Ian Plimer

Author

Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science

Octoer 24, 2009

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Climate, sea level, and ice sheets have always changed, and the changes observed today are less than those of the past. Climate changes are cyclical and are driven by the Earth's position in the galaxy, the sun, wobbles in the Earth's orbit, ocean currents, and plate tectonics. In previous times, atmospheric carbon dioxide was far higher than at present but did not drive climate change. No runaway greenhouse effect or acid oceans occurred during times of excessively high carbon dioxide. During past glaciations, carbon dioxide was higher than it is today. The non-scientific popular political view is that humans change climate. Do we have reason for concern about possible human-induced climate change?

This book's 504 pages and over 2,300 references to peer-reviewed scientific literature and other authoritative sources engagingly synthesize what we know about the sun, earth, ice, water, and air. Importantly, in a parallel to his 1994 book challenging  creation science,  Telling Lies for God, Ian Plimer describes Al Gore's book and movie An Inconvenient Truth as long on scientific  misrepresentations.   Trying to deal with these misrepresentations is somewhat like trying to argue with creationists,  he writes,  who misquote, concoct evidence, quote out of context, ignore contrary evidence, and create evidence ex nihilo.

Ian Plimer, twice winner of Australia's highest scientific honor, the Eureka Prize, is professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of Adelaide and is author of six other books written for the general public in addition to more than 120 scientific papers.

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Ian Plimer | Professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide
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