The Lavoisier Group is an Australian corporate front group dedicated to climate change issues. It would easily qualify as Australia's funniest corporate front group - its conspiracy theories are so imaginative - if not for the sobering fact that its crackpot ideas have been recycled as Coalition government policy.

Mining multinational WMC Ltd. (formerly Western Mining Corporation) has been heavily involved in the Lavoisier Group and may have been the instigator of the group. WMC's climate scepticism is discussed in detail at: <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/wmc.html >

The Lavoisier Group's website is: <www.lavoisier.com.au>

The federal government is attempting to weaken support for measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a United Nations climate change conference at the Hague in November.

The November conference is supposed to conclude negotiations on a range of issues such as allowable measures for greenhouse gas reduction (or mitigation by the expanded use of carbon “sinks”), monitoring and compliance issues, and the establishment of an international carbon trading market.

An appropriate vehicle for the government to push its agenda in recent weeks has been the federal parliament’s Treaties Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the Kyoto Protocol and its implications for Australia.

Following a meeting of the committee in Canberra on September 27, committee chairperson and Liberal MP Andrew Thomson expressed concern about proposals to establish an international monitoring body.

Speaking on ABC radio on September 28, Thomson questioned the “strange notion of inspections like having Richard Butler go into Iraq. They're talking about people wandering around the Latrobe Valley or the coast of Queensland inspecting us. This doesn't sound the sort of treaty that would attract a lot of public support, I can tell you that.”

During public hearings of the Treaties Committee, Thomson wondered aloud whether Australia would find itself at the mercy of international inspection committees dominated by “hostile” developing countries.

According to Thomson, climate change is a bureaucratic conspiracy driven by “... those people in the bureaucracy who are very eager to secure budget funding and authority and policy importance”.

Where did Thomson get these conspiratorial, paranoid ideas from? The answer is the Lavoisier Group, an industry-funded  “think tank” led by Peter Walsh, a former finance minister in the Hawke Labor government.

In its submission to the Treaties Committee, the Lavoisier Group argued that the Kyoto Protocol poses “the most serious challenge to our sovereignty since the Japanese Fleet entered the Coral Sea on 3 May, 1942.”

The submission argues that architects of the Kyoto Protocol “are determined to ensure, as best they can, that it will be impossible for those nations who commit to it, to ever change their minds. In order to ensure that the sovereign rights of withdrawal (which are written into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol), can in practice never be exercised, a new imperial order will have to be created.

“In order to keep the Kyoto membership inside the global carbon-withdrawal structure, monitoring, compliance, and police powers will be essential. In other words, the substitution of an imperial structure in place of our current world of independent sovereign nation states will have to take place.”

“Under this new global structure, decisions with the most profound and intimate effect on Australian economic and social life will be made by the Kyoto (UNFCCC) Secretariat based in Bonn and Australia will only be able to escape from entrapment in this new imperialism through immense political upheaval of the kind experienced by George Washington and his colleagues when they rebelled against the authority of the British Crown and established the United States.”

According to the Lavoisier Group, proponents of reducing greenhouse emissions will argue for the amendment or reinterpretation of World Trade Organisation rules to allow trade sanctions to be used to enforce the Kyoto Protocol. Thus the “sovereign rights” of WTO signatories will be destroyed, and the WTO will either be abandoned by its members or it will (god forbid) become an “instrument of imperial authority”.

“The logic of Kyoto is inexorable. Carbon withdrawal requires major economic dislocation, particularly for Australia, dependent as it is for much of its international trade on cheap coal-based energy. Democracies will not support policies which impose such dislocation except in times of national emergency such as the immediate threat of invasion.”

Thankfully, Kyoto protagonists are not prepared “at this point” to urge the use of military power against “recalcitrants” who refuse to reduce greenhouse emissions.

And which country is behind the new imperial order of eco-fascists? Germany, of course. The Lavoisier Group says, “It is noteworthy that the German Government has extended substantial subsidies to the UNFCCC Secretariat in order to ensure that this rapidly expanding bureaucracy is housed in the parliamentary and public service buildings of the former West German Government. Given the strong commitment of successive German governments to the international carbon-withdrawal project, this generosity has obvious political consequences.”

The Lavoisier Group argues that the government should, as a first step, make it loud and clear that Australia “will never be a party to granting police powers to the Kyoto Secretariat, and will never countenance the use of trade sanctions to enforce the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol.”

The Howard government could not openly subscribe to the Lavoisier Group’s ideas in their crudest formulations, but the conspiracy theorists have already provided important political cover and support.

The Lavoisier Group talks openly about military invasion while Andrew Thomson evokes frightening images of Richard Butler clones and people from “hostile” developing countries carrying out inspections in Australia. It’s the Hanson/Howard routine all over again.

Andrew Thomson’s concern about bureaucrats “eager to secure budget funding and authority and policy importance” has an echo in the Lavoisier Group’s assertion that bureacrats have been “extremely reluctant” to let ministers know that Australia can withdraw from the treaties to which it has subscribed.

At a United Nations climate change conference in France in September, the Australian delegate argued that countries should monitor their own progress on greenhouse gas emissions rather than establishing an international monitoring body.

An Australian delegate objected to a proposal to establish a consultative process to ensure continuity of information exchange, to facilitate international cooperation, and to contribute to the assessment of demonstrable progress.

