South West Environment Centre, Inc.

ABC Lateline 15 December 2009 - http://abc.net.au/lateline

Geology professor and mining company director Ian Plimer debates journalist George Monbiot - http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/answers-come-there-none

Highlights:

1. Regarding the WMO's 8 December statement - http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_869_en.html , that 2000-2009 is likely to be the warmest on record, Plimer responds: "That is a projection, we have yet to finish this year" [the report was published 23 days before the end of the decade].

2. Interviewer Tony Jones: "You repeat ...16 times in one chapter, that the world has cooled in the last ten years" Ian Plimer: "We're looking at time, historical time, archeologic time and geological time. You are trying to focus on one year, or five years, and tell us this is the future of the planet." [actually it is Plimer who tries to ignore the warming trend by focussing on the last ten years, a period when the ENSO cycle has somewhat masked the global warming trend]

3. Jones: "Is it reasonable for journalists to ask questions about something which you repeatedly claim in your book and to actually get answers to those questions? Plimer: "I will have to check the references in this on the last ten years. That I will do." [ducking and weaving, unable to admit this decade is the warmest since temperature records began].

In case you missed the product placements, Plimer has written a book called "Heaven and Earth". Read about it here: http://sites.google.com/site/sutherlandcan/sceptics#plimer

Posted by SWEC on May 24, 2010 at 8:39 AM

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