On 22 July, 2014, the Institute of Public Affairs held a book-launch in Melbourne, Australia. The book in question was Not For Greens. The speaker was the author, Professor Ian Plimer.

The book’s cover shows a picture of a stainless steel spoon. Is this because the book’s subtitle is He Who Sups with the Devil Should Have a Long Spoon? Or is it because he illustrates some of his points by describing the manufacture of a stainless steel spoon? The answer to both these questions is apparently yes.

It’s very nearly a bald opening and, as I sympathise with any speaker who finds it impossible to begin a speech without at least paying the audience the courtesy of thanking them for being there, I’ll forgive him. The bald opening has two essential purposes: drama and the suppression of nerves. To launch straight in without any preamble is strong and dramatic; and bald-openings are counter-intuitively good for nerves for the same reason as plunging into cold water is easier than creeping in slowly. Plimer is quite blunt enough not to need any added drama and he also gives little impression of needing help with nerves. Nerves will be there, but completely under control – or, to quote Laurence Olivier’s metaphor, the butterflies are made to fly in formation. Plimer is a very good speaker, laying out his arguments clearly, driving his message with authority, and shooting it all from the hip. Could I help to make him any better? Possibly, marginally, but why should he care?

It’s a clever opening inasmuch as he delivers a ferocious back-hander to the hypocrisy of the Green establishment, while simultaneously acknowledging with glee how much they hate him. And they do: you need to do only a little research to find oceans of bile being fire-hosed in his direction.

The speech, and the book it launches, seek systematically to debunk the entire climate-change creed.

Is he right? Is he wrong? I cannot say with the authority of a scientist, but all my experience, in those life skills I have, tells me he needs to be heard.

Given that Fascism, Socialism, Communism, all authoritarian “isms” thrive upon crises persuading the populace that they need saving and therefore need more of the State, and given that I detest authoritarianism in all its guises, I am instinctively wary when crises could be synthetic. And when the high-priesthood of any supposed crisis goes to huge lengths to silence dissent then I, passionate for free speech, am immediately suspicious. Contrariness to the climate “orthodoxy” is severely persecuted, and when dissent is persecuted consent is suspect.

That caused me to examine closely the oft-quoted “97% consensus”, and I found it to be the product of shameless data manipulation. The science community if anything seems to veer towards a consensus that AGW is negligible and certainly not dangerous, particularly among those like Ian Plimer who are retired and therefore do not need to toe any political line for their research funding, mortgage or pension. I actually don’t care about any consensus: I care only that the scientific conversation continues without political pressure in either direction because the environment matters, and if things are going wrong proper investigation needs to happen without political bias getting in the way. But back to Professor Plimer.

At 11:10 he begins an interesting section. I have long been deeply uneasy about wind turbines. They produce absurdly small and inefficient amounts of energy and could not exist without taxpayer contribution, so there are those in energy poverty who nevertheless subsidise the very rich turbine owners. Their output is so sporadic that they have to have fossil fuel backup. They kill birds and bats.  I understand that these statements are not disputed, yet green and wildlife NGOs protest that this is a small price to pay for saving the planet. Professor Plimer nevertheless appears to have done the necessary calculations to show that a wind turbine emits more CO2 in being built and installed than it will save in its lifetime. I look forward to someone publishing detailed calculations to dispute Plimer’s assertion, failing which these wretched things look like an even bigger scam than I suspected.

At 18:05 he points out that his book has been denied publicity. It’s almost as if someone is determined to prove the truth of what Voltaire said…

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established authorities are wrong.