If such a body was established, an Australian delegate argued, it should be prohibited from responding to questions about a country’s performance except for questions posed by the country in question.

An Australian delegate also opposed proposals for financial penalties, or any binding consequences whatsoever, for countries failing to meet their self-imposed targets.

Is that a black helicopter in the sky? No, just soot from another coal-fired power station.

One of the more disturbing recent trends in the environment debate has been the emergence of anti-greenhouse fundamentalists, best represented in Australia by the Lavoisier Group. The group was formed two years ago ostensibly to bring rationality to a debate dominated by ''green extremism'', into which category even Environment Minister Senator Hill was seen to fit.

The international negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol are seen by the group as an elaborate conspiracy in which hundreds of climate scientists have twisted their results to support the ''climate change theory'' in order to protect their research funding.

The Lavoisier Group seems to have been initiated by people associated with the mining company WMC in Melbourne, the source of other right-wing groups - including the H. R. Nicholls Society, and the Samuel Griffiths Society - that have been politically influential in the 1990s. There are close connections with the Mont Pelerin Society, the free-market advocacy group founded by Nobel Laureate Frederick von Hayek.

The Lavoisier Group's strange mixture of conspiracy and apocalypse was on full display at its inaugural conference in May of 1999. Mr Peter Walsh, the former Federal Labor Minister who serves as president of the group, declared that ''the modern CSIRO is not based on science but politics''.

Another supporter, Tony Staley, then president of the Liberal Party, described global warming as a form of ''political correctness''.

The ultra-libertarian trade specialist Alan Oxley told the conference that the Kyoto Protocol is ''a formula for impoverishment'', a claim that even the most pessimistic economic modelling backed by the fossil-fuel lobby cannot sustain.

One board member of the Lavoisier Group said that ABARE had been captured by environmentalists. ABARE is the government research bureau that was so vigorously attacked for its scare-mongering about the costs of cutting emissions in the lead-up to Kyoto.

Its modelling work was funded in large measure by the fossil fuel lobby, something for which it was castigated by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

The convenor of the Lavoisier Group is Hugh Morgan, managing director of WMC. Morgan has been particularly critical of the Federal Government's Australian Greenhouse Office which, among many other things, prepared four discussion papers on the pros and cons of proposals for a system of greenhouse gas emissions trading. He compared the papers to Nazi propaganda, describing them as ''Mein Kampf declarations''.

With evangelical fervour, the group has been conducting a systematic campaign to muddy the waters on climate science and to stampede the Federal Government into a volte-face on its undertakings at Kyoto.

The campaign includes ghost writing and placing feature articles in major newspapers.

The Lavoisier Group's submission to a Senate inquiry painted a picture of the imminent destruction of Australian sovereignty that would follow from ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, going so far as to compare it to the planned invasion of Australia by Japan : "With the Kyoto Protocol we face the most serious challenge to our sovereignty since the Japanese Fleet entered the Coral Sea on May 3, 1942."

In words that could have been penned by an ideologist of the Montana Militia, it talks of the Kyoto Protocol ushering in a ''new imperial order'', of the ''termination'' of our sovereignty as a nation, of ''imperialists - in green clothing'', and of ''the threat of invasion''.

It conjures fears of the ''police powers'' of an unaccountable Kyoto Secretariat based in Bonn, ''an international tribunal which - will have the power to transfer, or destroy, wealth and income within Australia on a massive scale''.

It claims that ''our sovereignty will be relocated from Canberra to Bonn'', and fears that the WTO, subjugated and corrupted by the demands of the Kyoto Protocol, will become ''an instrument of imperial authority''.

The submission suggested seriously that Australia will only be able to escape from entrapment in this new imperialism through immense political upheaval.

Such is the tone of conspiracy and apocalypse in the Lavoisier submission that one could be forgiven for mistaking Lavoisier for Larouche.

As one reads the submission, one half expects the Protocol to be characterised as a conspiracy by Jewish bankers.

More generally, one can find the following arguments in the various papers promoted by the Lavoisier Group.
* There is no evidence of global warming.
* If there is evidence of global warming, then warming is not due to human activity.
* If global warming is occurring and it is due to human activity, then it is not going to be damaging.
* If global warming is occurring, it is due to human activity and it is going to be damaging, then the costs of avoiding it will be too high, so we should do nothing.

It is impossible to have a rational discussion with people like this for they are immune to evidence and argument.

Hugh Morgan is renowned for his feverish declarations of national catastrophe that will follow if the greenies have their way. After the decision was made to ban mining at Coronation Hill in Kakadu National Park, in 1991 Morgan addressed the Adam Smith Club with a dark foreboding:

''This decision will undermine the moral basis of our legitimacy as a nation, and lead to such divisiveness as to bring about political paralysis . . . The implications of it will, inevitably, permeate through the entire body politic, and cause, imperceptibly, like some cancerous intrusion, a terminal disability. . . . like the fall of Singapore in 1942, Coronation Hill was a shocking defeat.''

To date, the mining ban at Coronation Hill has not led to the erosion of the moral basis of our legitimacy as a nation, nor to political paralysis, nor to a terminal disability.

In the same speech, Mr Morgan called for a counter-attack on the religious crazies and green antinomians ''who threaten our prosperity and eventually our survival''. Perhaps the Lavoisier Group is the long-awaited counter-attack.

