Watch the inimitable Professor Ian Plimer launch the Institute of Public Affairs’ Climate Change: The Facts 2025.
To purchase a copy of Climate Change: The Facts 2025 visit: https://climatechangethefacts.org.au/buy-now or click below.
Scott Hargreaves:
Now, I can more formally welcome everyone. Normally, I say Ian’s the man who needs no introduction, but in here, just a reminder for those who say trust the science, I’m happy to trust this scientist. He was professor and head of geology at the University of Newcastle, professor and head of Earth sciences at the University of Melbourne from 1991 to 2005. He’s been a professor at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in München, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide from 2006 to 2011. He remains astoundingly an emeritus professor at the University of Melbourne. Perhaps there is some hope for that institution.
Sorry to be remiss of me not to acknowledge the wonderful editors of this work. Again, at a time when scientists were being told to sit down and shut up, Jennifer Marohasy and John Abbott refused to do that. We’ve been able to offer them a home in the IPA and this is now the third in this series that Jennifer has been involved with. Jennifer is an environmentalist and it has been particularly painful for her to have to deal with other so-called environmentalists who have drank the Kool-Aid. I appreciate the personal toll that that takes, but they have stuck at their tasks. This is a truly scientific work. There are lots of policy implications that flow from it, but this is a very, very excellent work of climate science and I commend their work to you. Ian, sorry, all yours.
Ian Plimer:
Well, thank you and thank you for coming and thank you for supporting the IPA. It is one of the lone voices in this country on many, many subjects and climate is just one of them. The authors of this book have risked various career paths by actually publishing a chapter in this book, as have the two editors. The benefactors, thank you. The IPA couldn’t do such work without benefactors. You have the information. The information is there. I know from personal experience, if you stand up, you get shot at.
Last week was a good week. I was meant to have been giving a talk on the Broken Hill ore deposit in Edinburgh on the 4th of December. They withdrew the offer because of my views on climate change. Now, how the hell these two are related? I just don’t know. Last week, I also had a patronship rescinded because of my views on climate change. Previously, I’ve been banned from two Australian universities, although I’ve only been a professor for 30 years. I guess I’ve got to do it a bit longer. I’ve also had the situation of a doctorate degree withdrawn, an honorary doctorate in a European university.
It comes at a cost. Our authors in this book are from Finland, from Norway, from the UK, from the US, and of course Australia, and they take big risks by actually speaking the truth. The one thing about speaking the truth is you never have to remember what you said. The truth is there. We now have a book coming out. I think it’s a very, very timely moment for this book to come out, because we will be having a very significant political change in the US regarding climate and this book is now providing a foundation. The foundation is with some of the basic information and you will not read it. You will not read it in your local newspaper, the Socialist Moaning Herald. You’ll not read it in Melbourne’s newspaper Pravda up on Yarra. You just don’t read it. If you read The Guardian, we’ll take you outside and deal with you.
You just don’t read about elementary science and some of this science we’ve known in my field for 250 years. We’ve known about climate change. It’s been in all of the ancient geology textbooks. We’ve had arguments about climate for a long, long time, yet those people who feed off your taxes and call themselves climate scientists, living institutes, and survive only because of grants which come from your taxes, they say that we geologists don’t know anything about climate. Well, I’m sorry, but a book like this deals with things that are very important. The only way to understand the present is to look into the past.
There are a number of chapters in this book dealing with climate cycles and these cycles are very short term. Every 18 and a half years, we push warm water up into the Arctic. The ocean has 60-year cycles. We have solar cycles on a 22-year, 1500-year, and 10,000-year cycles. We have orbital cycles where we’re closer or further away from the sun every 20,000 years, 40,000 years, and 100,000 years. We have galactic cycles when we have a bad address in the galaxy every 143 million years, we have a tectonic cycle every 400 million years, and we are in an ice age at present. That ice age started on a Tuesday 34 million years ago. That ice age continues and it will continue until the continent of Antarctica breaks up into smaller microcontinents and we’re getting push warm water from the tropics down into the Antarctic.
