Heaven and Earth

Background

Heaven and Earth is a sequel to a previous work by Plimer called A Short History of Planet Earth. Published in 2001, A Short History was based on a decade's worth of radio broadcasts by Plimer aimed mainly at rural Australians. It became a bestseller and won a Eureka Prize in 2002. However, Plimer was unable to find any major publisher willing to publish his follow-up book. He attributed this to there being "a lot of fear out there. No one wants to go against the popular paradigm." Plimer turned to Connor Court Publishing. The company has a history of publishing books on "culture, justice and religion", including many books on Christianity and Catholicism in particular. It has also published fellow Australian climate change skeptic Garth Paltridge's book, The Climate Caper, which likewise criticises the climate change consensus and the "politicisation of science". Crikey, an Australian webzine, commented that the publication of Heaven and Earth was a coup for conservatives, and said of the publisher: "The conservatives have a new friend in publishing".

According to Plimer, he wrote Heaven and Earth after being "incensed by increasing public acceptance of the idea that humans have caused global warming" and set out to "knock out every single argument we hear about climate change." Although he does not dispute that climate change is happening, he argues that "It's got nothing to do with the atmosphere, it's about what happens in the galaxy" and that climate is driven by the sun, the Earth's orbit and plate tectonics rather than the levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Plimer says his book is for the "average punter in the street" who can "smell something is wrong in the climate debate but can't put a finger on what."

Critics have regularly questioned Plimer about his commercial interests in the mining industry, but he defends the independence of his views, saying that these commercial interests do not colour his arguments, which he claims are based on pure science. Critics note that Plimer has opposed a carbon trading scheme in Australia, saying that "it would probably destroy [the mining industry] totally".

Synopsis

In the book, Plimer likens the concept of human-induced climate change to creationism and claims that it is a "fundamentalist religion adopted by urban atheists looking to fill a yawning spiritual gap plaguing the West". Environmental groups are claimed to have filled this gap by having a romantic view of a less developed past. The book is critical of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which he claims has allowed "little or no geological, archeological or historical input" in its analyses. If it had, the book asserts, the IPCC would know cold times lead to dwindling populations, social disruption, extinction, disease and catastrophic droughts, while warm times lead to life blossoming and economic booms – suggesting that global warming, whether or not caused by humans, should be welcomed.

The book is critical of political efforts to address climate change and argues that extreme environmental changes are inevitable and unavoidable. Meteorologists have a huge amount to gain from climate change research, the book claims, and they have narrowed the climate change debate to the atmosphere, whereas the truth is more complex. Money would be better directed to dealing with problems as they occur rather than making expensive and futile attempts to prevent climate change.

The book differs from the scientific consensus in contending that the Great Barrier Reef will benefit from rising seas, that there is no correlation between carbon dioxide levels and temperature, and that 98% of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapour.

In the book, Plimer claims that the scientific consensus on human-induced global warming is not in accord with history, archaeology, geology or astronomy and must be rejected, that promotion of this theory as science is fraudulent, and that the current alarm over climate change is the result of bad science. He argues that climate models focus too strongly on the effects of carbon dioxide, rather than factoring in other issues such as solar variation, the effect of clouds, and unreliable temperature measurements.

Reception and criticism

Heaven and Earth received substantial coverage in the Australian and international media. It produced a highly polarised response from reviewers, with members of the conservative press praising the book and many scientists criticising it. A Wall Street Journal columnist called the book "a damning critique" of the theory of man-made global warming, while the Guardian writer and activist George Monbiot listed some of the book's errors with the comment: "Seldom has a book been more cleanly murdered by scientists than Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth, which purports to show that manmade climate change is nonsense. Since its publication in Australia it has been ridiculed for a hilarious series of schoolboy errors, and its fudging and manipulation of the data."

Reactions from scientists

Canadian broadcaster John Moore said it was "widely criticised by fellow scientists as just another collection of denier hits." The Adelaide Advertiser stated that among other scientists, "Plimer is all but out in the cold".

Barry Brook of Adelaide University's Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability, who is at the same university as Plimer and has debated climate change issues with him, described the book as a case study "in how not to be objective" and accused Plimer of using "selective evidence". Brook said that Plimer's "stated view of climate science is that a vast number of extremely well respected scientists and a whole range of specialist disciplines have fallen prey to delusional self-interest and become nothing more than unthinking ideologues. Plausible to conspiracy theorists, perhaps, but hardly a sane world view, and insulting to all those genuinely committed to real science." He said that Plimer's assertions about man's role in climate change were "naive, reflected a poor understanding of climate science, and relied on recycled and distorted arguments that had been repeatedly refuted." Brook also suggested that many of the scientific authors cited by Plimer actually support the consensus view and that their work is misrepresented in Plimer's book. Susannah Eliott, the chief executive of the Australian Science Media Centre, encouraged colleagues to read the book and comment on it, but took the view that "there isn't anything new in there, they are all old arguments".