Among the many uses of the World Wide Web is that of 'Googling' acquaintances, potential partners and so on. This new verb means using the Google search engine to check someone's public record on the Internet. With the proliferation of grandly-named think tanks, Googling also provides a convenient way of locating commentators on the political spectrum.

For example, a search on "Quiggin" and "Institute" reveals that my work is regularly published by the (leftish) Australia Institute and the (centrist) Melbourne Institute, and occasionally by the more conservative Sydney Institute. By contrast, the (free-market conservative) Institute for Public Affairs attacks me regularly. The hardline right-wing Institute for Private Enterprise (which appears to consist solely of Mr. Des Moore) presents me as a bumbler who is routinely 'trounced' when I am foolish enough to engage in public debate. It is easy enough to infer that, among economists, I am towards the interventionist ('left') end of the spectrum.

A more general question is whether economists can be neutral scientific experts, or whether involvement in the economic policy debate entails political commitments. It is possible to separate objective beliefs about the way the economy works from value-judgements about how it ought to work. However, the policy issues debated by economists are so intertwined with the major political questions facing the electorate that it is almost impossible for an active policy economist to avoid taking a political position, though not necessarily a party-political position.

These questions came to mind in thinking about the response to my recent critique of the Lavoisier Group (Wishful thinking of Walsh's true believers, 11 April), which attracted more attention (friendly and hostile) than anything I have written for some time. The issues at stake include the fate of the planet (if the scientists are right) and the fate of Australian democracy (if the Lavoisier Group is right).

A number of respondents took exception to my observation that most of the scientists presented by the Lavoisier Group as independent sceptics ''turn out to have links to the fossil fuel industry or to right-wing thinktanks”. One of my critics was even kind enough to provide his own list of independent sceptics. Googling quickly revealed that Patrick Michaels is a Senior Fellow at the (libertarian) Cato Institute, Sallie Baliunas is a director of the (pro-missile defence) Marshall Institute, Craig Idso writes for the (free-market conservative) Heritage Institute, and so on. Michaels and Idso are also funded by the fossil fuel industry. It seems that every right-wing institute has its resident greenhouse sceptic, and vice versa.

In fact, such is the proliferation of right-wing institutes that there are not enough sceptics to go around, and some have to be shared. The redoubtable Robert Balling, for example, is on the board of the Goldwater Institute, but also writes for the Pacific Research Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the American Petroleum Institute, while still finding time to work for the government of Kuwait.

The most credible of the sceptics, Richard Lindzen of MIT, has proved a disappointment for the likes of the Lavoiser Group. He was a member of the expert panel appointed by the US National Academy of Science which recently confirmed the reality of global warming. While noting uncertainties, the committee stated that it 'generally agrees with the assessment of human-caused climate change presented in the IPCC Working Group I (WG I) scientific report' which 'accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue'. Lindzen still opposes the Kyoto Protocol and criticises aspects of the IPCC models, but he is now too close to the scientific consensus position for the comfort for  the Lavoisier Group.

Some correspondents suggested that I had been unfair in suggesting that the Lavoisier Group believed that 'fairies at the bottom of the garden' would make the global warming problem go away. A closer examination of the Group's output suggests a belief, not only in fairies, but in demons and hobgoblins. In a recent Parliamentary submission, the Group asserted that the Kyoto Protocol raised 'the fear of invasion' and represented '…the most serious challenge to our sovereignty since the Japanese Fleet entered the Coral Sea on 3 May, 1942.'

Finally, I can't resist commenting on the suggestion by Andrew Thomson MHR (Letters 17 April) that Peter Walsh's views should be given special credence because, unlike me, Walsh 'had the guts to seek election to Parliament'. Does Thomson really believe that only politicians and ex-politicians are entitled to participate in public debate?

In the days when he was Finance Minister, Peter Walsh used to accuse the Australian Democrats of believing in 'fairies at the bottom of the garden'. Walsh's basic point was that the Democrats tended to be much readier to advocate higher public expenditure than to suggest feasible sources of additional revenue. Having no prospect of holding office, the Democrats could afford the luxury of being nice to everyone, and assuming that the necessary funds would arrive by magic.

The Democrats have cleaned up their act since then, at some electoral and personal cost. Certainly no one could accuse Meg Lees of being indifferent to the need for tax revenue to finance the public programs the Democrats rightly advocate.

Walsh on the other hand, appears to have decided that believing in magic is not so bad after all. Along with a range of right-wing luminaries, he is a leading figure in the grandly-named Lavoisier Group. This body is devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics, discovered by among others, the famous French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry.

More precisely, the Lavoisier Group is concerned to promote the views of those who question the scientific consensus on global warming, represented by the International Panel on Climate Change. Some of the sceptics promoted by the group deny that the earth is getting warmer. Others agree that warming is happening but claim that it is a natural phenomenon. Still others, calling themselves Greening Earth, agree that emissions of carbon dioxide are changing the climate, but say the change is for the better. Apart from inconsistency with the available evidence, the only things these sceptics have in common is the implication that nothing should be done about climate change.

Members of the Lavoisier Group point to a variety of public statements and petitions which purport to show that large numbers of atmospheric scientists question the IPCC consensus. On closer examination, it turns out that most signatories of these petitions, leaving aside obviously bogus entries such as one from Ginger Spice, have such advanced scientific qualifications as 'civil engineer' or even 'TV weatherman'.

