Heaven and Earth (book) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Heaven and Earth: Global Warming – The Missing Science is a popular science

Popular science

Popular science, sometimes called literature of science, is interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is broad-ranging, often written by scientists as well as journalists, and is presented in many...

book published in 2009 and written by Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

, professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

of mining geology at Adelaide University, and mining company director Ian Plimer

Ian Plimer

Ian Rutherford Plimer is an Australian geologist, academic, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide, and a director of four mining companies...

. It disputes the scientific consensus on climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

, including the view that global warming

Global warming

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

is "very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations" and asserts that the debate is being driven by what the author regards as irrational and unscientific elements.

The book received what The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...

newspaper called "glowing endorsements" from the conservative press. The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....

said it gave "all the scientific ammunition climate change skeptics could want." Other reviewers criticised the book as unscientific, inaccurate, based on obsolete research, and internally inconsistent. Ideas in it have been described as "so wrong as to be laughable".

Heaven and Earth was a bestseller in Australia when published in May 2009, and is in its seventh printing, according to the publisher. The book has also been published in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

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

Connor Court Publishing

Connor Court Publishing is an Australian husband-and-wife publishing company based in the small town of Ballan, Victoria. The owners are Anthony and Brigid Cappello, and John Roskam of the conservative Institute of Public Affairs sits on the editorial board...

, a husband-and-wife operation based in Ballan, Victoria

Ballan, Victoria

Ballan is a small town in the state of Victoria, Australia located on the Werribee River north west of Melbourne. At the 2006 census, Ballan had a population of 1,807.It is the main administrative centre for the Shire of Moorabool Local Government Area....

. The company has a history of publishing books on "culture, justice and religion", including many books on Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

and Catholicism

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

in particular. It has also published fellow Australian climate change skeptic Garth Paltridge

Garth Paltridge

Garth William Paltridge, , is a retired Australian atmospheric physicist. He is presently a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and Emeritus Professor and Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Oceans Studies , University of Tasmania.-Career:Paltridge...

's book, The Climate Caper, which likewise criticises the climate change consensus and the "politicisation of science". Crikey
Crikey
Crikey is an independent Australian electronic magazine comprising an open access website and an email newsletter available to subscribers. Well known in Australian political, media and business circles, Crikey was described by former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham as the "most popular...

, 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 gas

Greenhouse gas

A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...

es such as carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

. Plimer says his book is for the "average punter

Punter

The word punter may refer to:* A speculator in the stock market* A gambler, particularly an amateur betting on horse racing or a player in the game of Baccarat* A beginner skier or snowboarder, especially one with particularly bad style...

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 are based on pure science. Critics note that Plimer has opposed a carbon trading

Carbon emission trading

Carbon emissions trading is a form of emissions trading that specifically targets carbon dioxide and it currently constitutes the bulk of emissions 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

Creationism

Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...

and asserts that it is a "fundamentalist religion adopted by urban atheists

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

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

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...

(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 asserts that the current theory of 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 model

Climate model

Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the climate system to projections of future climate...

s focus too strongly on the effects of carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere

The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is approximately 392 ppm by volume and rose by 2.0 ppm/yr during 2000–2009. 40 years earlier, the rise was only 0.9 ppm/yr, showing not only increasing concentrations, but also a rapid acceleration of concentrations...

, rather than factoring in other issues such as solar variation

Solar variation

Solar variation is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the Sun and in its spectral distribution over years to millennia. These variations have periodic components, the main one being the approximately 11-year solar cycle . The changes also have aperiodic fluctuations...

, the effect of clouds

Cloud feedback

Cloud feedback is the coupling between cloudiness and surface air temperature in which a change in radiative forcing perturbs the surface air temperature, leading to a change in clouds, which could then amplify or diminish the initial temperature perturbation....

, and unreliable temperature measurements

Instrumental temperature record

The instrumental temperature record shows fluctuations of the temperature of the global land surface and oceans. This data is collected from several thousand meteorological stations, Antarctic research stations and satellite observations of sea-surface temperature. Currently, the longest-running...