Many reviewers highlighted factual and sourcing problems in Heaven and Earth. Colin Woodroffe, a coastal geomorphologist at the University of Wollongong, and a lead chapter author for the IPCC AR4, wrote that the book has many errors and will be "remembered for the confrontation it provokes rather than the science it stimulates." Woodroffe noted Plimer's "unbalanced approach to the topic," and concluded that the book was not written as a contribution to any scientific debate, and was evidently not aimed at a scientific audience. Charlie Veron, former chief scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, said every original statement Plimer makes in the book on coral and coral reefs is incorrect, and that Plimer "serve[s] up diagrams from no acknowledged source, diagrams known to be obsolete and diagrams that combine bits of science with bits of fiction."

David Karoly, an atmospheric dynamicist at Melbourne University and a lead author for the IPCC, accused Plimer of misusing data in the book and commented that "it doesn't support the answers with sources." Karoly reviewed the book and concluded: "Given the errors, the non-science, and the nonsense in this book, it should be classified as science fiction in any library that wastes its funds buying it. The book can then be placed on the shelves alongside Michael Crichton's State of Fear, another science fiction book about climate change with many footnotes. The only difference is that there are fewer scientific errors in State of Fear."

Media reactions

Plimer's book has received "glowing endorsements in the conservative press" according to Adam Morton of The Age. Christopher Pearson, a columnist with the conservative broadsheet The Australian, served as master of ceremonies at the book's launch and hailed it as a "campaign document" for climate change skeptics that "contains all the scientific ammunition they could want, packed into 493 eloquent pages." Sydney Morning Herald conservative commentator Miranda Devine called the book "a comprehensive scientific refutation of the beliefs underpinning the idea of human-caused climate change" and wrote that "Plimer's book, accessible as it is to the layperson, will help redress the power imbalance between those who claim to own the knowledge and the rest of us."

Paul Sheehan, a conservative commentator from The Sydney Morning Herald, asserted that "Ian Plimer is not some isolated gadfly. He is a prize-winning scientist and professor." Sheehan continued, calling the book "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." The Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel called it "a damning critique" of the theory of man-made global warming and credited Plimer with sparking an "era of renewed enlightenment".

The Spectator, a conservative British magazine, made the book the cover story of its 11 July 2009 issue. In Canada, Rex Murphy of The Globe and Mail recommended Heaven and Earth as "a wonderfully comprehensive and fearless book." London-based banker Lakshman Menon wrote in the Leisure section of the Business Standard of India that "if [the book] kickstarts an honest debate about climate change, Heaven And Earth will have performed an important service."

Leigh Dayton, science writer for The Australian, expressed dismay at Plimer for having "boarded the denialist ark" and described his arguments, such as his claims that scientists had been playing along with the view of human-induced climate change "in order to keep the research dollars flowing", as "a load of old codswallop". Dayton criticised Plimer's "shaky assumptions" and "misinformation", describing his assertion that the IPCC's scientists "whip up scary agenda-driven scenarios" as "fanciful".

In The Times, Bob Ward called the book an angry, bitter and error-strewn polemic. He said that Plimer "uses geology as an excuse to conclude the opposite of mainstream climate science", and that it is "hard to work out how and why he managed to produce such a controversial and flawed account."

Other reactions

Václav Klaus, former president of the Czech Republic and an economist, recommended Heaven and Earth in a blurb on the dust jacket: "This is a very powerful, clear, understandable and extremely useful book." His endorsement was in response to Plimer's request for the backing of "the big guns", which Plimer asserts is indicative of "a great body of extremely clever and well-known people out there that do not agree with the Chicken Little arguments that are being put up."

George Pell, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, wrote in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper that Heaven and Earth was "likely to make a huge difference to public opinion" and defended Plimer from charges of being a climate change "denier" because "history shows the planet is dynamic and the climate is always changing." The Archbishop concluded that Plimer's evidence "shows the wheels are falling from the climate catastrophe bandwagon."

Former Australian Federal Representative and pro-mining politician Graeme Campbell has sought to use the book to get "the other side of the debate" on climate change into schools. In June 2009, Campbell gave copies of Heaven and Earth to every school in his home town of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Senator Steve Fielding of the conservative Family First Party has also stated that his views on climate change have been influenced by Plimer and his book.

Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats from 2004 to 2008, called Plimer the "pet denialist" of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers, and accused Plimer of "happily cashing in on his speaking tours and his book".