The Rinehart and Plimer double-act

2 February, 2012 by

Ian Plimer

This combination should get the Lefty heads a-poppin’ (especially at Fairfax, where Rinehart has just acquired another 8% of the company):

GINA Rinehart has appointed controversial climate change sceptic Professor Ian Plimer to the board of several key family companies.

According to disclosures made to the Australians Securities and Investments commission overnight Prof Plimer was appointed to the boards of Roy Hill Holdings and Queensland Coal Investments on January 25.

Roy Hill is the key to Mrs Rineharts ambitions of challenging the big three Pilbara iron ore players in her own right. The company is the manager of the Roy Hill mine, which plans to export 55 million tonnes of iron ore a year through Port Hedland when it is up and running at full capacity.

Prof Plimer is an experienced mining geologist, and a professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide. He currently serves on the board of stock exchange listed miners Ivanhoe Australia and Silver City Mines, and has held previous board roles at CBH Mining and a number of other Australian mining companies.

But Professor Plimer is better know in recent years as one of Australia’s most prominent sceptics of the idea that carbon dioxide emissions from industry are contributing to global warming.

He has been a regular feature in the media and on the speaking circuit, and released a book on the subject in 2009 which was heavily criticised by climate scientists.

His views are shared by Mrs Rinehart, who has also publically criticised the idea that human activity is contributing to global climate change and has been openly contemptuous of the Federal Government’s carbon tax legislation. (source)

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Geologist: Plimer a "cherry-picking contrarian"

31 December, 2011 by

No agenda?

UPDATE: View the letters in response to Sandiford’s article here (thanks to reader Bruce in the comments).

Writing in The Australian Mike Sandiford takes a pop at Ian Plimer. Just by way of background, Sandiford:

  • approvingly quotes Naomi Oreskes, whose book, Merchants of Doubt, lumps in climate sceptics with those who deny the link between smoking and cancer
  • claims last year was the hottest “on record” (don’t forget, he’s a geologist)
  • writes for “The Conversation” (link) alongside such infamous names as David Karoly, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ian Enting, Ross Garnaut and  Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
  • is a signatory to an open letter from Australian warmists: “Climate change is real” (link)
  • writes alarmist articles for the Silly Moaning Herald (link)

so I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. Looks like Sandiford has had a problem with Ian Plimer for a while – another article in The Aus covering similar ground is here.

GINA Rinehart notoriously claims she has never met a geologist who believes “adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate”.

To listen to prominent “contrarian” geologists such as Ian Plimer, you might imagine she never could.

But, despite the bluster, our contrarian geologists are out of kilter with their own community and seem deeply confused about the way the greenhouse effect – by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, for example – has shaped both the past and the present.

All geology students learn of the importance of the greenhouse effect. It’s simply impossible to understand the geological record without it. [Read more…]

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New book by Ian Plimer

23 September, 2011 by

Tricky questions

Professor Ian Plimer has written a new book, due to be released in November through publishers Connor Court, entitled:

“How to get expelled from School – a guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters”.

From the Connor Court website:

Are pupils, parents and the public being fed political propaganda on climate change? Now is your chance to find out. Professor Plimer gives 101 simple questions with answers for you to ask teachers, activists, journalists and politicians. The climate industry adjusts the temperature record and withholds raw data, computer codes and information from scrutiny. Computer predictions of a scary future don’t agree with measurements. Past natural climate changes have been larger and more rapid than the worst case predictions yet humans adapted.  Is human-induced global warming the biggest financial and scientific scam in history? If it is, we will pay dearly.

More information and a pre-order form can be found here.

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Václav Klaus in Sydney

26 July, 2011 by

Alan Jones, Václav Klaus and Ian Plimer (click for full size)

I was fortunate enough to attend the reception at the Wentworth Sofitel in Sydney last night, where the president of the Czech republic, Václav Klaus, spoke on “Climate Change: the dangerous faith”. Drawing comparisons between the totalitarian instincts of the Greens and the Communism of Europe, President Klaus spoke of the erosion of freedom in pursuit of environmental ends.

Professor Ian Plimer also spoke, and President Klaus was introduced by Alan Jones.

There were a number of high profile audience members, including Associate Professor Stewart Franks, Tom Switzer, editor of the Spectator magainze in Australia and Miranda Devine of the Daily Telegraph. Australian politics was also represented with Bronwyn Bishop, Craig Kelly and Senator Nick Minchin and his wife Kerry:

The author with Kerry and Nick Minchin (click for full size)

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Video: Lord Monckton in Sydney

29 January, 2010 by

I didn’t record the entire presentation (I didn’t have a tripod with me), but I have put together a few clips of the introductions, and Lord Monckton’s conclusion.

