Showdown with Plimer

[douglas evans]

I watched the Lateline 'showdown'
I am a community climate activist here in Melbourne. I wholeheartedly
support the position you and Tony Jones took on this 'debate'. Plimer
is a complex and apparently completely unprincipled guy. He appears
to me to be motivated by considerable personal conceit, a mixture of
professional arrogance and resentment and just possibly personal
pecuniary gain. He derives considerable income from large mining
interests in this country but of course claims this does not
influence his scientific opinions. Your report of the proceedings is
accurate. However if you imagine Plimer to have been damaged by this
event your grasp of the cultural and political dynamics of the
situation does not match your understanding of the science of climate
change. If anything his position has been strengthened by this
confrontation. The vehicle for the 'debate' and its audience are
problematic. I would wager that upwards of 90% of those watching
Lateline at 10pm on our equivalent of BBC2 need no convincing that
Plimer is a charlatan. However the vast majority of those disposed to
accept Plimer's message will have been watching American sitcoms or
forensic dramas available on the commercial TV channels at the same
time. These of course are not the the mining and energy industry
lobbyists who have such a stranglehold on federal government climate
and energy policy in this country and who so successfully direct the
Rudd government's climate change policy response. No I am talking
about the increasingly resentful, tabloid-reading public who need
only know that someone able to call himself a scientist has taken up
the cudgels against self-seeking academic scientists who they 'know'
have invented climate change as a device for attracting research
funding to themselves. They do not wish to engage in reasoned debate
so your dismantling of Plimer's position is as irrelevant to them as
it is to those who abhor Plimer and his views. If it emerged that
Plimer had taken a beating at the hands of a couple of 'pinko'
journalists (the show was broadcast on the ABC after all) this would
tend to generate admiration among his supporters in that Plimer was
prepared to risk himself in the studios of the national broadcaster
which is constantly (and ridiculously) accused of leftwing bias by
the ratbag right in this country. It would tend to generate sympathy
for that nice re-assuring Professor Plimer in that he has been
grievously wronged by the scurrilous representatives of the media who
are widely suspected for having invented the idea of anthropogenic
climate change for their own nefarious purposes anyway. Perhaps I
exaggerate but I assure you the exaggeration is slight. More likely
however is that Plimer and his backers will spin this with the help
of selective edits and video clips as St George (the biblical figure
not the Guardian journalist) with sideburns disdainfully dispatching
a couple of poisonous climate change media dragons who tried to
ambush him. Then what George? Another TV challenge while you unpick
the untruths and distortions in Plimer's reporting of the encounter?

It is a serious mistake to give Plimer and his views oxygen by
engaging with him in public debate. The battle with Plimer and his
ilk should not be conducted through TV stunts. I acknowledge that the
challenge was to you rather than to him and refusing to engage
carries its own set of disadvantages but this was a win win situation
for Plimer who, even if his constituents never watch the ABC, is now
seen by them as sufficiently important to have appeared twice on this
prestigious national news and current affairs vehicle. The failure of
the COP15 at Copenhagen will now be conflated with the increasing
public profile of Plimer and his ilk and the unfortunate but
irrelevant 'Climate gate' emails into an increasingly dense fog of
doubt obscuring the terrifying message of global warming. Not sure
what the correct way forward is but I am convinced that confronting
the deniers in the popular media in this fashion does not help the
cause of getting out a clear and responsible message on climate change.

Doug Evans

[V Wood]

Doug

I have to say that I must agree with virtually everything you say.  Many of us on this side of the fence feel vindicated when our side at last gets to rake a sceptic over the coals in public.  But the truth is that you are correct.  Giving these folks national and international exposure is strengthening their position with their followers who can now say that such people are credible enough to face the big dogs in a match. 

The way forward.  The way forward, I think, is to continue to spread good science, and to get as much exposure as possible to the masses in every way we can, but at the same time avoid direct confrontation with people like Plimer.  Such an approach might have some negative fallout among his followers, who might cry foul and pout a lot, but it would marginalise these folks where they need to be, reduce their exposure and limit their credibility. 

I think there is little to be gained from a debate on the science.  That has been resolved within the ranks of the science community as well as reasonable people everywhere.  The fight now needs to be taken to the media and to the streets and to the corporations that continue to befoul our planet.  We need to start causing trouble - serious trouble like mass social disobedience - to get the attention it needs.

Thanks for your post.

Best
V

> To: monbiot...@googlegroups.com
> From: dg.e...@bigpond.com
> Subject: [Monbiot] Showdown with Plimer
> Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:13:43 +1100

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[TM Printing Ltd]

You speak sense, Douglas - but remember you're speaking to a mailing list, not GM himself; we don't know if he reads this list.

Something I wanted GM to say in that, errmm, 'debate', was along the lines of:

"Mr Plimer, you keep saying I'm not a scientist but a journalist. I accept that. I asked you questions about your speciality which you refuse to answer. Send me questions about my speciality - journalism - and I'll do my best to answer them gladly. Why won't you answer questions about your speciality?"

It's so obvious that, turned round, it would be ridiculous (that is, Plimer asks GM some reasonable questions about journalism and GM refuses until Plimer answers meaningless questions about journalism!) that I'm sorry GM didn't make more of it.

David