FROM THE CATHOLIC WEEKLY

Young have a ‘stronger sense of priestly identity’

By Damir Govorcin

28 June, 2009

A sea-change is occurring in the Church with a new generation of young people

re-discovering the deeply Catholic dimension of their faith, says Bishop Julian Porteous,

auxiliary Bishop of Sydney.

“World Youth Day is a product that reflects it and nourishes it,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s just World Youth Day itself, but World Youth Day very much opened people’s eyes to what is actually happening in the Church.”

Bishop Porteous says the next generation of priests is going to have a “different orientation” towards the priesthood then previous generations.

“And sometimes older priests find that difficult to grasp,” he said. “I think younger priests have a stronger sense of priestly identity.

“They have a greater appreciation of things like the devotional life of the Church.

“They often have a clear sense of the teaching of the Church and want to be advocates of the teaching in particular of controversial issues.

“They are strongly convinced of and want to promote the Church’s teaching on various moral issues at the present moment.

“Younger priests have a deep discovery of their Catholic faith and particularly the traditions of the faith, and these are the things they want to share and transmit in their priestly ministry.”

In his new book, After the Heart of God, Bishop Porteous examines what sort of priest is needed for the third millennium.

Drawing on his 34 years as a priest and seven years as rector of the Good Shepherd Seminary, Homebush, he discusses the issue in the light of dramatic changes in the cultural and ecclesial landscape in the past 50 years.

The book also looks at the identity, spirituality and pastoral orientation of priests, especially diocesan priests.

After the Heart of God was launched by the Archbishop of Sydney, George Cardinal Pell, at St Mary’s Cathedral on June 24. [It will also be launched by Fr John Flader at the Catholic Centre, Lidcombe, on July 15.]

Bishop Porteous said: “I wrote the book as a result of my seven years as rector of the Good Shepherd Seminary, and one of the questions that were always in my mind was what sort of priest is needed for the Church and society of today.

“Writing the book gave me a chance to reflect on my 30 plus years as a priest, my experiences and what I saw as a great change that had taken place in the society and also the Church in that period of time.

“It also gave me the opportunity to reflect on how best priests can go about their priestly ministry today.”

He added: “I did have in mind priests firstly when I was writing the book because I thought it was important to write something more specifically directed to the Australian situation. I thought it was important to have an Australian priest write about the experience of being a priest in Australia.”

Among the many issues examined in the book, Bishop Porteous looks at the living situation of priests.

“Are the living conditions, the circumstances that priests find themselves in now in parishes really the best and what can we do about them? I think that’s really an

important question,” he said.

“For example, when I was first ordained I was in a parish with the parish priest.

“We had a live-in house-keeper; there were formal meals where other priests would be invited.

“There was a greater structure to the way of life of the priest, where as now a lot of structure has disappeared.”

Bishop Porteous added: “Another question that’s important that I discuss in a range of ways is the identity of the priest.

“Lay people are taking more and more roles in parishes – that’s a very good and necessary thing – but it does raise questions of what’s the specific role of the priest and what’s the role of the lay person?

“One of the key things is for priests to deepen the sense of their own identity – who they are as priests.

“And also to be more appreciative of what people need most from priests.

“I think the most distinctive thing priests have to offer people is to assist them in their relationship with God.

“A priest needs to be a man of God, a man of faith, his celebration of the liturgy needs to be as such that it really helps people be drawn closer to God, be spiritually nourished through their liturgical celebrations.

“The priest does need to be a pastor after the heart of Christ.”
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FROM THE BALLARAT COURIER

Ballan publisher in heaven after coup

BALLAN publisher Connor Court had a publishing coup securing Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth, a book which argues against the science that suggests humans are influencing climate change.

The mining geologist's book is now in its fifth reprint and Professor Plimer has enjoyed the debate it has caused.

The Courier recently traded emails with the man behind Connor Court, Anthony Cappello.

- How did you end up with the publishing rights to Heaven and Earth?

Ian Plimer sent me an email. Knowing the man and his previous publishing successes, I was mad to refuse. At the end of the day, its about sales and Plimer sells. The book made it to number one on Bookdata.