Among the handful of sceptics with relevant qualifications, most turn out to have links to the fossil fuel industry or to right-wing thinktanks. There is nothing necessarily wrong in this. It is natural that those opposed to any action to mitigate climate change will seek out and promote scientists who dissent from the mainstream view.

Unfortunately, it is also true that, where large amounts of money and rigidly-held ideological positions are at stake, 'experts' can always be found to put forward views convenient to those who finance and reward them. As a result, even sceptics with genuinely independent views are compromised by association with bodies like the Lavoisier Group.

Almost the only sceptic with real credibility is Richard Lindzen of MIT. In the last few years, however, Lindzen has moved slowly towards the consensus position. He recently joined scientists associated with the mainstream view in writing a report which gave qualified support to the IPCC position.

Of course, none of this bothers the Lavoisier Group or ministers like Nick Minchin who are now driving the government's (non)response to the Kyoto protocol. As long as they can find or hire a single scientist to support them, they will continue to argue that, if we all close our eyes and wish really hard, the whole problem will go away.

The environment minister, Senator Hill, appears unhappy with all this, but he must be used, by now, to being white-anted by his own ministerial colleagues. If the Westminister view of the role of Cabinet and its members had any life left in it, Hill would surely be writing his resignation letter by now. But the Howard doctrine, 'never apologise, never resign', holds universal sway nowadays.

The Lavoisier Group serves one useful social purpose. There are always participants in the public debate who will happily put forward any proposition that supports their position, whether or not it has any basis in fact and logic. The arguments of such commentators should be discounted appropriately, but it takes time and effort to identify them on an individual basis.
The Lavoisier Group has collected a number of prominent commentators who indicate, by their membership, that they are prepared to rely on wishful thinking whenever it suits their turn. These true believers in fairies at the bottom of the garden should be accorded the credibility they deserve.

The Alien Registration Act passed by the US Congress on 29th June, 1940, made it illegal for anyone in the United States to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government. What followed was an anti-communist witch hunt, spearheaded by Senator Joseph McCarthy, of unparalleled magnitude. The presumption of innocence was gone, and people were “guilty by association.”
 

This brings me to John Quiggins attack on the Lavoisier Group Wishful thinking of Walsh’s true believers (Australian Financial Review 11/4/01). Quiggin is one of many leftists that make up the ideological monoculture of the Australian university. That he should attack an industry-sponsored body is of no surprise. That he should use McCarthyist tactics to do so is disturbing, especially for an academic.

He begins by attacking former finance minister (and Lavoisier Group president) Peter Walsh, who accused the democrats of believing in “fairies at the bottom of the garden”. Walsh was referring, of course, to the endless desire of the Democrats to spend, spend, and spend some more. Naturally, the social justice bed-wetters that made up the Democrats hadn’t thought of costing this orgy of expenditure (hence Walsh’s “fairies” reference). Quiggin would now have us believe that the Democrats have cleaned up their act. I don’t think so. However, the subject is science, his ‘science’, and not economics

Quiggin lunges at Walsh with the statement: “Walsh, on the other hand, appears to have decided that believing in magic is not so bad after all. Along with a range of rightwing luminaries in the Lavoisier Group. This body is devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics, discovered by among others the famous French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, cease to apply when they are come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry.”

Personally, I think Quiggin is right to have a go at the Lavoisier Group. But notice the McCarthyist tactic of guilt by association: Lavoisier cannot be trusted because it is associated with those evil coal diggers. Something he made clear in the following statement: “More precisely, the Lavoisier Group is concerned to promote the views of those who question the scientific consensus on global warming, presented by the IPCC.”

Get it? Scientific truth is determined by a show of hands down at the IPCC, apparently. As a research scientist I can assure Quiggin that his assumption is as far from the truth as one can get.

“Some of the sceptics promoted by the group deny that the earth is getting warmer. Others agree that warming is happening but claim that it is a natural phenomenon. Still others, calling themselves Greening Earth, agree that emissions of carbon dioxide are changing the climate, but say the change is for the better. Apart from inconsistency with the available evidence, the only things these sceptics have in common is the implication that nothing should be done about climate change.”

“What is clear from this screed is that Quiggin has not really understood the positions of these various groups. Greening Earth, for example, advocates that CO2 is a good thing. They point out that it is an essential plant nutrient and fertiliser. Greening Earth do not, however, agree that CO2 is changing the climate. If it were so, why would they publish the work of global warming sceptic John Daly, for example? And are these groups’ positions inconsistent with the available evidence? That claim will resonate later on.

“Members of the Lavoisier Group point to a variety of public statements and petitions that purport to show that large numbers of atmospheric scientists question the IPCC consensus. On closer examination, it turns out that most signatories of these petitions, leaving aside obviously bogus entries like one from Ginger Spice, have such advanced scientific qualifications as ‘civil engineer’ or even ‘TV weatherman’.”

