Environmental Law & Economics: Australian Scientist Doubts the Climate Doomsayers

Radovan Kazda
Environmental Policy Analyst
Conservative Institute of M. R. Stefanik
radovankazda[at]institute.sk

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Australian Scientist Doubts the Climate Doomsayers

David Evans, a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005:
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.
The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts.
Read more:
David Evans: No smoking hot spot. TheAustralian.News.com.au (link)

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