- Connor Court promotes itself as a "publisher dedicated to culture, justice and religion" and has published many books which discuss Christianity and in particular, Catholicism. If you had the opportunity, would you publish a book such as Professor Plimer's 1994 anti-creationist work, Telling Lies for God?

Yes, because the book isn't anti-Christian. I think Plimer challenged the science of the creationists, just like he is challenging the science of the climate warmers. Both are scientific debates. I enjoyed reading Telling lies for God and didn't find it offensive to Christianity or Catholicism.

- Would you ever publish a book which backed efforts to counter human-influenced climate change?

Because of Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth we were approached by another prominent scientist who also challenges the status-quo on climate change, but more importantly he also challenges the politicisation of science. This book will be our second published book. Both Plimer and Garth Paltridge present to us scientific arguments. We have no more scheduled after this one.

This second book by Professor Paltridge is very important as it will show that Plimer is not alone. I guess the question is why aren't other publishers publishing books that present a different position on climate change? There is plenty of publishable material and as Plimer has demonstrated there is a market for another view. At the moment I have four other manuscripts by other prominent scientists also sceptical about the science of global warming.

As for the Connor Court position on the issue, I would argue that we are environmentalist without being committed to the Green ideology. We strongly believe in reducing waste, pollution, and being self-sufficient. This has been a long standing Catholic position right back to the 1930s when G.K. Chesterton, Hillarie Belloc and Vincent McNabb were preaching for a return to the land for self-sufficiency and strongly against urbanisation. Then there was the work of the National Catholic Rural Movement in Australia which was miles ahead in the care of the environment. Ballarat was one of the nerve centres of this movement.

However, when it comes to the science of climate change a debate is needed and Plimer has started the debate.

We are publishing a book in September on economics by several Swinburne academics. The authors, there are three, all hold the current climate warming line and are working on economic models based on an ETS becoming law. They support an ETS and are quite excited about it.

If reputable scientists come to us with manuscript that holds the climate warming line, we would consider it.

- You choose to have your books printed in Australia although many publishers have books printed overseas, why the more costly option?

We use two Australian printers and we use the local Ballarat printer for the smaller stuff. These three printers are good friends and have been a part of Connor Court from the beginning. It's about friendship, quality and commitment.

Because of this friendship we have flexibility and trust that one would not get, I believe, from a cheaper overseas printer.

- What are the advantages and disadvantages of operating a publishing house in a small town; and why did you choose Ballan?

We are a business that revolves around family life and we moved to Ballan about five years ago and have never looked back. We are trying to grow our own veggies, our trees and our family in a community that is non-urban.

B.A. Santamaria argued all his life for a decentralised Australia, small farms, self-sufficiency, the small business, and for family life to be on the top of the list. It's a philosophy we have adopted, although I suck at self-sufficiency and at the same time long to improve in this area.

Disadvantages, well, not having an Officeworks in Ballan. The Flying Teapot in Ballan not being opened on a Monday as I have to conduct my meetings on a Monday in Bacchus Marsh.

- How was Connor Court established? What was your first book? How many people does the company now employ?

I worked for John Garratt for three years then another publisher for five years. After I left my last publisher I got some research work at Victoria University. I started Connor Court in September 2005. Our first book was the conference papers of a conference which I attended in Chicago on the Italian migrants and the second World War. As many people do not realise several thousand Australians of an Italian background were suspected of being enemy aliens and were interned for the duration of the war. So I published these papers in a book called Enemy Aliens. We then published several Catholic titles, which have been quite successful. In fact, my Catholic titles sell widely in Australia and the world with Theology of the Body Made Simple being translated in several languages worldwide.

We employ several casual staff members, we have a sub-editor in Ballarat, a designer in St Kilda, a sales representative in Brisbane. Brigid, my wife, looks after the accounts and to be honest, keeps the business running smoothly and efficiently.

We have also published two local titles and are hoping to do another local publication in 2010.

Forthcoming Title- The Case for Christianity

Connor Court Publishing is proud to announce its forthcoming title, expected in July, entitled: The Case for Christianity: St Justin Martyr’s arguments for Religious Liberty and Judicial Justice.

