Climate change 'a campaign of alarmism'

By Denis Peters
February 28, 2007
Article from: AAP

A CONCERTED and well-organised campaign has created alarm over human-induced climate change, industrial magnate Sir Arvi Parbo says.

Sir Arvi also said today key international reports warning of climate change, including Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth, are biased and scrutiny of them has been suppressed.

The former head of Western Mining Corporation, BHP and Alcoa Australia, is the keynote speaker at a gathering of climate change sceptics being hosted by Western Australian Liberal MP Dr Dennis Jensen, at Parliament House.

It also is supported by the Lavoisier Group, an Australian organisation set up as a base for climate change sceptics.

One of the founders of the Lavoisier Group is former WMC chief executive Hugh Morgan, one of the businessmen who have formed a company to look at building Australia's first nuclear reactor.

The occasion will also serve as the launch of a new book, entitled Nine Facts About Climate Change, by former Institute of Public Affairs head Ray Evans.

Sir Arvi said he had kept an open mind through 20 years of listening to debate about climate change but was now witnessing a "semi-religious fervour" overshadowing it.

"One must admire the skilful way in which the public has been led to believe that there is no longer any uncertainty, and that disastrous climate change caused by humans is imminent," he said.

"The appointment of Mr Al Gore as adviser to the UK Government on climate change is a good example.

"I am not aware of Mr Gore's ranking as a climate scientist but he has undoubted credentials as a politician and someone who knows how to influence public opinion.

"His film, The Inconvenient Truth has been widely publicised, has been seen by, and has influenced millions of people around the world.

"It has been severely criticised for deliberately and grossly exaggerating and distorting the issues and I understand that the recently published summary for policymakers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contradicts a number of Mr Gore's major contentions.

"This, in contrast, has had virtually no publicity and no effect on the public."

Sir Arvi said the review of the economic impact of climate change by former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern had been found to be biased and alarming and neither accurate nor objective by a review of distinguished scientists.

"As far as I am aware, this criticism has not been answered," he said.

"An uninvolved observer has to conclude that there has been a concerted and well-organised campaign to create worldwide apprehension and alarm.

"Reading and listening to the media and to political discussion, this campaign has succeeded. In fact it may have succeeded too well."

Greens climate change spokeswoman Senator Christine Milne later described the forum as "the last gasp of the Dad's Army of sceptics". "What they try to do is give the impression that climate change science is uncertain," she said.

"They've been reasonably successful because they've been well funded, as with the tobacco industry before them.

"Now this group of people is trying to extend the life of the fossil fuel industry.

"They are backed by the coal industry and the oil industry."

She said the Lavoisier Group was associated with the Liberal Party and right-wing bodies such as the HR Nicholls Society.

"They are a joke in terms of climate science but they are actually a cost to future generations because they confuse the public when there is now no doubt about the science."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21303658-1702,00.html