Two excellent new books to cheer the sceptic’s soul, Heaven + Earth – Global Warming: The Missing Science by Professor Ian Plimer and Air Con by Ian Wishart. These two publications approach the global warming debate from different directions, but end up complementing each other very well.

Ian Plimer’s book is a thorough look at the science of global warming. As a geologist, Professor Plimer is perfectly placed to put the current climate change debate in the context of the history of the planet. It documents billions of years of climate change on earth, and puts into perspective the claims that somehow we are, just by coincidence, living at a time of “perfect climate”.

Professor Plimer takes us on a journey through the planet, with chapters entitled History, The Sun, Earth, Ice, Water and Air, describing in exceptional detail the interrelationships between these factors and the planet’s climate. It also puts humanity’s place in the scheme of things into stark perspective. The human race has a very high opinion of itself sometimes – for example, its ability to control climate by tinkering with a harmless trace gas – and reading this book disabuses us of that notion – we are but a tiny irrelevance in the universal scale of things. An important lesson that politicians should learn.

The book, as its subtitle indicates, is focused on the science, and will deserve a second (and probably third) read. There is a wealth of information to digest – but it is well worth it.

By contrast, Ian Wishart’s book Air Con is a little more approachable for the non-scientific reader, and whilst including enough essential science to gain a good understanding of the issues, concentrates more on the political aspects of the global warming debate, including how the global warming industry has tried (unsuccessfully) to shut down any criticism of the consensus, and exposes the scientific skulduggery that often goes on to perpetuate global warming alarmism.

One of my favorite sections quotes headlines from 1895 (“Geologists think the world may be frozen up again”) through the 1930s (“Chicago is in the front rank of thousands of cities throughout the world which have been affected by a mysterious trend toward warmer climate in the last two decades”) to 1975 (“Cold winters herald dawn of new Ice Age”), showing the yo-yo-ing backwards and forwards from fears of global cooling, to global warming and back again. If nothing else, such headlines demonstrate that humanity has a tendency always to think that the present time is the most important and crucial time in history, and that action on something must be taken “now”. It’s a shame we still haven’t learned from past mistakes.

ACM highly recommends both books as essential reading for those who wish to gain a more detailed understanding of the climate change debate.

Heaven + Earth can be ordered here.

Air Con can be ordered here.

Thanks to Ian Wishart for providing a copy of Air Con for review.

Breaking news. As clueless on climate as the Kruddites in Australia. At least it won’t pass the Senate.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Senator James Inhofe puts it into perspective:

“It doesn’t matter,” he declared flatly, “because we’ll kill it in the Senate anyway.”

Asked if he was confident that would be the case, Oklahoma’s senior senator said he was “absolutely certain.” He noted that it would take 60 votes to break an anticipated Republican filibuster over cap and trade and predicted the most the Democrats can muster is about 34.

As Tom Nelson puts it:

Enjoy today, alarmists, because it’s all downhill from here.

Steve Fielding’s trip to the US, followed by his refusal to accept “the consensus” and vote through the Australian ETS has been noted in the Wall Street Journal as the US congress prepares to vote on their equivalent cap ‘n’ tax [surely cap ‘n’ trade? – Ed] legislation, the Waxman-Markey bill. Ian Plimer’s book Heaven + Earth is also given the thumbs up:

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.

If you haven’t heard of this politician, it’s because he’s a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country’s carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

Read it here.

It’ll be a close run thing, with the Washington Post predicting a close win for the bill. However, it stands even less chance of getting through the senate (sounds a bit like home, really!).

The House could vote today on a measure to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with Democratic leaders predicting a tight victory for a behemoth bill that has grown more complex with each compromise.

The heart of the bill, which now runs to 1,201 pages, is a plan to reduce emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. To do that, it would create a cap-and-trade system, in which polluters would be required to accrue buyable, sellable credits for all the greenhouse gases they produce.
…
Republicans and some business interests have said the bill would add huge new costs and drive jobs to countries where emissions are still unregulated and free. The GOP byword for the bill has been “cap and tax.”

Sounds about right…

Read it here.

Kevin Rudd and Bill Clinton talk climate, reports The Australian. Oh, to be a fly on the wall – can you imagine all the misunderstandings, inanities, IPCC-speak and suchlike flying back and forth? Talk about the blind leading the blind…

Mr Clinton is a supporter of Mr Rudd’s Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute plans through his philanthropic organisation, the Clinton Foundation.