That process is going on. We have 150 geothermal areas and volcanoes underneath the ice of Antarctica. I bet you never hear when someone says, “Oh, we’re all going to drown. The Antarctic ice is melting.” You don’t hear about the volcanoes. There are things that you will read in this book that even your grandmother wouldn’t tell you. There are some really marvellous events that take place. We have a chapter dealing with AI and predicting of rainfall. Now, I think before we worry about AI, we should be focusing on common sense before we start to think of anything artificial. But that chapter is dealing with better prediction methods of weather and climate, and most of our prediction methods have failed.
And throughout this book, there are parts in each chapter showing how models just don’t work. We see a couple of sections on geology. Arthur Day… Stand up, Arthur so people can see you. I’m looking to light… Stand up. Where are you? Now, he’s the man who will sign this book for you and I’ll also sign it. Have a good look at him, make sure that he’s got a pen, and he’ll sign it. He’s written about volcanoes and climate. Now, one volcano can ruin your whole day. Ask the Minoans about the eruption of Santorini in 1600 BC. I don’t use BCE. I use BC. We have got two sorts of volcanoes. Those that are terrestrial sticking above the ground, there’s about 1800 of these. These normally are explosive, some are not like in Hawaii, but there’s a lot of hidden volcanoes. We know of three and a half million volcanoes sitting on the ocean floor. We don’t see them and they leak out carbon dioxide. There’s liquid carbon dioxide on the ocean floor. You don’t hear about that.
Again, in this book you’ll read about things that you’ve never heard about before. There’s quite a discussion on models. Christopher Monckton has got a wonderful section on models and Christopher is Christopher. He’s a lively sort of chap and he is a mathematician and he can show that these models are wrong, demonstrably wrong. Elsewhere in the book, there’s one chapter dealing with looking at the models and looking at what we measure. The term Lysenkoism is used where we totally ignore what we measure and we just look at the models and say, “Oh, the world’s going to end.” And then when you plot what has been predicted with what we measure, two totally different plots. We are in a period of time where feelings are far more important than fact. Now, facts you can repeat, facts you can validate. We don’t need fact-checking. You just do the experiment again and again and again. That is the nature of science.
We, in this book, look at natural phenomena and compare them with the possible human phenomena. But the section that I’m most interested in is a section on that gas that we’re told is a pollutant, carbon dioxide. We seem to have children now at school learn that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. In previous generations, the first thing they learnt was about photosynthesis. This is where water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight allowed plants to grow, but now it has been demonised. Why do you demonise carbon dioxide? Because it’s emitted by industry to keep our standard of living high and to make sure that there are jobs in this country. That is being attacked.
Climate change has got nothing to do with climate. It’s got nothing to do with the environment. It’s got everything to do with destroying our economy. The various chapters deal with carbon dioxide, one of them by… Jennifer Marohasy has written what Will Happer has written on carbon dioxide. He suggests that the effects of carbon dioxide are too small to make any difference. Some of us argue that, in fact, carbon dioxide probably has nothing to do with climate change. The chapter by Tom Quirk and Michael Asten, they go into carbon dioxide in more recent times, I’ve used the word recent as a geologist, and they show that variations in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have got nothing to do with humans. It’s to do with the ocean and the oceans are degassing. Sometimes, when it’s cold, they’re absorbing carbon dioxide.
Now, I caught sight of you drinking beer. I caught sight of you drinking champagne. You are only doing that for a scientific experiment, because as your champagne warms up… Champagne is better than beer because you can have it at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As your champagne warms up, it keeps bubbling. That’s because more and more carbon dioxide will dissolve in cold water. As the water gets warmer as the glass in the air, you’re losing more and more carbon dioxide. That’s exactly what happens in the oceans. When we have a natural warming event, the oceans degas carbon dioxide, but after the warming event, there’s a lag. We see that from the ice cores, we see it from experiments. And if you’ve got one area of science, chemistry, and measurements of ice cores giving you the same answer, then that is validation. That’s what’s called coherence criterion in science.