From the Preface
Why is reading about St Justin of Neapolis, a saint and martyr of the second century AD, important for Christians of the twenty-first century?
St Justin lived during times similar to our own in many ways. Rome was the dominant world power and appeared for all intents and purposes unassailable. Economically, militarily and geographically Rome was at its height. Yet, it was beset by a number of growing problems––moral decay, family breakdown, falling birth rates, just to name a few. Religiously, Rome was conservative, yet eastern religions and mystery cults were spreading westwards and gaining many adherents. Fidelity to the gods was seen as essential to Rome’s continued prosperity and survival. Failure to render the gods their due threatened to bring down their wrath and despoil the empire.
Hence, the problem of the Christians. They refused to give any acknowledgement to the Graeco-Roman pantheon, and thus were considered as dangerous and impious atheists. For Rome’s survival, they therefore needed to be eliminated. In their efforts to destroy Christianity the Roman judicial procedure was arbitrary and ruthless. All that was needed for summary execution was the admission of bearing the Christian name and refusing to sacrifice to the Graeco-Roman gods.
St Justin’s efforts were urgent and heroic. He petitioned the very authority that persecuted Christians with a series of arguments pleading for judicial justice and religious liberty. His arguments appealed to the nobler sense in Romans, as well as to common sense. At the same time they contained an ‘evangelistic edge’ that sought his readers’ conversion to Christianity. This spirit of evangelism is very pronounced in St Justin’s other great work, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.
In a number of respects the plight of second century Christians reflects the suffering of Christians in various modern-day contexts. St Justin’s arguments are, therefore, of a nature that can be appreciated by many a modern reader and should be of interest and relevance to Christians deprived of religious liberty today. St Justin’s struggle also reminds us that we in the West who enjoy religious freedom should never take it for granted.

About the Author
Robert Haddad is married to his wife, Suzy, and currently has four children, Elias, Anthony, Catherine and Christina. He holds qualifications in law, theology and religious education, namely a LL.B, Grad. Cert. RE, Grad. Dip. Ed., M.Phil., MA (Theo.) and MRelEd. Robert is also the author of Christ the Teacher Series (4 volumes), Lord of History Series (2 volumes).

Since 1990, Robert has worked full-time at St. Charbel’s College, Punchbowl, teaching Religion and History for 15 years. This was followed by 4 years as the Convener of the Catholic Chaplaincy at the University of Sydney. He has also been a lecturer at the Centre for Thomistic Studies since 1996, teaching Apologetics, Church Fathers and Church History, as well as assisting part-time with Lumen Verum Apologetics. He currently is the Director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for the Archdiocese of Sydney and lectures in Scripture and Church part-time at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.

- Anthony Cappello

Bishop Porteous Booklaunch in Sydney

Meet Ian Plimer in Perth, Boffin's Book Signing

Boffins bookstore in Perth will be hosting a book signing session with Ian Plimer at their store. This is a wonderful opportunity to get a copy of the book while getting it signed by the author himself.

Details are as follows: Boffins Bookshop, 806 Hay Street , Perth

Friday, 10 July 2009 - 12:30PM – 2:00PM

Hunter Valley Launch of Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth

The Hunter Valley, NSW, is an interesting place to live – combining heaving industry and mining with the natural beauty of the Hunter Valley – vineyards, beaches, lakes and waterways. Every weekend those employed by the heavy CO2 emitters take advantage of the great outdoors in sports that Sydney neighbours wouldn’t dream of participating in. Hunter Valley residents don’t want climate change to affect their leisure but they also want to keep their jobs.

It should be no surprise that civilised debate about climate change occurs in the lunch rooms of a city where the BHP Steelworks once reigned. Coal mining is still a booming industry in the region and with easy access to this resource, some of Australia’s largest users of electricity reside in the Hunter.

The unions representing these workers cannot support an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) but some are fearful to speak out publicly lest there be ramifications from city head offices – run by people without the first clue of the rigours of work in industry let alone the process itself. Or they fear consequences within the larger body – the Australian Labor Party – which appears to be contemplating suicide by killing off those whom they used to hold dear. The steel industry, the coal industry and the aluminium industry – the heart and soul of the Australian economy – would all be ruined if the new Left had their way.

On the other side are those with a ‘Green Conscience’ whom, without logic, campaign for almost living in squalor rather than mining and converting coal to energy. Evidence of this are their life threatening attempts at protests against the aforementioned industries.