As is usually the case with leftists, it was what Quiggin didn’t say that really mattered. Quiggin is referring, of course to the Oregon petition against the Kyoto treaty. What Quiggin omitted was that most of the people who signed the petition are legitimate scientists. Of the approximately 20,000 people who have signed, about 1,000 have PhD’s in fields relating to and including the climate sciences. It’s curious that Quiggin should mention “Ginger Spice”, because it turns out that greenies, who wanted to discredit the petition, viciously tried to poison the it with false signatures. When the fake signatures were discovered, they were removed, and the entire signature list was checked and verified. It’s funny that Quiggin forgot to mention this. Perhaps his Orwellian memory was working overtime.

And here we have Quiggin at his McCarthyist best: “Among the handful of sceptics with relevant qualifications, most turn out to have links to the fossil fuel industry or to rightwing think tanks. There is nothing necessarily wrong in this. It’s natural that those opposed to any action to mitigate climate change will seek out and promote scientists who dissent from the mainstream view.”

Having smeared dissenting scientists as toadies of the coal diggers, Quiggin then tries to convey the impression that he did not mean that these scientists are corrupt but only that like seeks out like. If it were not his intention to smear these scientists then why did he make his snide comment at all? I can only conclude that it was to prejudice the minds of readers against global warming sceptics.

He went on to say: “Unfortunately, it’s also true that, where large amounts of money and rigidly held ideological positions are at stake, ‘experts’ can always be found to put forward views convenient to those who finance and reward them. As a result, even sceptics with genuinely independent views are compromised by association with bodies like the Lavoisier Group.”

Ah, the guilt-by-association tactic. The universal fall-back position of the ideologue. Forget science and integrity, anyone who touches groups like Lavoisier is forever tainted. I suppose that includes people like John Daly (www.john-daly.com), who have spoken on behalf of Lavoisier, are no longer to be trusted. Using the-guilt-by-association tactic has its spin-offs: You no longer have to go through the rigorous and difficult task of dissecting the claims of your opponents. A smear will do. Well, it won’t. If Quiggin knows of any scientists who have behaved corruptly, e.g., doctored findings to serve the views of their employees, he should name them or publicly apologise for his vile slur.

Quiggin tells us that: “Almost the only sceptic with real credibility is Richard Lindzen of MIT. In the past few years, however, Lindzen has moved slowly towards the consensus position. He recent joined scientists associated with the mainstream vies in writing a report that gave qualified support to the IPCC position.”

That Orwellian memory hole of yours must be working overtime, Professor Quiggin. Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, Sallie Baliunas, Willie H. Soon, Sylvan H. Wittwer, David E. Wojick, Vincent Gray, Jarl Ahlbeck and Keith and Craig Idso come immediately to mind. But I suppose they too, are just toadies of the coal diggers? As for Lindzen, why did he make a scathing attack on it IPCC, highlighting its political machinations, to a US senate committee if he had changed his mind? I really would like you to answer that question.

“Of course, none of this bothers the Lavoisier Group,” says Quiggin, “or ministers like Nick Minchin who are now driving the Government’s (non)response to the Kyoto protocol. As long as they can find or hire a single scientist to support them, they will continue to argue that, if we all close our eyes and wish really hard, the whole problem will go away.”

What problem, professor? NOAA Satellite data and Weather Balloon Radiosonde measurements have shown no atmospheric warming over the last 20 years (Parker et al., 1997). Land based measurements free from biasing effects such as urban heat islands show no warming over the last 60 years. Kunkel et al. (1999) show that “trends in most related weather and climate extremes do not show comparable increases with time.” van der Vink et al. (1998) come to much the same conclusion. They show that increasing vulnerability to extreme weather events stems from changes in human population patterns, not increased extreme weather frequency. Key and Chan (1999) also found no evidence of any global trend in weather extreme. The papers I cite are in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Is Quiggin going to argue that these workers are in the pockets of the evil fossil fuel industry as well? For the leftwing likes of Quiggin, it is so much easier to make McCarthyist smears than to debate hard science.
“The Lavoisier Group serves one useful social purpose. There are always participants in the public debate who will happily put forward any proposition that supports their position, whether or not it has any basis in fact and logic. The arguments of such commentators should be discounted appropriately, but it takes time and effort to identify them on an individual basis.”

Perhaps Quiggin would care to check out the “fact and logic” contained in the articles I cited. Quiggins’ implicit position is that all truth and light on climate emanate from the IPCC, a para-political body of the UN. I wonder if Quiggin has read their latest Third Assessment Report (TAR). This has more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese and fails to meet even basic scientific standards. For example, it fails to deal adequately with the above-noted satellite data. If I wanted to employ a Quiggin’s style of smearing, I could say that the IPCC needs to frighten the public with the threat of hobgoblins to maintain its political support base. But I won’t. As in previous articles, I prefer to examine the science, unlike Quiggin and his ilk.

It should be noted that scientific progress thrives in an environment of sceptical inquiry. It seems as though Quiggin hankers for the days when scientific authority has handed down from on high. It was in an environment such as this that the Aristotelian notion that heavier objects fall faster persisted for nearly two thousand years. Just as Galileo was branded a heretic by some, Quiggin and his ilk brand global warming sceptics as heretics, science be damned. Here, Quiggin is down on all fours, intellectually speaking, with the likes of Trofim Lysenko, who devastated Russian genetics through the suppression of dissenting views.

Insinuating that global warming critics are ideologically motivated, Quiggin writes: “The Lavoisier Group has collected a number of prominent commentators who indicate, by their membership, that they are prepared to rely on wishful thinking when it suits their turn. These true believers in fairies at the bottom of the garden should be accorded the credibility they deserve.”