There’s quite a bit in this book on that horrible, poisonous, dangerous gas, carbon dioxide. Now, that gas is an interesting guess, because our planet has been degassing carbon dioxide since the beginning of time. Other planets have been doing the same. All the other planets and moons have carbon dioxide. Some moons of other planets have solid and/or liquid methane. These are normal planetary gases and we are persecuting cattle and persecuting all sorts of organisms by claiming that these are destroying the environment. Now, most of us are vegans because we eat vegans. They’re called beef cattle. Beef cattle… You can do the sums. I did have an article in the speccy a while ago on this where you could measure the amount of carbon in grasses, the amount of carbon in cattle, the amount they left behind in dung, the amount you remove from the system with leather. It’s actually a net-zero process.
There’s another way of looking at net-zero in this country. If we look at our grasslands, our rangelands, our forests, our croplands, and our continental shelf, there is about 20 times as much carbon dioxide absorbed than we emit. We’re already at net-zero. What we should be doing is to go to COP29 and say, “We’re absorbing all of your carbon dioxide.” Let’s talk to countries like Mali and Chad and say, “We want you to pay us money because we are absorbing your carbon dioxide.” See how that goes down.
We often hear in these climate discussions the word believe. “Oh, you don’t believe in climate change.” Now, believe is a word of politics and religion. It’s not a word of science. What has happened is that we have replaced Christianity with a new religion. It’s got its indulgences and you’ll see that on your electricity bill. It’s got its holy book. Like other holy books, people don’t read them. People don’t read the 4,900 pages of the IPCC reports. We have guilt and that is imposed on us, but we only see this in wealthy western countries.
We have Third World countries where they don’t worry about climate change. They worry about their next meal. I work in the Third World as a geologist. They worry about whether their kids can get an education or get clothing. We are suffering from the disease of wealth. We have huge social problems that I think have really disturbed our society. This is why this book was put together, The End of the World. It’s a group of authors where we’ve looked at the effects of this climate change anxiety on children, on society. There’s a door prize, by the way. I was instructed by the publisher to give away a door prize and he told me the name. I know one of the people with his name’s already bought a copy, but he told me to give it to a Richard. Is there another Richard besides that one? First one up here gets it. Sprint.
There is another book out there. Scott Hargreaves is a very modest man. It’s actually a wonderful book. He’s already signed them. Go out there, clean up what’s left on the desk from Scott. There’s a few of mine left to go.
Why does the IPA get involved in something like this? Well, climate change is actually destroying the very threads of our society and that is education, or even now had a 50-year dumbing down of our education system. Kids do not understand the basics of science. They’re certainly not taught logic. They’re certainly not taught how to argue and they don’t have any knowledge to be able to immediately mount a contrary argument. They have to Google it or go to Wikipedia or whatever. I mean, look me up on Wikipedia. First line, they’ve got my birthday wrong. Don’t you dare change it.
They’ve made me six months older. You cannot believe anything in Wikipedia or any of the social media. We have a massive problem in our education system, where we have had a takeover of our young folk by activists. These people are not getting educated. These people are having their lives destroyed and they will ultimately lose faith in every institution in this country. Some of us have already lost faith in many of the institutions, but hopefully we can reverse that with books like this.
I think following on from what Mr. Abbott said, I think we are at a period of great change now. We saw it with The Voice, we saw it in the US. People now are not afraid to say, “Well, I’m sorry, I disagree. You want to do what I do when Qantas tells me that I’m landing in my own land.” And I just shout out, “Bullshit, you cannot.” If I throw you off the plane when you’ve landed, well you’re the first off anyway, so you’re going to win.
I think now we have to really be firm because we conservatives tend to be a bit polite. We don’t get into massive fights and we have to, because if we don’t, we’ve lost the whole game. I think the election of Mr. Trump has given us the opportunity. I think The Voice showed us that we are in the majority and I think we are looking forward to some great times. This book, I think, could not come out at a better time, so I’m here to launch this book. I launch this book and all who sail in her. It could not come out at a better time. There’s information there which you will not read.
If you search the scientific literature, it is very hard to find a contrary view, which is why almost 15 years ago I put out that book, Heaven and Earth, with three and a half thousand scientific references to show that if you know your way through the scientific literature, there’s a huge amount of stuff that is saying, “Well, wait a minute, there is a lot of evidence to show that carbon dioxide might not drive climate change.” We see that with geological time. We’ve had 80% of time when we had far more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than now. What do we have? We had ice ages, so it couldn’t be driving warming.
