At last a sensible book on climate change

I have just finished reading "Heaven and Earth- Global Warming: The Missing Science" by Ian Plimer.

Here is a review I wrote on Facebook:

Ian Plimer is a professor of geology so he is used to looking at the "big picture." He is also used to rigorous science.

In 500 pages (with 2200 footnotes!) he systematically demolishes the "science" of global warming, with real science.

Plimer looks at history on the modern, archaeological and geological time scales to show that the Late 20th Century Warming period is what you would expect in the period of emerging from the Little Ice Age. Even in 1998, often called the warmest year on record, the temperatures were lower than those experienced in the Middle Ages and the Roman warm periods. He documents the total lack of correspondence between CO2 in the air and actual climate.

He then looks at the sun, the oceans, the atmosphere and volcanic activity and their individual impacts on climate. The systems that form our climate are extremely complex and interact with each other in ways that cannot yet be understood. The overall picture is that the climate we have grown up in was historically quite cool and that warming is better for life than colder times.

Here are a few facts that I had not heard before:

1. Termites alone produce far more methane (a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2) in the atmosphere than humans produce CO2.

2. The amount of CO2 trapped in rocks is millions of times as much as that in the oceans, which in turn is millions of times more than what is in the air. CO2 is exchanged between these sectors regularly and there is equilibrium such that any increase in one part is eventually absorbed into other parts.

3. One volcanic eruption will produce much more CO2 than humans in a year.

4. Periods of climate change can be closely correlated with solar activity. The 1980s and 1990s were a time of very active sun conditions, so it was warmer. The last few years have been cooler because the sun has been particularly inactive.

5. Climate can change very rapidly. For example there was a 20 year transition from the Middle Age Warming to the Little Ice Age. In comparison the period over the last 20 years has been remarkably stable.

6. The famous hockey-stick graph was so blatantly manipulated that it now has no credibility even amongst climate change activists.

7. One factor that always concerned me was the alleged acidification of the oceans. If more CO2 is dissolved into the ocean, it should make it more acidic, and sea creatures cannot make their shells, leading to a total collapse of the food chain. Apart from the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels were at times higher than present levels before industrialisation started, and these animals obviously survived, Plimer points out that oceans are part of a dynamic system which is in equilibrium with rocks, sediments etc, and all of this removes the acidity as it forms.

Plimer says that science is not about "consensus" but about dissent. Science never moves foward except by challenging existing theories and trying to disprove them. The present consensus which is about politics and not about true science stops real climate science from being done by deliberately assassinating those who dissent.

I am so glad to see that someone is writing a science-based book which puts forward the contrary position. It isn't easy reading, but it's well worth the effort.