Only a hardened ideologue could dismiss the position of global warming sceptics as wishful thinkers. But then, it is so much easier to smear your enemy than to engage in rational debate. If it worked for Lysenko, why not for Quiggin?

On a final note, I'd like to point out that temperature records from Canberra, Quiggin’s home town, show no warming since records began in the 1939.

I find it curious that I should be attacked for McCarthyism in, of all places, the webpages of the New Australian, and, of all reasons, for suggesting that critics of the global warming hypothesis are frequently motivated by right-wing political views rather than by purely scientific disagreements. First, given the tone that pervades the New Australian, including its past attacks on me, I find it amazing that you could take offence at the tone of my remarks. To take a typical quote from your front page. When Corporations like Western Mining put greens on their payrolls they put themselves on the same moral footing as German war-time companies like Farben and Krupps.

Similarly, in the attacks on me in your pages, it has been repeatedly suggested that I am a “snake oil salesman”, who tries to “con” the Australian public into supporting socialism, using arguments I do not myself believe, in order to bolster my own position as a tax-funded academic. If you want to take a high moral tone about McCarthyism, I’d suggest you take a hard look at yourself.
The Lavoisier Group is similarly high-pitched. For example, the convenor of the Lavoisier Group, WMC’s Hugh Morgan, described the four discussion papers on emission trading prepared by the Federal Government as “Mein Kampf declarations”. The Lavoisier Group’s submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the Kyoto Protocol compares it to the planned invasion of Australia by Japan: “with the Kyoto Protocol we face the most serious challenge to our sovereignty since the Japanese Fleet entered the Coral Sea on 3 May, 1942.”

Second, aren’t you rather proving my point about right-wing motivations? Dr. Oakley appears to be your principal writer on this topic, and claims scientific expertise in this field. For example, in his response to Ken Davidson he says: Mr Davidson raised several economic questions in his article. As I am a professional research scientist and not an economist I chose to ignore them. Unlike Mr Davidson I have never professed to knowledge or expertise that I did not possess. Dr. Oakley is, as you point out, a university researcher with no ties to the coal industry. To be more precise, he is a pharmacologist. His response to me, and other material published on this page, suggests that his political views can fairly be described as right-wing.

I’d invite Dr. Oakley to state whether his views on this topic are derived from his research in pharmacology (an explanation of the link would be interesting) or from his political affiliations. With respect to the Oregon petition Oakley claims that '“Of the approximately 20,000 people who have signed, about 1,000 have PhD’s in fields relating to and including the climate sciences.” More precisely, the petition claims 2660 Physicists, Geophysicists, Climatologists, Meteorologists, Oceanographers, and Environmental Scientists, of whom about 1000 have PhDs.

My comment about civil engineers was based on this list. I tried to find the affiliations of some of those listed under A and came up with such examples as: Stephen Affleck Professor of Civil Engineering, Boise State University Morris H. Aprison, School of Medicine, Department of Neurobiology , Indiana University, Melvyn R. Altman, Associate Director for Standards Policy, Center for Devices and Radiological Health I could not find any 'Climatologists, Meteorologists or Oceanographers' and therefore sent the following email to the project on 8 August 2000:
Dear Petition Project,
I have seen numerous conflicting claims concerning the qualifications of signatories of the global warming petition. I would be very grateful if you could assist me by supplying me with a list of signatories who are atmospheric scientists active in research and currently holding university or equivalent appointments. I would then hope to check a sample to see whether the claims of critics of the project can be sustained.

I received no reply.

Turning to the list of ‘independent’ scientists supplied by Dr Oakley, a Web search shows that Patrick Michaels is Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute, Sallie Baliunas writes for the Fraser Institute, Willie Soon writes for the Heartland Institute, Craig Idso writes for the Heritage Institute ,and so on. It almost seems as if every rightwing institute has its resident sceptic, and vice versa.

My statement that most global warming sceptics turn out to have links with rightwing think tanks is factually correct, and was followed by the observation that there is nothing necessarily sinister in such associations. Finally, both Oakley and Peter Walsh have challenged my characterization of Lindzen as moving closer to the consensus position. I refer them to the paper Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change, of which Lindzen was one of the pre-publication reviewers. Geotimes, the magazine of the American Geological Institute, reported this paper under the headline A truce on global warming and stated:
Climate modellers have declared a truce to embrace their differences. Although the debate on climate change is not resolved, a recent report recognizes that the spectrum of opinions on the issue may share a great deal of common ground. The lead author of the report noted “We can conclude with a high level of confidence that the surface temperature is indeed rising”

It is true that Lindzen is still highly critical of the IPCC process and that he is still regards as unproven the claim that the observed warming is generated by greenhouse gases. That is why I described him as a sceptic. But the gap between him and the consensus position is now too narrow for the comfort of bodies like the Lavoisier Foundation or the New Australian.

* Professor John Quiggin is Australian Research Council Senior Fellow, Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Australian National University, <[email protected]>

One Nation's powerful West Australian branch is taking advice from a former Labor minister, Mr Peter Walsh, in the lead-up to the Federal election.

The party's national director, Mr Frank Hough, said "Peter speaks to me quite regularly and gives me guidance".