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
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

columnist called the book "a damning critique" of the theory of man-made global warming, while the Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

writer and activist George Monbiot

George Monbiot

George Joshua Richard Monbiot is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain and Bring on the...

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

John Moore (broadcaster)

John Sanford Moore , better known as John Moore, is a Canadian radio and television broadcaster, film critic, actor, voice actor and comedian. He works for CFRB 1010 in Toronto, Ontario.-Early life:...

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

University of Adelaide

The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...

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

Australian Science Media Centre

The Australian Science Media Centre is an independent, non-profit service for the news media, giving journalists direct access to evidence-based science and expertise....

, 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

University of Wollongong

The University of Wollongong is a public university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney...

, and a lead chapter author for the IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

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

John Veron

John Veron, credited in research as J. E. N. Veron, and in other writing as Charlie Veron, is a wide-ranging specialist in corals and reefs...

, former chief scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science

Australian Institute of Marine Science

The Australian Institute of Marine Science is a state-of-the-art tropical marine research centre located primarily at Cape Ferguson, 50km by road east of Townsville in North Queensland, Australia. It was established in 1972, by the Commonwealth of Australia...

, 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

David Karoly

David John Karoly is an Australian scientist and academic. He is an expert in climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and climate variations due to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation....

, an atmospheric dynamicist at Melbourne University and a lead author for the IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

, 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

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

in any library that wastes its funds buying it. The book can then be placed on the shelves alongside Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton

John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...

's State of Fear
State of Fear
State of Fear is a 2004 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and reached the #1 bestseller position at Amazon.com and #2 on the New York Times Best Seller list for...

, another science fiction book about climate change with many footnotes. The only difference is that there are fewer scientific errors in State of Fear."

Ian G. Enting

Ian G. Enting

Ian Enting is a mathematical physicist and the AMSI/MASCOS Professorial Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems based at The University of Melbourne....

, a mathematical physicist at MASCOS

MASCOS

MASCOS, or the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems, was established in 2003 with about $11 million in funding over five years from the Australian Research Council to research Complex/Intelligent Systems....

, University of Melbourne and author of Twisted, The Distorted Mathematics of Greenhouse Denial
Twisted, The Distorted Mathematics of Greenhouse Denial
Twisted, The Distorted Mathematics of Greenhouse Denial is a 2007 book by Ian G. Enting, who is the Professorial Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems based at the University of Melbourne....

, similarly criticised what he described as numerous misrepresentations of the sources cited in the book and charged that Plimer "fails to establish his claim that the human inﬂuence on climate can be ignored, relative to natural variation." Enting compiled a list of over 100 errors in the book.

Michael Ashley

Michael Ashley (astronomer)

Michael C. B. Ashley is an Australian astronomer and professor at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney. He is most famous for his work in Antarctica, with the study of the seeing capability at Dome C.-Antarctica and Dome C:...

, an astronomer at the University of New South Wales

University of New South Wales

The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

, criticised the book at length in a review for The Australian in which he characterised the book as "largely a collection of contrarian ideas and conspiracy theories that are rife in the blogosphere. The writing is rambling and repetitive; the arguments flawed and illogical." He accused Plimer of having "done an enormous disservice to science, and the dedicated scientists who are trying to understand climate and the influence of humans, by publishing this book. It is not "merely" atmospheric scientists that would have to be wrong for Plimer to be right. It would require a rewriting of biology, geology, physics, oceanography, astronomy and statistics. Plimer's book deserves to languish on the shelves along with similar pseudo-science such as the writings of Immanuel Velikovsky

Immanuel Velikovsky

Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950...

and Erich von Daniken

Erich von Däniken

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968...

."

Malcolm Walter, the Director of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology

Astrobiology

Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. This interdisciplinary field encompasses the search for habitable environments in our Solar System and habitable planets outside our Solar System, the search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry,...

