The global warming sceptics

At 401 Collins Street on Monday night, 50 men gathered in a room ofplush green carpet, pottery and antique lights to launch a book aboutthe science of climate change. Some of them were scientists. But manywere engineers and retired captains of industry. Presiding was HughMorgan, president of the Business Council of Australia and formerWestern Mining boss. The master of ceremonies was retired Laborpolitician Peter Walsh.

Climate change is about science, but not just about science. It's aboutbusiness and politics and wielding influence. The men - there was justone woman present - were all climate change sceptics, members of anorganisation called the Lavoisier Group that argues global warming isnothing to worry about.
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The book they launched - the latest weapon in the tussle for hearts andminds over global warming - was by Melbourne climate change scepticWilliam Kininmonth, former head of the National Climate Centre, part ofthe Bureau of Meteorology. He argues that global warming is natural andnot caused by humans burning fossil fuels.

The book, Climate Change: A Natural Hazard, blasts the models used byclimate scientists to predict and simulate what is happening. They areflawed, he says. "Climate change is naturally variable and it posesserious hazards for human kind," he writes. Focusing on man-made globalwarming is "self-delusion on a grand scale".

The only problem for the sceptics is that the vast majority ofscientists think they are the ones that are deluded. "There's a betterscientific consensus on this than on any issue I know - except maybeNewton's second law of dynamics", Dr James Baker, of the NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US, has said.

The Lavoisier Group challenges the orthodoxy and insists that thatdoesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. Named after a French scientistcelebrated as a father of modern chemistry (and also famous formarrying a 13-year-old girl and meeting his end under the FrenchRevolution's guillotine) the group was born in Australia in the 1990sspecifically to question - some say undermine - greenhouse science andthe Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to cut global-warmingemissions.

Photo:Jason South

Secretary Ray Evans describes the 90-odd Lavoisier members as a "dad'sarmy" of mostly retired engineers and scientists from the mining,manufacturing and construction industries. Many, he says, regardclimate change as "a scam". It is unclear how much Hugh Morgan supportsLavoisier financially, but members pay an annual subion of $50 and theannual budget is around $10,000. When they want to print a pamphlet todistribute at universities or take an advertisement in a newpaper - asthey did in The Australian a few years ago - they appeal to members formoney.

In Australia, the group is the obvious embodiment of the movement, butthe idea has also been taken up by right-wing think tanks, such as theInstitute of Public Affairs, and also feeds into a global network. Itis a sophisticated machine that has successfully created the impressionthat climate change science is mired in uncertainty.

Scientists and environmentalists say the sceptics have been so good atspreading their message they have slowed action mitigating globalwarming. In Australia, the sceptics have been so persistent that theCSIRO, which employs some of the nation's leading climate scientists,has been forced to be far more proactive in defending climate changescience .

Observers say sceptics have influenced attitudes of policy makers andpoliticians. A consultant and industry adviser on greenhouse gases whodeclined to be named, said: "I think the sceptics have had an impact. Ithink Australia's reluctance to ratify the Kyoto protocol has come downto the tactics of these groups that are supported by industry."

The nation's climate experts worry - mostly in private - that scepticswill delay action on climate change for another decade, using the sametools of hired guns and questionable scientific evidence as the tobaccoindustry wielded to deny cancer links in the 1970s and 1980s.

Recently, the sceptics have been on the back foot. Last week, theonce-languishing Kyoto Protocol got its start date of February 16. Thiswill set in train international mechanisms such as a global emissionsmarket worth billions of dollars and financial incentives for renewableenergy investment in developing countries.

Like the US, the Howard Government refuses to participate in Kyoto but says that by 2012 Australia will meet its targets anyhow.

It probably will, because recent decisions to end land clearing countas "credits" under Kyoto. The Howard Government backs the science thatsays most of the warming in the past 50 years was due to human-producedemissions that trap heat in the atmosphere that would normally radiateto space.

The 2504 scientists and reviewers who work under the banner of theUnited Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) look set to make even stronger pronouncements about the role ofhumans on climate in their next assessment, due in 2007. The scientificmainstream has become more confident about how global warming isaffecting the world, particularly in the past 10 years. The panel'schairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, told The Age: "One can sayscientifically it is human action that is driving the bulk of changesthat are taking place today."

Meanwhile, the evidence of climate change keeps mounting. Lastcentury's global warming of 0.6 degrees - 0.8 degrees in Australia -may sound small, but an extra 1.5 to two degrees will mean the loss ofcoral and other delicate ecosystems. It is the most rapid warming theplanet has seen in 10,000 years. In that time, carbon dioxide in theatmosphere remained constant at around 280 parts per million. It is nownearly 380ppm, a level the earth has not experienced for at least400,000 years.

This month, an eight-nation report found global warming was causing thepolar ice-caps to melt at such an unprecedented rate significantportions could be gone by century's end. Land temperatures made lastmonth the hottest October on record.

But still the sceptics resist. Some are convinced that humans can'trender change on something as large as the atmosphere. Many, like theLavoisier Group, are concerned about the cost of Kyoto to Australia'sresource-intensive economy. Others, such as William Kininmonth, havefound fame in sceptic circles in the twilight of their careers.Academics like the Australian National University's Ian Castles, aformer Australian Statistian, have become hardened in their scepticismbecause the IPCC has reacted slowly to criticism.

Still others, such as geologists, are cranky because their study ofclimate change over millennia has been ignored, they argue. Universityof Melbourne geologist Ian Plimer says this period of climate change isjust "one frame in a three-hour movie". Climate change, he says, is "adogma, not a debate".