Mr Walsh, a Hawke government finance minister, had become a political sounding board along with a former Liberal powerbroker, Mr Noel Crichton-Browne, to One Nation's new national headquarters in Perth.

Mr Walsh said yesterday "I talk to them" but rejected suggestions he was an adviser.

"I support One Nation before I support any of those saboteuring Greens," he said.

Earlier this year Mr Walsh, a former Cabinet colleague of the Opposition Leader, Mr Beazley, attacked Labor's hypocrisy in claiming its win in the February West Australian election was due to Green preferences.

In Review, the journal of the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs, he wrote that "having demonised One Nation for five years and denied its political legitimacy, Labor won the election with the assistance of One Nation preferences".

His involvement with One Nation comes as leading West Australian party figures this week urged Ms Hanson to stay in Queensland during the election campaign and concentrate on her bid for the Senate.

Mr Walsh is a friend of Mr Graeme Campbell, who will head One Nation's Senate ticket in Western Australia. The former Labor and Independent Federal member for Kalgoorlie would be One Nation's main campaign weapon in that State, Mr Hough said.

One Nation has preselected 29-year-old engineer Mr Stephen Robbie for Mr Beazley's seat of Brand and will put the Opposition Leader last on its how-to-vote card.

Mr Campbell, Mr Hough and the national vice-president, Mr John Fischer, want Ms Hanson to stick to Queensland and not campaign around the country. Ms Hanson indicated yesterday that she will move the national headquarters back to the eastern States after the election.

Mr Campbell, whose Senate candidacy Ms Hanson tried unsuccessfully to veto, said: "Pauline will be fully occupied in the east. I wouldn't expect her to be campaigning here."

Mr Fischer said it was "essential" Ms Hanson spent "all her time in Queensland" because the priority was to get her elected to the Senate. To do so, she will have to beat the Nationals' Senate leader, Senator Ron Boswell.

Mr Hough said "there's no way Pauline can afford to go around Australia".

Ms Hanson will soon open a national campaign office either on the Gold Coast or Brisbane and said she would control the campaign.

"Frank Hough is only the interim national director. I am the leader of the party and I will be running the national campaign," she said.

"Eventually I would like to see the national office back over here in the eastern States."

One Nation moved its national headquarters to Perth after the West Australian election, where it won 12.7 per cent of the vote and secured three Upper House seats. Mr Hough and Mr Fischer were both elected.

Ms Hanson declined to comment on where she would campaign but the Queensland State director, Mr Morrie Marsden, said "it's going to be hard for her to cover the rest of Australia".

Australian environment groups have united in condemnation of a greenhouse meeting in Melbourne today, labelling it an embarrassment to Australia.

The meeting of the newly established "Lavoisier Group" is a move to discredit climate change science and bring together business groups in opposition to limiting greenhouse pollution.

These ‘climate sceptics’ fly in the face of the hundreds of global business players who gathered at the World Economic Forum’s Annual meeting in Davos this January. This business group resolved that climate change is the greatest challenge facing the world at the beginning of the century.

Speaking from the meeting today, Greenpeace Political Liaison Officer, Shane Rattenbury said; "This is an embarrassment for Australian industry. These people are five years behind the facts."

"Their real agenda is not to clarify the debate, but to avoid responsibility for their greenhouse pollution. Climate change is accepted as a reality by leading industry in America and Europe. It's about time Australian businesses got over denial and into action."

Environmentalists have likened the group to the American "Global Climate Coalition" (GCC) which has been struggling to retain its membership over the last few years. The GCC has lost major members such as Ford, BP and Shell, because many businesses around the world now accept that they have to become part of the solution to climate change. (see endnotes for quotes from BP, Shell and Dupont on climate change)

Sam Van Rood from the Australian Conservation Foundation said, "we are baffled at the establishment of a group such as the Lavoisier group at a time when businesses, world leaders and the community are getting on with the job of cutting greenhouse pollution."

Tristy Fairfield from Friends of the Earth said, "Australian businesses should not associate themselves with the group. Australia is one of the world’s biggest polluters and this group seems to want to avoid facing that reality."

Notes: Quotes from business leaders about climate change:

"... since the balance of scientific evidence suggests a link between climate change and human activity, we have a responsibility to take prudent precautionary action."
- Cor Herkstroter, Chairman of the Committee of Managing Directors, Shell. Feb 1998

"From our point of view, what matters is not whether we are for Kyoto or against Kyoto. Our bias should be for prompt and meaningful action where there is reasonable cause for concern. And there is no question in our minds about whether there is reasonable cause for concern."
- Dennis Reilley, DuPont. Sept 1999

"We've moved - as the psychologists would say - beyond denial . it does seem that there is an impact on the climate from human activity."
- John Brown, Group Chief Executive, BP. Feb 1998

In 1870, Alfred Wallace, co-discoverer of Evolution, accepted a challenge to prove the roundness of the Earth to John Hampden, a committed Flat Earther. The question of the shape of the Earth had been settled for some educated people almost 2000 years before, and Wallace’s contemporaries felt no need to prove the point in a new way to an obvious crank. Wallace proved the roundness of the Earth to an unbiased witness, but Hampden was not convinced, and for fifteen years afterwards set about defaming and harassing Wallace.