This is why Professor Ian Plimer’s latest contribution – Heaven and Earth – is fascinating to residents of this region. The contribution is a step-by-step scientific analysis that could be understood at the most basic level of scientific knowledge. At the book launch in Maitland, attended by plenty of supporters, sceptics, academics and unionists – those generally interested in debate rather than blind emotion – Professor Plimer emphasised that he did not support pollution but CO2 in itself was not pollution. And the ETS, he said, was just a “tax on the sixth element of the Periodic Table”.

Launching the book at a local drinking hole was John Maitland, the former National President of the CFMEU. Maitland’s activism against the absurd ETS and government lobbying shows that those labelled by the media as ‘sceptics’ aren’t just from the right of politics – National Party MPs, conservative Liberals and Family First Senators – but that there is real concern within the ALP. The fact that the CFMEU is aligned to the Left of the ALP gives rise to the probability that sections of the Left and Right may defeat the ETS on the floor of the Labor Party Conference later this year.

What Rudd will do after that is anybody’s guess.

An ETS will destroy the Hunter Valley, Newcastle and the port operations which export to the world, and the likes of Maitland and other union leaders in the region are right to work with their businesses to defeat a “tax on the sixth element of the Periodic Table”. Now they have a sound scientific argument to support their claims.

- Aaron Russell

From Publisher's Weekly - US

Rowman and Littlefield Acquires Aussie Bestseller
By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 6/10/2009 7:37:00 AM

Rowman and Littlefield Publishing has acquired North American rights to In Heaven and Earth: Global Warming: The Missing Science, by leading Australian geologist Ian Plimer. In the book, Plimer makes the scientifically controversial argument that carbon dioxide has an insignificant role in affecting climate. Heaven and Earth was originally released in Australia in May by Connor Court Publishing and has already gone through five printings, after hitting local bestseller lists there. According to R&L, as of May 15, Plimer's title was #1 on Bookdata, the Australian equivalent of BookScan.

R&L said Plimer refutes much of the science Al Gore presented in his bestselling primer on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. In a statement from the publisher, Plimer said Gore's book and documentary are rife with "misrepresentations" and that "trying to deal with these misrepresentations is somewhat like trying to argue with creationists, who misquote, concoct evidence, quote out of context, ignore contrary evidence, and create evidence ex nihilo."

R&L, through its Taylor Trade imprint, is crashing the book for July 1 and expects the title to stir up debate. Jed Lyons, CEO of R&L, added that the book's message is particularly urgent. "When our children are being taught that carbon dioxide—food for plants—is a pollutant, and that climate change is somehow unnatural, then clarifying views need to be heard."

Where to buy Ian Plimer's book in Perth

You can also get your copy signed by Ian Plimer on July 10th at the

Boffins Bookshop - 806 Hay Street, Perth, Western Australia 6000

PO Box 7349, Cloisters Square, WA 6850

T: 08 9321 5755 F: 08 9321 5744






stephen@boffinsbookshop.com.au

www.boffinsbookshop.com.au

IN DEFENCE OF IAN PLIMER

Open letter to the President of Australian Academy of Science is now online here:

CLICK HERE

- Maria Giordano

Another critic on Climate Change!

Here is another forthcoming title on Climate Change. It is a hot topic and a topic that needs debate. Connor Court Publishing seeks an open-minded and challenging debate on this important issue. We believe in looking after the environment, being self-sufficient, recycling and using our resources wisely. We don't preach it, we live it. We also believe in an open and even-handed debate on what causes Global Warming and we welcome another contribution to this important topic.



Here is the blurb to this important title
So you think the theory of disastrous climate change has been proved! You believe that scientists are united in their efforts to force the nations of the world to reduce their carbon emissions! You imagine perhaps that scientists are far too professional to overstate their case!
Maybe we should all think again. In his book The Climate Caper, with a light touch and nicely readable manner, Professor Paltridge shows that the case for action against climate change is not nearly so certain as is presented to politicians and the public. He leads us through the massive uncertainties which are inherently part of the ‘climate modelling process’; he examines the even greater uncertainties associated with economic forecasts of climatic doom; and he discusses in detail the conscious and sub-conscious forces operating to ensure that scepticism within the scientific community is kept from the public eye.
It seems that governments are indeed becoming captive to a scientific and technological elite – an elite which is achieving its ends by manipulating fear of climate change into the world’s greatest example of a religion for the politically correct.

