By John Ingham
Daily Express [UK]
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
THE scientific consensus that mankind has caused climate change was rocked yesterday as a leading academic called it a “load of hot air underpinned by fraud”.
Professor Ian Plimer condemned the climate change lobby as “climate comrades” keeping the “gravy train” going.
In a controversial talk just days before the start of a climate summit attended by world leaders in Copenhagen, Prof Plimer said Governments were treating the public like “fools” and using climate change to increase taxes.
He said carbon dioxide has had no impact on temperature and that recent warming was part of the natural cycle of climate stretching over billions of years.
Prof Plimer told a London audience: “Climates always change. They always have and they always will. They are driven by a number of factors that are random and cyclical.”…
…Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation. He said: “Carbon dioxide levels have been up to 1,000 times higher in the past. CO2 cannot be driving global warming now.
“In the past we have had rapid and significant climate change with temperature changes greater than anything we are measuring today. They are driven by processes that have been going on since the beginning of time.”
He cited periods of warming during the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages – when Vikings grew crops on Greenland – and cooler phases such as the Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850.
And he predicted that the next phase would cool the planet…
…Of the saga of the leaked emails, he said: “If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid.”…
Read the entire article at the Daily Express.
