Ian Plimer

Ian Rutherford Plimer (born 12 February 1946) is an Australian geologist, academic and businessman. He is a critic of creationism and anthropogenic global warming theory.

Heaven and Earth (2009)

 * To argue that human emissions of CO2 are forcing global warming requires all the known, and possibly chaotic, mechanisms of natural global warming to be critically analysed and dismissed. This has not even been attempted.


 * The slogan "Stop climate change" is a very public advertisement of absolute total ignorance as it is not cognisant of history, archaeology, geology, astronomy, ocean sciences, atmospheric sciences and the life sciences.


 * Studies of the Earth's atmosphere tells us nothing about future climate. An understanding of climate requires an amalgamation of astronomy, solar physics, geology, geochronology, geochemistry, sedimentology, tectonics, paleontology, paleoecology, glaciology, climatology, meterology, oceanography, ecology, archaeology and history.


 * It is naïve to think that a [computer] model can predict future events on the Earth. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.


 * The hypothesis that human emissions of CO2 can create global warming can be tested by measurement. … No warming has occured since 1998. … During that time atmospheric CO2 has increased. … The test of the hypothesis above shows that there is no relationship between measured temperature and CO2 emissions. The hypothesis fails.


 * The climate stubbornly refuses to co-operate with computer models and the writers of alarmist popular articles and books.


 * If CO2 derived from modern industrialisation is the culprit for global warming, then why did the global temperature increase from 1918 to 1940, decrease from 1940 to 1976, increase from 1976 to 1998 and decrease from 1998 to the present?


 * Mars, Triton, Pluto and Jupiter all show global warming. Climate changes on other planets and their moons show that climate change elsewhere in the Solar System could not possibly be due to human activity on Earth. There must be a driving force outside the Earth. It is the Sun.


 * There were no CO2 emitting industries in the Medieval Warming. This natural warming event was greater than the Late 20th Century Warming, which we are told is due to human emissions of CO2.


 * Mars enjoys global warming yet has almost no atmosphere. To my knowledge, there is no industry or human emissions of CO2 on Mars. There is strong evidence that the Sun drives climate on Mars. The Sun is probably also the main driving force for climate on Earth.


 * If we do not understand the cause or causes for the biggest climate change of all time, what hope have we of understanding modern climate change?