The Greenhouse issue is remarkably similar to the debates about the shape of the Earth. Just as the Earth looks flat to the casual observer, so the Greenhouse effect seems unlikely whenever the weather is cooler than usual. To a Brisbanite this summer global warming seems all too real, but to a Melburnian it appears laughable. Also, the evidence for global warming has been researched thoroughly — more so than the spherical nature of the Earth in Wallace’s time. The evidence for global warming is overwhelming, but not universally accepted. Most simply it is based on the data collected from thousands of temperature observing stations around the world, coupled with measurements of water temperature taken by ships. Collating these shows a dramatic warming over the last thirty years, perhaps the fastest in human history. Temperature measurements are backed up by evidence of melting glaciers, ecosystems migrating to higher ground, changes in rainfall distribution, vanishing permafrost, isotopic analysis and measurements of ocean temperatures at great depth. Most of the evidence gained from these sources provides no numerical answers on how fast the warming is occurring. However, when over 90 per cent of the Arctic and high altitude glaciers on Earth are shrinking it is not hard to conclude that the warming must be rapid. The overall evidence for global warming is clear enough for the satisfaction of such bodies as the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Many scientists are understandably reluctant to enter the debate in the popular media, just as few scientists can be bothered debating Flat-Earthers or Creationists.

The difference, though, is that global warming is much more complex and the stakes far higher. In Wallace’s day, nothing other than the peace of mind of a few individuals and Wallace’s reputation as a scientist was at stake. The British government, for example, was not considering changing its shipping policies according to what Hampden said. Today, on the other hand, global warming, after nuclear weapons, poses one of the greatest threats to humanity’s survival.

Governments are reluctant to take action because the costs of doing anything will be borne in the next few years, but the benefits will be reaped decades after the next election. Persuading any government to act in the long-term interest of humanity is hard enough when there are short-term costs. The presence of modern day Hampdens makes action even less likely.

In order to challenge Greenhouse science, the sceptics do not need to persuade scientists. That battle is effectively lost. Nor do they even need to convince the public that the scientists are wrong. All they need to do is throw enough doubt in the electorate’s mind to weaken demands for action. Without a galvanised public, only the most visionary government will act to combat a threat more than two election terms away.

However, in order to challenge the evidence for the Greenhouse effect, the sceptics have been forced to take on not just a large body of scientific evidence, but the very nature of modern scientific thought itself. A good illustration of this is the efforts of the Lavoisier Society, whose members include former ALP national secretary Gary Gray and Liberal Federal President Tony Staley. The society pads out its ranks of high-profile figures with Western Mining CEO Hugh Morgan and its president, ex-Labor minister Peter Walsh.

The Society differs from most critics of scientific orthodoxy not simply in its interpretation of scientific evidence; it also provides links (apparently approvingly) on its website to falsified data and alleges major conspiracy theories. John Daly, quoted as a leading authority on the Society’s website, uses a graph of US temperature data as one of his key pieces of evidence against global warming on his website (http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/). Daly’s graph shows the 1930s as the hottest decade in the United States since measurements began, and no warming trend is evident. Daly emphasises the importance of the American data, saying: “Urbanisation has been more successfully corrected for in the US than in the rest of the world where there is a lack of rural baseline data from which to make urban adjustments to city records. The US has the best maintained network of weather stations in the world, and this must surely be a better representation of the global picture too.”

Surprisingly, however, no source is given for the graph or data, unlike almost everything else on Daly’s enormous page.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) however, America’s equivalent of the Bureau of Meteorology, the 1930s were indeed warm, but the 1990s were warmer still. The warmest year ever was 1998, and 1999 was third. The NOAA states: “US temperatures have risen at a rate of 0.9 F/Century (0.5 C) over the past 100 years. Within the past 25 years, US temperatures increased at a rate of 1.6 F/25 years (0.9 C/25 years).”

It would appear that either the world’s largest meteorological organisation has, without warning the public, placed some peculiar interpretations upon the results of thousands of recording stations, or whoever provided the data to Daly has. If either side has altered the results to remove some skewing they would have a duty to explain what has been done. One side or other has something to explain, and it seems unlikely to be the NOAA.

The Lavoisier Society uses such ‘evidence’ to claim that scientists support the global warming hypothesis because it guarantees increased research funds. In its submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) inquiry into the Kyoto protocol, the Society claimed that: “The scientific establishment which grew prosperous and powerful on global warming, has fought back in an attempt to maintain its hegemonial position.”

Scientists have been known to hide unwanted data as a result of pressure from employers, most noticeably in the tobacco industry. However, this is very different from what is being alleged here. According to the sceptics, meteorologists world-wide are presenting millions of readings (mostly computerised) from climate stations and ships in a way which produces data demonstrating a rising trend. The benefits would not flow to them directly, but benefit the profession as a whole (in the unlikely event, that is, that governments such as Australia’s, which would prefer the Greenhouse issue to go away, would increase funding on the basis of evidence for warming).

Allegations such as these go beyond merely an improbable interpretation of evidence. They are an attack on virtually every professional meteorologist worldwide, and therefore an attack on meteorology itself.

When this is combined with the dismissal of supporting evidence from ecologists, geologists, astronomers and archaeologists it becomes an attack on the very notion of enlightenment science. We expect this from the edges of the far Right, believers in spoon bending and assorted conspiracy theorists. As such, the Greenhouse sceptics may want to reassess their position.