Emeritus Professor Garth Paltridge is an atmospheric physicist and was a Chief Research Scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research before taking up positions in Tasmania as Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies and CEO of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre. He retired in 2002 and continues to live in Hobart. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.


His research ranged from the optimum design of plants to the economics of climate forecasting. He is best known internationally for work on atmospheric radiation and the theoretical basis of climate. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
He was in industry for a while as Director of the Environmental Executive of the Institute of Petroleum. He spent various separate years overseas in postings concerned with research or research administration - in the UK, Geneva, New Mexico, Colorado and Washington D.C. In Geneva he was involved in the early development of the World Climate Program. In Washington he was with the US National Climate Program Office at the time of the establishment of the IPCC.

- Anthony Cappello

After the Heart of God - Booklaunch

Bishop Julian Porteous has just completed his new book entitled:
AFTER THE HEART OF GOD- THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF PRIESTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM.
The book will become available on June 22nd. Cardinal George Pell will launch the book at St. Mary's Cathedral Hall in Sydney on June 24th at 5.30pm.
For details and RSVP check out the facebook page by clicking here.

- Anthony Cappello

Steve Fielding has an open mind

In today's Australian, Senator Steve Fielding writes about keeping an open mind on the issue of global warming. To his credit, Senator Fielding has read Ian Plmer's Heaven and Earth.
Click here to read the article.

- Anthony Cappello

Plimer in the Adelaide Advertiser

Why I'd put global warming on ice
Article from: The Advertiser

WORDS: PENELOPE DEBELLE,
MAIN PICTURE: MATT TURNER

May 28, 2009 11:30pm

GLOBAL warming is a load of hot air and the world is actually in an ice age, says the scientist who has made his reputation taking the contrary view.

IAN PLIMER LIKES to think of himself as a professional sceptic. He wears doubt like a badge of honour - except when it comes to himself. A decade ago the Adelaide geology professor was so outraged by a creationist minister's claims that Noah's Ark had been found in Turkey that he sued in the Federal Court. Now he has his sights set on the scientists who are predicting another apocalyptic flood; one that will make sea levels rise, melt the ice caps and change the climate of the planet.

This time Plimer, a geologist and academic with interests in the mining industry, has taken on a sea of atmospheric scientists, biologists, meteorologists and oceanographers, and declared them all wrong. Plimer's view is that man-made climate change is a myth and we should be enjoying what is a warm break between glacial stages of a prevailing Ice Age.

The fact that most climate scientists say he's talking a load of rubbish bothers him not at all. Meet him and you get the strong sense he enjoys the limelight and is blithely unaffected by criticism. Nothing challenges his view that he is right. "I look at everything," Plimer says. "I have a bigger picture of the planet." Clearly, this hands-on scientist who cut his teeth in the rough- and-tumble of the mining town of Broken Hill is not short of self-confidence.

He has been awarded the Eureka Prize twice, once for the promotion of science, and he writes not for other scientists but for ordinary people. The author of seven books, he also knows a good story when he has one. He was convinced his new book denying the science of climate change, Heaven+Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science, would be a best-seller even when he could not find a publisher.

ABC Books was not interested, nor was Random House, which had published an earlier best-selling book, Telling Lies for God. He was also rejected by Allen and Unwin, Reed, and the niche South Australian publisher East Street. Plimer pressed on in the belief that someone would eventually wake up. He sought out Connor Court, an independent publisher based at Ballan in Victoria, that publishes Catholic books, including one by the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell (God and Caesar). Plimer called, emailed, and 10 minutes later had his proposal accepted. "We know who you are," they said, and began preparing artwork before the manuscript had even arrived. He later met the publisher, Anthony Cappello, and reassured him he had done the right thing. "I told him, 'Anthony, this is going to be the biggest book you've ever had. This book will put your kids through school'," Plimer says. "He didn't believe me but I knew it was going to be good."