, University of New South Wales

University of New South Wales

The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

, commented on Plimer's "fallacious reasoning," noting the "blatant and fundamental contradictions" and inconsistencies in the book. Walter told ABC Radio National that Plimer's interpretation of the literature is confused and that Plimer "bit off more than he can chew." According to Walter, "reviewing this book has been an unpleasant experience for me. I have been a friendly colleague of Plimer's for 25 years or more. ... But..., in my opinion, he has done a disservice to science and to the community at large." On the same network, geophysicist Kurt Lambeck

Kurt Lambeck

Kurt Lambeck is Professor of Geophysics at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. His current research interests include the interactions between ice sheets, oceans and the solid Earth, as well as changes in ocean levels and their impact on human populations.Lambeck is also...

, currently president of the Australian Academy of Science

Australian Academy of Science

The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The Academy is modelled after the Royal Society and operates under a Royal Charter; as such it is...

, said that the book was "sloppy" and that it "is not a work of science; it is an opinion of an author who happens to be a scientist."

Chris Turney, a researcher of prehistoric climate changes, of the University of Exeter

University of Exeter

The University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....

's Department of Geography, stated the book was "a cacophony of climate skeptic arguments that have been discredited by decades of research." He described the number of errors in the book as "disturbingly high": "statements that are at best ambiguous and in many cases plain wrong are repeated, figures purporting to demonstrate climate change is all natural are erroneous, time and spatial scales are mixed up . . . the list goes on." Turney comments that Plimer "badly mistreats" the history of the development of climate science, "regurgitating" the fringe idea of global cooling

Global cooling

Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation...

to portray "recent concerns over warming [as] just another case of alarmism." He concludes that "Plimer's thesis of inaction is a course we follow at our peril."

Writing in Earth magazine, emeritus USGS

United States Geological Survey

The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...

geologist Terry Gerlach commented that the book "illustrates one of the pathways by which myths, misrepresentations and spurious information get injected into the climate change debate." He highlighted Plimer's inaccurate claims about volcanic emissions of carbon dioxide and noted that Plimer had failed to provide estimates of present-day global carbon dioxide emission rate from volcanoes. In Gerlach's view, this was ironic considering that the book professes to provide the "missing science" on climate change.

Retired meteorologist William Kininmonth

William Kininmonth (meteorologist)

William Robert Kininmonth is a retired Australian meteorologist noted for his views as an opponent of anthropogenic global warming theory and for his frequent writings on the topic of climate change.-Education:...

, a long-standing critic of climate change theory, supported the book in a commentary published in The Australian in which he wrote that "Plimer's authoritative book provides the excuse and impetus to re-examine the scientific fundamentals [of climate change]."

The scientists' criticisms were rejected by Plimer, who embarked on a lecture tour following the book's publication in a bid to lobby the Australian government to change its policies on climate change to reflect what he called "valid science". He said that he had predicted that "The science would not be discussed, there would be academic nit-picking and there would be vitriolic ad hominem attacks by pompous academics out of contact with the community" and asserted that "comments by critics suggest that few have actually read the book and every time there was a savage public personal attack, book sales rose."

Media reactions

Plimer's book has received "glowing endorsements in the conservative press" according to Adam Morton of The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...

. Christopher Pearson

Christopher Pearson

Christopher Pearson is an Australian journalist who writes for The Australian.He comes from Adelaide and received a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from Flinders University as well as a Graduate Diploma in Education from the University of Adelaide...

, a columnist with the conservative broadsheet The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....

, 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

Miranda Devine

Miranda Devine is an Australian columnist and writer noted for her conservative stance on a range of social and political issues. Her column, formerly printed twice weekly in Fairfax Media newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald, now appears in the News Limited Daily Telegraph with...

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

Paul Sheehan (journalist)

Paul Sheehan is a conservative Australian columnist and senior writer for the Sydney Morning Herald, where he has been day editor, chief of staff and Washington correspondent...

, 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
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the 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 British Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

's right-wing columnist Andrew Alexander called it "the best book on science and scientists I have ever read" and declared that "piece by piece, he takes apart the work of the fanatics."

The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

, a conservative British magazine, made the book the cover story of its 11 July 2009 issue. In Canada, Rex Murphy

Rex Murphy

Rex Murphy is a Canadian commentator and author, primarily on Canadian political and social matters.Murphy was born in Carbonear, Newfoundland, 105 kilometres west of St. John's and is the second of five children of Harry and Marie Murphy...

of The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...