UPDATE: I feel I should add that I acknowledge there are a number of things about Lord Monckton’s delivery which cause me some concern. Whilst he has many sensible things to say, his presentation could very easily turn your average Australian man or woman in the street off. Things such as (a) splashing a coat of arms around on his Powerpoint slides, (b) delivering long speeches in Latin, and, as has been mentioned elsewhere, (c) the overly emotive and cloying conclusion, which somehow rings very hollow. We need people like him to get the message across, but in a way that doesn’t fall into the same traps as the alarmists. See Janet Albrechtson’s comments here: Heated moments mar Monckton.

Part 1:

Part 2:


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Monckton & Plimer vs. Readfearn & Brook

15 January, 2010 by

Carbon Sense

This will be a battle worth watching. Only wish I could be there:

The Brisbane Institute is holding a climate change debate with a panel consisting of Lord Christopher Monckton, Professor Ian Plimer, Graham Readfearn and Professor Barry Brook on January 29th at the Hilton Hotel, Brisbane, 12 – 2pm. Please see the attached brochure for full details and booking information: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/climate-debate-brisbane.pdf

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More CRU analysis in "The Australian"

24 November, 2009 by

Nick Minchin

Nick Minchin

I really hope that Liberal MPs and Senators read The Australian this morning, because it may be the last chance for them to realise the scale of (or even become aware of)  the WarmerGate scandal. Nick Minchin comments on the emails:

Opposition Senate leader and Australia’s unofficial chief climate change sceptic Nick Minchin says the email scandal has strengthened a point he has long made.

“The leaked emails certainly substantiate the point I’ve been making that the scientific debate as to the small degree of global warming in the latter part of the 20th century is far from settled,” he says.

“These emails reveal at least prima facie evidence that supporters of the theory of anthropogenic global warming are going to considerable lengths to doctor evidence and to suppress information and intimidate those who don’t support that theory.”

Minchin says the apparent fraud signifies a “rather disturbing culture, at least in the East Anglia CRU, which is one of most significant in the world in terms of determining outcomes of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”.

“For those who don’t think the IPCC should be taken as gospel, this does confirm that we shouldn’t be unquestioning of the opinions of the UN commitee.”

Geologist and climate change denier Ian Plimer says he hinted in his recent book Heaven and Earth that there is fraud afoot among climate scientists.

“This substantiates what I hinted at,” Plimer says.

“Here we have the Australian government underpinning the biggest economic decision this country has ever made and it’s all based on fraud.”

And as expected, Penny Wong comes out with a classic example of breathtaking hypocrisy:

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said in the Senate yesterday that the emails amounted to “a free exchange of views on climate change. We on this side are happy to have that debate.”

Priceless.

Read it here.

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Ian Plimer savages ETS

19 November, 2009 by


Ian Plimer

Ian Plimer

Ian Plimer, author of Heaven + Earth – Global Warming: The Missing Science (see here) has savaged the ETS madness currently unfolding in the Senate:

AUSTRALIA will go broke and become the laughing stock of the world if politicians ignore basic science on climate change, a leading global warming sceptic says.

Adelaide University professor of mining geology, Ian Plimer, said he feared Australia would become an economic backwater if due diligence was not part of developing climate change policy.

“My greatest fear is this country’s lights will go out and the rest of the world will think no one is home – and they will be right,” Professor Plimer said today.

“Australia will go broke and will become the laughing stock of the world if our political leaders keep making decisions on climate change based on ideology rather than on science.

“This country is heading down a very dangerous path of self-destruction if these people continue on their current path of ignorance and ignore scientific due diligence when making such important decisions about the future of this country.”

Sadly, the likes of Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong are not going to abandon those ideologies in a hurry, at huge cost to the Australian people.

Read it here.

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Ian Plimer: "Not one great climate change in the past has actually been driven by carbon dioxide."

13 November, 2009 by

Ian Plimer

Ian Plimer

Ian Plimer is in the UK at present, and The Telegraph has a short article about five tenets central to his view of climate change, although the article author does his best to ensure that the “consensus” view is represented as well:

  • The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has no effect on climate above 50 parts per million (ppm).
  • Extraterrestrial events like solar flares have driven major climate change episodes in the geological past.
  • Global warming should be welcomed because humans ‘thrive’ in a warmer planet.
  • Climate change scientists push global warming theory because it is good for their careers.
  • A belief in man-made climate change is a “fundamentalist religion.”

Read it all here.

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