On that point, Plimer is being proved right. Heaven+Earth sold more than 12,000 copies in its first two weeks and is into its third print run. It is about to be launched in the United Kingdom - he is writing an article for The Spectator magazine and will visit London shortly - and the U.S. He has spent this month flying around Australia and has been interviewed by most of the major print and electronic media.

Plimer has a message to sell that many want to hear and he is enjoying tossing grenades into the global-warming debate. He presents himself as a crusader for truth, the lone scientist willing to stand up and explode with breath-taking assuredness what he says are a concoction of myths and misinformation that a gullible and badly-informed public has been bludgeoned into believing. "I've had the temerity to say the public paradigm might be incorrect," he says over coffee near the University of Adelaide. "There are a lot of very fundamental misconceptions out there and I think that is why the book has done so well because people have intuitively felt that something is not right."

How great for the planet, and for our consciences, if he were right. In these dangerous times it would be comforting to think that man-induced climate change was the result of confused thinking by a bunch of ill-informed scientists. Nothing left to do but turn on the shower and load up the Landcruiser.

Plimer set out in Heaven+Earth to destroy every argument that has ever been raised about human-induced climate change. It is a big claim. As the professor of astrophysics at the University of NSW, Michael Ashley, wrote earlier this month in The Australian, if true it would rank as one of the greatest discoveries of the century and would earn Plimer a Nobel Prize.

Plimer's reservations about climate science surfaced in 2001 with A Short History of Planet Earth which won awards and staked his claim to the belief that major climate change was a regular feature of life on the planet. The current temperature variations were nothing to worry about, he wrote, and carbon dioxide emissions were not to blame. Since then his thinking has evolved into a more aggressive check-list of rebuttals to the accepted wisdom on climate change and global warming. He says his truths - he won't use the word beliefs because that is too unscientific - are found in the earth, in the timelessness of geology where millions of years of climate change is written in the layers of stone, and in the negligible relative scale of human impact. It is comforting reading.

Are the speed and amount of climate change unprecedented? No, says Plimer.

Is dangerous warming occurring? No.

Is the temperature range observed in the 20th century outside the range of normal variability? No.

Most credible scientific bodies have accepted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's assessments that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is rising. Using peer-reviewed science from experts in the study of atmospheric gases and global temperatures, the IPCC accepted evidence of galloping global warming.

So who is Plimer to know more than they do? Aged 62 and with the dishevelled air of a busy academic, Plimer is a former Professor of Geology at Melbourne University who moved to Adelaide three years ago to become Professor of Mining Geology. Plimer says he chose Adelaide because of the co-operation between the University of Adelaide, the Department of Primary Industry and Resources, and the mining industry.

"I looked into it a bit further and I couldn't believe government, industry and the universities were working together as closely as that," he says. "By contrast, the University of Melbourne is quite poisonous in terms of anyone who had anything to do with industry."

Those who have hinted that Plimer has close ties to industry need only to ask; he does. He holds directorships with two mining companies, but claims with a hint of irritation that this does not affect the independence of his beliefs.

His mining interests grew out of a long association with Broken Hill. Plimer arrived there as a young man in the late 1960s and worked underground at North Broken Hill before moving into the science of mining, metallurgy and exploration. He owns a house in Broken Hill and one west of Silverton. Plimer is a director of CBH Resources, a Sydney-based mineral resource company with a mine at Cobar and an underground mine in Broken Hill. He is also a director of Ivanhoe Resources, which has a large ore body outside Cloncurry in Queensland.

This commercial interest in mining, according to Plimer, does not colour his arguments, which he says are based on pure science. His line is that the speed of light remains the same no matter who funds the research, and he is annoyed at being regularly questioned about his interests when, he says, other public figures like Professor Ross Garnaut, who is chairman of Lihir Gold, are not.

"Some of the major physical features of the planet don't change depending on who funds it," Plimer says. "Cosmic radiation drives a lot of climate. Now, it doesn't matter who funds work on cosmic radiation - it was originally done by Bell telephone. I think that it's a fallacious argument that you get a required result, and especially if the research is published, because it undergoes a review process."

But ordinary people must make judgments based on who they can trust. Better, then, to disclose a personal interest when opposing the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme, which he has done more than once? "Well, I say very little about the emissions trading scheme, in fact I don't think I say anything about it there at all because it's a book of science," he says, tapping his book.

