Not all scientists have pure motives on climate

There are examples of scientists being anti-scientific on climate.

In addressing one of Ian Plimer’s main points (the flawed 97 per cent consensus) Geoff Edwards does not dispute it (“Forget Plimer’s polemics, just play the percentages”, 22/1). He switches to the so-what argument. If it really is a case of so what, why do we hear this argument by alarmists?

Edwards says that a transition to renewables “cannot possibly be a burden to the economy”. But Australian electricity prices fell for 40 years and then rose dramatically around the time the national energy market began. This has accelerated under the renewables push.

Edwards chastises Plimer for suggesting that some climate scientists may be motivated by self-interest. As a scientist, I can tell you that all fields are filled with people whose motivations run the spectrum from a simple desire to seek the truth to self-motivation that can lead to sinister results.

A look at the Retractionwatch website and an understanding of the climategate scandal suggests that some scientists are capable of anti-scientific behaviour. In a report in the journal Nature, Christopher Williams at Clark University in Massachusetts was quoted saying: “I have heard scientists say that if we found forest loss cooled the planet, we wouldn’t publish it.” This is not science, this is agenda driven ideology and it is why there is a distrust by scientists of the climate change industry.

Michael Foley, Coburg, Vic

Geoff Edwards appears to have given as little attention to climate science as he has to the source of the 97 per cent figure. The man-made global warming theory is based on a feature that necessarily requires the atmosphere to warm faster in the tropical troposphere than it does at the surface. This hasn’t happened, and under all the normal rules of science this fact destroys the theory.

There are many other failures of the man-made warming theory. The latest IPCC report claimed that there would be “amplified warming” from “sea-ice feedback” near Antarctica, yet the latitude at which they expected this amplified warming turns out to have been one of the fastest-cooling places on the planet over the period for which satellite data is available.

It is clear that the climate models are not fit for purpose. Even their proponents admit the models have serious problems because of their poor resolution and their crude measurement of climate conditions, The models can’t adequately represent many important climate processes.

Mike Jonas, Exeter, NSW

Geoff Edwards is right. The atoms in CO2 do contain a lot of nuclear energy, but it is impossible to get at under feasible conditions on Earth. The carbon in CO2 is fully oxidised (burnt) so the molecule CO2 essentially contains no usable energy. The CO2 molecule certainly will turn up in energy-rich molecules such as glucose, but it will have taken photosynthesis a lot of energy to put it there.

Michael Guppy, Moruya, NSW

When Earth’s carbonaceous deposits were formed, their carbon content became lost from the carbon cycle, only returning in gradually increasing amounts as coal burning flourished. The more we dig up coal deposits and burn them, the more we expand the active carbon base on which the biosphere flourishes through the balance between photosynthesis of new carbohydrates by plants and the internal combustion of such carbohydrates through the respiration of plants and animals.

The process of unlocking and burning coal gives back to nature the carbon that was originally lost from the biosphere when the deposits were formed. Thus, by generating more CO2 we are enriching the biosphere with more plant food resulting in global greening.

Brian Chapman, Drouin, Vic

For decades, scientists have been warning that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to hotter temperatures, more extreme weather, melting Arctic ice and the consequences of those changes to life. We are now observing changes that provide support for the hypothesis that humans burning fossils fuels are responsible for the changes.

Over two centuries the increase of CO2 from 280 to 400 parts per million is by humans. All the changes that the planet has experienced have followed laws of physics and chemistry. Today is no exception. Can any contrarian advance a credible reason why the planet is warming? The literature has no alternative explanation.

John Chapman, Nedlands, WA