[extropy-chat] anthropogenic-climate-change skeptics in Oz

[Damien Broderick]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/26/1101219743320.html?oneclick=true

Most scientists say that global warming is not only real, but is already 
contributing to extreme droughts, floods and the melting of the  polar ice 
caps.  But a few scientists still insist the idea is bunk. With the Kyoto 
Protocol about to come into force, Melissa Fyfe investigates the doubters, 
their financial backers and whether they are worth listening to.

At 401 Collins Street on Monday night, 50 men gathered in a room of plush 
green carpet, pottery and antique lights to launch a book about the science 
of climate change. Some of them were scientists. But many were engineers 
and retired captains of industry. Presiding was Hugh Morgan, president of 
the Business Council of Australia and former Western Mining boss. The 
master of ceremonies was retired Labor politician Peter Walsh.

Climate change is about science, but not just about science. It's about 
business and politics and wielding influence. The men - there was just one 
woman present - were all climate change sceptics, members of an 
organisation called the Lavoisier Group that argues global warming is 
nothing to worry about.


The book they launched - the latest weapon in the tussle for hearts and 
minds over global warming - was by Melbourne climate change sceptic William 
Kininmonth, former head of the National Climate Centre, part of the Bureau 
of Meteorology. He argues that global warming is natural and not caused by 
humans burning fossil fuels.

The book, Climate Change: A Natural Hazard, blasts the models used by 
climate scientists to predict and simulate what is happening. They are 
flawed, he says. "Climate change is naturally variable and it poses serious 
hazards for human kind," he writes. Focusing on man-made global warming is 
"self-delusion on a grand scale".

The only problem for the sceptics is that the vast majority of scientists 
think they are the ones that are deluded. "There's a better scientific 
consensus on this than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second 
law of dynamics", Dr James Baker, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration in the US, has said.
[etc]