The Lavoisier Group distributes the work of geologist Bob Carter, IanCastles, William Kininmonth, Ian Plimer and a few other Australiansceptics. The Institute of Public Affairs, which receives funding fromcompanies such as ExxonMobil, the most sceptical of the world's fossilfuel giants, also engages in the debate, scouring the web and emailgroups for evidence that climate change is natural. Early next month,the IPA is bringing to Australia Andre Illarionov, the economic adviserto Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who lost the argument that hiscountry should not sign Kyoto.

Recently, the doubters have been infuriated by NSW Premier Bob Carr'scomments that in future, parts of the state will be like "living in anoven", and the Lavoisier Group is preparing a complaint to the ABCabout its "appalling" and "sustained campaign" on climate change issueson Lateline and the 7.30 Report.

Australian sceptics are not as powerful as those in the US, where, fora long time, George Bush's Administration has also questioned thescience.

Late last month, James Hansen, a director of the NASA Goddard Institutefor Space Studies in New York, accused the Bush Administration oftrying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming."I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which informationflow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled asit is now," he said.

In the past few years, with the exception of ExxonMobil, most fossilfuel companies in Australia are believed to have quietly accepted theclimate science. But in their submissions to government,behind-the-scenes lobbying and through industry associations, manyremain Kyoto-resistant and have argued recently against incentives forthe renewable energy industry.

In the US, key sceptics have admitted to being on the fossil-fuelpayroll, but Australians such as Ian Castles, Bob Carter and WilliamKininmonth say they are not paid for their views. However, earlier thisyear, before Russia had agreed to sign the Kyoto Protocol, Kininmonthaccepted the International Policy Network's offer to fly him to aspecial climate science meeting in Moscow. The IPN is a right-wingthink tank that has received funding from ExxonMobil and which networkswith the IPA. But Kininmonth says he didn't know that. In an email toThe Age, he said: "I was satisfied that it was a genuine invitationwhen the Russian ambassador telephoned me to co-ordinate obtaining avisa at such short notice."

Scepticism, of course, is a hallmark of science. Some global-warmingcritics are simply suspicious about the idea of consensus in thescientific community. As the Lavoisier Group's Ray Evans points out,the history of science is littered with hard-won battles of one man -such as Galileo - against a flat earth-like consensus. Evans also sayshe is a "Genesis 1:28 man". That's the passage that says: "God said tothem 'Be fruitful and become many and fill the Earth and subdue it, andhave in subjection the fish of the seas and the flying creatures of theheavens and every living creature that is moving upon the Earth".

The global-warming doomsayers, says Evans, are anti-development.Moreover, they stem from an environmentalism that has taken the placeof Christianity, particularly in Europe. "To put it in its bluntestterms, when you don't believe in God you don't believe in nothing. Youbelieve in whatever is the fashion of the day, and environmentalism hasscooped the pool."

In some cases, scepticism has been good for climate science. USscientist Richard Lindzen, regarded as an outstanding climatologist,has forced his colleagues to address issues such as the role ofconvection, cloud and water vapour. But most of the handful ofscientists around the world that could be called sceptics - and theyare mostly not climatologists - do not, as Lindzen does, publish in therecognised peer-reviewed literature, science's method of fact-checkingand filtering out bad science.

"Sceptics in Australia function to promulgate these essentially dodgykinds of studies. And I don't think that is is too strong language tosay they are dodgy," says Dr James Risbey, a climatologist at MonashUniversity's School of Mathematical Sciences.

Climate scientists are frustrated that the sceptics' arguments persist,even though they say they have addressed them. There are manyuncertainties around climate science, but they are often not the onespeddled by sceptics, they say. Kevin Hennessy, senior researchscientist at CSIRO's Atmospheric Research, said one of the mainuncertainties was saying what proportion of human activity versusnatural variability could be blamed in recent climate events and trends- such as the drought in south-eastern Australia, the Canberrabushfires or Europe's devastating heatwave last year. It is alsouncertain how much emissions of carbon dioxide will grow in the future.

Predicting population growth, the growth of economies and technologicalbreakthroughs that will help reduce emissions are all difficult.

Scientists say they are still unsure about some of the impacts ofglobal warming. The effect on coral reefs is clear, but there's limitedunderstanding about the impacts on fisheries, for example. "Likewise wehave a good understanding of impacts on some crops, but a limitedunderstanding of impacts on cities," Hennessy says.

Hugh Morgan, probably Australia's leading sceptic in business and theforce behind the Lavoisier Group, remains dedicated to the cause. "Weare interested in this debate because we see that John Citizen is goingto be asked to do some dramatic things to change his way of life inrespect of matters (the community) doesn't understand."

While William Kininmonth is respected by his former colleagues at theBureau of Meteorology and they agree about the climate's naturalvariability, they disagree that recent warming is natural. In a reviewto be published in March in the Australian Meteorological Magazine,University of Melbourne associate professor of meteorology Kevin Walshwill argue that Kininmonth has failed to present the case for naturalwarming. "Some of his detailed arguments are a little bit curious," DrWalsh told The Age. "Some of his statements actually contradictwell-accepted work."

But strangely enough, the Lavoisier Group heard that message on Mondaynight. In what seemed like a coup, Hugh Morgan had secured therespected John Zillman, former head of the Bureau of Meteorology, tolaunch the book. Dr Zillman agreed, but made it clear that there weresignificant parts of the book that he disagreed with. Dr Zillman, whois known to be quite conservative about climate science, said he wasconcerned about appearing at a Lavoisier Group book launch, but did soin the interests of debate.

He says he is not aware of any sceptic argument that has invalidatedthe mainstream science, and is now convinced - although would not havebeen 10 years ago - that it is mostly humans changing the world'sclimate. "I won't be expecting to be invited back as a regular," hesaid.