Mr Rudd discussed the institute and climate issues with President Barack Obama earlier this week.

That must have been enlightening, given that Obama can’t tell the difference between carbon and carbon dioxide – bit like Penny Wong really.

Read it here.

As always, a great read!

Steve Fielding has posted the document prepared following his meeting with Penny Wong recently. It won’t make happy reading for Rudd, Wong or the alarmist media. We can expect many heads to pop at the ABC and Fairfax in the next few days.

It’s in Word format and can be downloaded here.

As Sen. Fielding points out on his blog:

The Rudd Government is yet to prove that man made carbon dioxide emissions are the main driver behind climate change.

In their response to my three questions they shifted the goal posts and rephrased my questions to suit their agenda.

They were unable to debunk a graph used by the IPCC which shows average global temperatures remaining steady over the last 15 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased.

I have no doubt that we must wait until Copenhagen.

Any move by Australia to act before the big polluters and economies would be committing economic suicide.

Thousand of Australian jobs could be lost, electricity prices could sky rocket. All for nothing if the big economies do nothing.

Once again, bravo and thank you, for doing what the Opposition should have done months ago.

President Obama:

“At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe.“

Terry McCrann doesn’t waste a minute in skewering this … this … CRAP! Forgive me dear reader, but there is no other word for it. Just as Rudd and Wong deliberately confuse the element carbon (particulate carbon, such as soot) with the harmless gas carbon dioxide in order to fool the public, Obama is now doing the same.

EARTH to Barack Obama: Carbon dioxide is not the new asbestos. It’s not even the old asbestos.

Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong’s totally false and deliberately misleading “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” is nothing less than a disgraceful fraud which the media to its utter and almost total shame has allowed them to get away with.

But it almost pales in comparison with what Barack Obama had to say at his press conference yesterday. The relevant quote is [above].

That a political leader could say something so stupid and so fundamentally false almost defies comprehension. Although depressingly, perhaps not, given the Kevin and Penny falsehoods.

It’s important to understand that this wasn’t an off-the-cuff comment. It came in Obama’s prepared comments. That the emissions “contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe.”

Which is worse. That the President of the US doesn’t understand that he is talking about carbon dioxide. What we all breathe out, and which far from polluting the air, is the tree and plant food.

And which nobody, not even the most hysterical climate changer has suggested until Obama yesterday that rising CO2 levels will cause any direct asbestos-type damage. Yes, it might fry the planet, but if so, the trees will die happy and never healthier.

We live in interesting times, where the leader of the free world can mislead his own electorate and the rest of the world with such falsehoods.

Read it here.

In a great victory for common sense, Senator Steve Fielding has rejected the consensus on AGW, namely that anthropogenic CO2 is causing dangerous warming of the planet.

After talks with the government and top scientists, Senator Fielding, whose vote could be crucial in passing the Federal Government’s plan to put a price on carbon emissions, has released a document setting out his position.

“Global temperature isn’t rising,” it says.

Senator Fielding says he would not risk job losses on “unconvincing green science” to set up a carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS).
…
Senator Fielding’s stance appears to torpedo the chance of the scheme passing as the Government would need his support, as well as that of the Greens and independent Nick Xenophon.

Bravo, Senator, for having the courage to stand up to the blinkered dogma of the Rudd government, Penny Wong and the climate change religion, something the Opposition didn’t have the guts to do.

Read it here.

Professor Bob Carter was speaking in Bendigo last night at a climate science meeting, as the Bendigo Advertiser reports:

He said Australians were being conned, as the bill was aimed at carbon dioxide rather than carbon, and carbon dioxide was not a pollutant.

Professor Carter said the public should have access to balanced views on climate change.

Twenty years of intensive research and great expenditure had produced no compelling evidence that humans have had a significant effect on climate.

“I have been described as a sceptic. I am not a sceptic, I am a scientist, and all good scientists should be sceptical.

“I would rather be described as a climate agnostic.”
…
“If the bill is implemented, carbon dioxide emission will be reduced but the cost will be $3000 a head each year in taxes for every Australian.

“And the temperature change will be 0.001C by the year 2100.”

Read it here.