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

Business Standard

Business Standard is an Indian English-language daily newspaper published by Business Standard Ltd in two languages, English and Hindi...

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
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....

, 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

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

's scientists "whip up scary agenda-driven scenarios" as "fanciful".

In The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, Bob Ward

Bob Ward

Robert Ward is a Canadian author and travel writer with a special interest in pilgrimages. Though a self-professed atheist, he specialized in religious studies and English literature at the University of Toronto before doing an M.A...

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."

The Australian's coverage of Heaven and Earth attracted criticism from Robert Manne

Robert Manne

Robert Manne is a professor of politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.Born in Melbourne, Manne's earliest political consciousness was formed by the fact that his parents were Jewish refugees from Europe and his grandparents were victims of the Holocaust...

, a lecturer on politics at LaTrobe University in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, who criticised the "gushing praise" given the book. Manne deplored the willingness of The Australian to "give books such as [Plimer's] the kind of enthusiastic welcome hundreds of others published in this country every year cannot dream of receiving", calling this "a grave intellectual, political and moral mistake". Similarly, George Monbiot

George Monbiot

criticised The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

for featuring Heaven and Earth as a cover story, calling it "one of the gravest misjudgments in journalism this year" since "a quick check would have shown that [the book is] utter nonsense".

Lawrence Solomon of Canada's Financial Post

Financial Post

The Financial Post was an English Canadian business newspaper, which published from 1907 to 1998. In 1998, the publication was folded into the new National Post, although the name Financial Post has been retained as the banner for that paper's business section and also lives on in the Post’s...

commented that "Thanks to Plimer, the press and politicians, Australia is likely to become the developed world’s third Denier Nation" behind the Czech Republic and the United States.

Other reactions

Václav Klaus

Václav Klaus is the second President of the Czech Republic and a former Prime Minister .An economist, he is co-founder of the Civic Democratic Party, the Czech Republic's largest center-right political party. Klaus is a eurosceptic, but he reluctantly endorsed the Lisbon treaty as president of...

, President of the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

and an economist, recommended Heaven and Earth in a blurb

Blurb

A blurb is a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative work, usually used on books without giving away any details, that is usually referring to the words on the back of the book jacket but also commonly seen on DVD and video cases, web portals, and news websites.- History :The...

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

George Pell

George Pell AC is an Australian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the eighth and current Archbishop of Sydney, serving since 2001. He previously served as auxiliary bishop and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne...

, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, wrote in The Sunday Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...

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 maverick 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

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

Kalgoorlie, known as Kalgoorlie-Boulder, is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, and is located east-northeast of state capital Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway...

. Senator Steve Fielding

Steve Fielding

Steven "Steve" Fielding , was a Senator representing the state of Victoria and the federal parliamentary leader of the Family First Party in Australia. Elected to the Senate at the 2004 federal election on two percent of the Victorian vote, he failed to gain re-election at the 2010 federal election...

of the conservative Family First Party

Family First Party

The Family First Party is a socially conservative minor political party in Australia. It has two members in the South Australian Legislative Council...

has also stated that his views on climate change have been influenced by Plimer and his book.

Lyn Allison

Lyn Allison

Lynette Fay "Lyn" Allison is an Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian Senate from 1996 to 2008, representing the state of Victoria. She was the last federal parliamentary leader of the Australian Democrats....

, leader of the Australian Democrats

Australian Democrats

The Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...

from 2004 to 2008, called Plimer the "pet denialist

Climate change denial

Climate change denial is a term used to describe organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons...

" of Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch

Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

's newspapers, and accused Plimer of "happily cashing in on his speaking tours and his book".

External links

Connor Court Publishing – Heaven and Earth Global Warming...
http://www.rlpgtrade.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=1589794729 Taylor Trade Publishing (United States)
Ian Plimer’s ‘Heaven + Earth’ — Checking the Claims. Ian G. Enting, ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems (MASCOS)

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