Ian Plimer the question evader

The Plimer-Monbiot debate finally took place last night. The baby gloves were taken off and insults flowed freely from Plimer. Even the Lateline host, Tony Jones, was not safe from Plimer.

In the end the basis of Ian Plimer's book was put into serious question by George Monbiot. Monbiot asked very straight forward questions based on claims in Plimer's book and references to those claims. Plimer did not answer one question in a 24 minute interview. He uses every technique possible to avoid a straightforward answer.

Monbiot claims that Plimer's book is "filled with fabrication after fabrication, simple untruths repeated again and again".

References from Plimer's book that he could not support include:

1. Plimer's claim that volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than humans, though US Geological Survey shows that human being produce 130 times more carbon dioxide than volcanoes.
2. Plimer's claim that the Hadley Centre in the UK has shown that warming stoped in 1998. He could not give the exact reference to this otherwise unknown claim.
3. Plimer's mis-quotation of the Charles Keller research. In effect Plimer turns the conclusion that temperatures have risen recently 180 degrees and claims they have not!

Monbiot labels Plimer as a question evader when he concludes that the debate has been "a fascinating exercise in evasion and distraction." Monbiot like the rest of us asks why won't professor plimer ever answer a simple question?

See the video of the Lateline interview.

Photo credits: Lateline