I have a question which I ask people who call themselves climate scientists, but I really think these are people who are unemployable that live in a climate institute that get employed off your taxes. I always ask them a simple question. Can you please show me that human emissions of carbon dioxide drive global warming? It’s never been done. It’s never been done. Everything is a house of cards. All that destruction of our good agricultural land with wind turbines, with solar panels is based on a premise that’s never been shown. You can’t use the word prove. It’s never been demonstrated. The last battle I had was with someone from the Scott Polar Institute at Cambridge University.
I was talking to a chap in the Gold Coast last week or it was the week before. I don’t know. I travel a bit too much. I forget things. He’d been pursuing the same person on the same question and he couldn’t get an answer. This whole climate change religion is based on something that’s never been shown. It’s never been shown that human emissions drive global warming. If it could be shown, you’d have to show that the natural emissions, which are 97% of the total, don’t drive global warming. We’ve been conned and this is costing a small country like Australia trillions. We are having demands put on us to pay up.
Pacific island nations are saying, “Pay up. We’re going to get inundated.” Well, maybe they should be reminded of the work that Charles Lyall did and Charles Darwin did. Darwin published a book in 1842 on the coral atolls of the Pacific and these island atoll nations. He showed that every time the volcano underneath the atoll sunk, the atoll grew. We’ve now got satellite imagery and there’s been some 1500 atolls looked at in the Indian and Pacific oceans, showing that most of them have been growing. The best thing you can do for a Pacific island nation is to have the sea level rise because they’ll get bigger.
One of the reasons they’re getting damaged by storms is that the coraline substrate to the atoll is being used for making cement, for road base, for buildings. That is the reason they’re getting damaged. It’s not due to climate change and we knew that. We’ve known that since 1842. There is an enormous amount of misinformation and disinformation out there and I am likely to get cancelled yet again. Scott is quite right. I’m a emeritus professor at the University of Melbourne, but I live in Adelaide, so I’m far enough away where they probably don’t see much of me.
I can recommend this book to you. It has just come out. It’s still warm. It’s hot off the press. There are some very interesting chapters in here. One or two of you commented to me, they like books with graphs in them. Well, these have got graphs in them, like this one here that dreadful Michael Mann fraud. We need to be better armed. I think, over the next 5 or 10 years, we have a huge fight on our hands and we will win that fight. We won’t win it on science. We will win it on the hip pocket. Once it hurts people so much, then books like this can be useful in people looking at the science and saying, “Well, wait a minute, I think we’ve been conned. This has cost me a lot of money. We’ve been conned.” I recommend this book to you. It’s the sort of thing you need.
If you go to too many dinner parties, it’s a perfect way of minimising the number of dinner parties you can go to by arguing with people and you’ll be pleased to hear. I don’t get invited anywhere now and I’m quite happy. I go down to my local… I was in my local in Broken Hill on Thursday night at the Junction Hotel. I walked in the front door and one of the locals there saw me walking. I was walking with a couple of Poms who were sort of a bit snotty. This bloke yelled out from the corner, “Aren’t you dead yet?” Now, that is the real Australia and that’s what we’ve got to fight for and support. No more words, please buy it. There are two authors here. We will sign it for you. Thank you for indulgence
Scott Hargreaves:
For the benefit of those who have just watched that magnificent address on YouTube. I remind you that Climate Change: The Facts only appears because of the support of the Institute of Public Affairs, because it is independent, because it is supported by over 9,300 members. We neither seek nor receive funding from government. We can publish our research without fear or favour. As Professor Plimer said, there are actually brave academics out there toiling away, and we found some of them for this book. We can support their research and amplify it and take it out into the world.
But don’t forget, the best way that you can support that research and the cause of actually shedding some real light on climate science is to go to www.climatechangethefacts.org.au and purchase a copy of Climate Change: The Facts now. In fact, purchase an extra one for your friends and give it to them whether they want it or not. Give it to your children and grandchildren. I’m sure they need to read it. And in fact, we also have a bundle offer where you can purchase a copy of the book and become a member of the IPA. We would love to have you. But for the ladies and gentlemen here and the viewers at home, please thank one more time Professor Ian Plimer.