

If a rise in a couple of degrees can cause such detrimental effect to lives on earth, then how can anyone or anything survive the fluctuation of temperatures between summer and winter in many countries, or city like Melbourne having four seasons in one day?

Commonsense tells us that millions of joules of energy have been pouring in from the sun each day. The ocean water can only be warmed up, and so does the earth’s atmosphere. Unless the heat is dissipated beyond our atmosphere, our climate will only change in one direction – rise in temperature.

Unfortunately many people pray to false gods of climate change. Have those so-called eminent speakers on climate change the proper data to back them up? They also speak on borrowed statistics. The view of Edward De Bona who wrote the book “I’m right, you are wrong” seems to apply to opposing parties of climate change / global warming. May I suggest that instead of having all the current talk fests on global warming, it’s about time all the do-gooders invest in research on global cooling, if this is the goal to reverse the trend?

Rise in sea level should not be viewed as catastrophic, for rising water will only help to fill the many dried-up lakes and rivers, rejuvenating inland aquatic lives, fauna and flora. Larger land mass covering with water will result in more water evaporation, and hence higher rainfall, thus producing cooler temperature for many parts of the world. Isn’t this the outcome we are looking for?

Has anyone ever asked why we need the icy poles, besides keeping the current polar animals alive? If scientists really believe that they can learn so much from studying the ice layers, and there is a fear of all the ice being melt away within the next two to three decades, scientist of future generations will have no way to tell of our current climate fluctuation.

ETS will not solve the current “problems”. Money and time spent on climate cooling will!

By: Killthealarmists

Killthealarmists — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:18:17 +0000

I am an engineer and a scientist at heart. Just looking at the occupations associated with each of the “debunkers” above I would not trust them for a second, most have a vested interest in climate change. Plimers arguments are common sense backed up by research findings. You don’t have to agree with the outcomes of research to use them with other data to produce other findings. Combining data to get a bigger picture should be the aim of all scientific endeavours. Climate science isn’t based on the whole picture, which is the point of Ian Plimers argument.
Don’t make it about carbon, climate will change regardless, as proven over millions of years, focus on creating a societal structure that can adapt to it. Concentrate on limiting our effects on microclimates. For instance, land clearing for farms and urban sprawl should be stopped (go up not out, height restrictions are a cause of climate change!). some farm regions would get more rain if there was a mixture of managed production forests and farms, which would increase their average production and reduce man-made impacts. Simple things, but it will require government mandates and a part reversal of thousands of years of land use evolution.

By: Ian MacDougall

Ian MacDougall — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:38:08 +0000

I have read the book and have reviewed it in some detail on my site NOAH’S RAINBOW SERPENT.
Interestingly, Plimer’s Publisher Conor Court http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/index.php?main_page=page&id=14&chapter=0
lists only three favouable reviews, all of which are by right-wing journalists of the denialist persuasion (Christopher Pearon, Miranda Devine and Paul Sheehan). By way of contrast, Matt on this site has listed about ten highly critical reviews, mainly by practising scientists.
The most logical explanation of this discrepancy is that Conor Court has not had its attention drawn to them, as the fact that Plimer himself is a professional scientist (holding two chairs in geology, each at a major Australian university) has not exactly gone unemphasised in the PR campaign organised by that publisher.
I cannot think of any other possible reason.

By: Philip Machanick

Philip Machanick — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:35:30 +0000

I debunked some claims that evidently were based on Plimer’s book at Kevin Rudd’s blog (http://www.pm.gov.au/PM_Connect/PMs_Blog/Climate_Change_Blog), and repeated the main ones at my personal blog http://opinion-nation.blogspot.com/2009/07/monty-python-climate-change-phrasebook.html — since I haven’t read the book, I’m ready to be corrected but since no one has so far, I assume the person I was correcting was quoting correctly from the book.