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May 5, 2009
Exclusive: Book Review: ‘Heaven + Earth (Global Warming: The Missing Science)’ by Ian Plimer
Let’s look at an example of someone – someone with an explosive book – who gets it. Professor Ian Plimer (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Adelaide) is an erudite geologist. He was Professor and Head at the University of Melbourne, Australia, when I was there.
In Heaven + Earth (Global Warming: The Missing Science) Mr. Plimer matter-of-factly states:
Human-induced global warming is a popular belief because it offers the satisfaction of righteousness without actually having to do anything. Subscribing costs nothing, it provides the immediate reward of moral superiority, and there is a bonus of seeing “polluters” having to pay for their sins. This makes an attractive package and the media provides an abundance of pseudo-evidence to support it. Trying to counter this with considered thoughtful argument which can’t be conveyed in a second-sound bite cannot compete in popular appeal.
Understand that you can’t find good science in opinion polls, so-called, or even in the blameless hearts of left-wing politicians. Understand that Al Gore’s grades from college, as noted in 2000, by the Gore-friendly Washington Post don’t make him an expert (“Natural Sciences 6 [Man’s Place in Nature]: D”). And, please, please, understand that parroting Toyota’s marketing points for their flashy Prius cars makes one a tool.
Plimer’s explosive text – praised by the politically incorrect Dr. V. Klaus President of The European Union and Nigel Lawson, Lord Lawson of Blaby – is a timely salvo for the heretics on my side too, because it highlights the stupidity of Kyoto-first politicians:
Another example. In 2008 Australia’s Penny Wong, whose official title is Minister for Climate Change and Water, published a green paper which contained a short opening sentence with seven scientific errors. One error for every three words must be some kind of record. The same minister has demonised element number 6 in the periodic table of elements. Is her knowledge of science so weak that she does not know that carbon is fundamental for all life on Earth? “Carbon pollution” implies pollution by the element carbon, not the compound carbon dioxide. These absurdities flow endlessly with talk of carbon pollution and carbon footprints. Unless this minister lives on air, she pollutes her body every day with the carbon-based food she eats. If this minister were really serious about carbon pollution, she would stop eating.
The politically indecent book, in fact, evolved from a dinner in London, England, with a group of professional buttons, including three young lawyers from the pro-manmade warming camp. But the young have an excuse. What about Al Gore?
Climate change is not unprecedented. Consider past climate changes:
Little Ice Age: 1300 AD-1850 AD
Medieval Warming: 900 AD-1300 AD
Dark Ages: 535 AD-900 AD
Roman Warming: 500 BC-535 AD
Bronze Age Cooling: 3,200-2,500bp
Minoan Warming: 3,500-3,200 bp
Akkadian Cooling: 5,600-3,500 bp
Holocene Warming b: 8,000-5,600 bp
Egyptian Cooling: 8,500-8,000 bp
Holocene Warming a: 11,600-8,500 bp
And so on, until we finally reach the Pleistocene ice age, from 110,000 to 14,700bp, according to studies of alternating warming and cooling cycles of climate since the last interglacial.
Paganism? For the faithful, human-induced global warming is all about prophecy and nature worship. Each politician in his (or her) role becomes increasingly addicted to the type of emotional security offered by the role. This is more than a religion; it is a cult, in my opinion. Plimer explains that “Global warmers are uplifted by believing that they have a mission to save the world” and how Churchillian that sounds.
Ideology? Plimer writes: “For many environmentalists travelling the path of certain salvation, it is ideologically impossible to acknowledge that the planet is dynamic and that past natural changes are far greater than anything measured in modern times.” The claim of special powers from the imaginary consensus, after all, is another excuse for the teacher-priest to rave incoherently about his specialness. He lives in special times, and can change the climate through special treaties. Believe. Don’t question.
Inconvenient histories? Heaven + Earth doesn’t stand against history but with history, and history asserts Plimer “cannot be rewritten just because it does not fit a computer model with a pre-ordained conclusion.” Besides, there is no reason to link warming with apocalyptic terrors. To the contrary: “Such warming periods created great wealth in China,” for example. “Wealth had been rising from 200 BC to its peak at 1100 AD with the greatest increases in the Han period (206 BC to 220 AD) and the Northern Sung Dynasty (961 AD to 1127 AD).”
The dead-tree media? More and more, I’m learning about the dangers of extreme greens. Foremost, of course, I’m realizing that much of what our enlightened media elites are doing is motivated by politics. Plimer is right. Will they kindly ask Penny Wong to stop eating?
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ben-Peter Terpstra, an Australian-European satirist, is a contributor to a number of websites, from On Line Opinion (Australia's e-journal of social and political debate) to American Thinker. His pieces are also posted on his blog, Pizza Trays and Beer Bottles.
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