But Plimer recently wrote in The Australian that primary producers should be "very worried about an emissions trading scheme underpinned by incomplete science". Late last year he told the ABC's Lateline business program the scheme would create massive unemployment and lead to a change of government. In neither case were his mining directorships mentioned.

"The same argument you would have to say to the ABC; here you have the ABC who are funded by government," he says. "You have all the environment groups and it's very much in their interests to frighten people witless and go around rattling the can and getting more money, but that is never declared." Plimer comes to the climate change debate with another barrow to push. He is a sceptic opposed to certain kinds of orthodoxy. He argues this is a default position; he is a scientist and scepticism underpins science. But he pursues those who disagree and in the 1990s he took creationist minister Dr Allen Roberts to the Federal Court in an attempt to prove his claims about Noah's Ark wrong. According to Plimer, any "bushie" could have looked at the site in Turkey and known there were features of geology that explained the boat-shaped mass.

So why not just shrug off the claim as ludicrous, as most people did?

"Because it was a fraud," he says. "The punters were being told that Noah's Ark had been found, they were paying money to hear this. They claimed that science underpinned these claims and it was fraud." The outcome of the Federal Court case was not clear-cut but Plimer says he won. "The battle that we won hands down, and wanted to win, was the public one," he says. "I wanted people to associate the word 'creationism' with the thought that, hang on, this might be a bit dodgy." The Australian Sceptics were so impressed they made Plimer a life member.

Plimer says he wrote his book for the nameless mass of people he calls punters, who knew they were being fed hype. "They are getting talked down to by pompous, arrogant scientists and getting moralising thrown at them by various radio and television networks. They know that something is wrong but they can't put their finger on it," he says.

Plimer, genial in person but contemptuous of anyone with an opposing view, portrays his science as being above politics but buys willingly into the political debate. "It is very hard to politicise earthquakes and volcanoes and the way ice moves," he says in one breath. And in another: "I mean I'm pretty sure (Liberal climate change spokesman) Greg Hunt wouldn't believe in me on the conservative side of politics, and (Opposition Leader) Malcolm Turnbull wouldn't." What about Liberal Senator Nick Minchin? "He does, there is no doubt about that. Now I think that is very healthy that in the one party there is division. In Labor there is also division. This is the first time we have had a great spectrum of information that can underpin a debate."

Among other scientists, Plimer is all but out in the cold. Across the corridor from Plimer is the university's Professor of Climate Change, Barry Brook, who disagrees with him completely and contributed to a systematic online rebuttal of the book (complex.org.au). Plimer retaliates by saying Brook is a biologist who has done good work on the extinction of mega-fauna but his vision is too narrow.

The attack by astrophysicist Michael Ashley, based on the same body of pure science to which Plimer claims strict adherence, was a stinging rebuttal of the book's claims and credentials. Plimer, self-belief to the fore, does not accept there have been legitimate scientific inroads made into his argument or the book. Ashley's critique ignored the history of the planet, Plimer says, and made errors regarding the IPCC and carbon dioxide. "Nothing but grandstanding. He's a joke, it was quite amusing," Plimer says. "Academics fight very hard about trivial things."

Plimer's minority position does not worry him. Science was never about consensus and as a geologist, he says, he has the bigger planetary view. "No one has ever lined up a scientist against me who deals with the breadth of the planet," he says. "People might cherry pick this or cherry pick that but they are not dealing with the holistic view of the planet."

As for the impact of the criticism so far: "I am being beaten around the head by a feather, a pink feather," he says. "Every time my critics bathe me in their vitriol, ad hominem attacks and pretentious pomposity, sales increase."

TWO FORTHCOMING CATHOLIC TITLES

Connor Court is proud to announce the publication in July of two new books:
AFTER THE HEART OF GOD: THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF PRIESTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM by BISHOP JULIAN PORTEOUS. Bishop Julian Porteous is the Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Sydney and past-Rector of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd. This is his second book with Connor Court Publishing. His first title published last December was THE NEW EVANGELISATION: Developing Evangelical Preaching.

The Second title is Fr Anthony Percy's Jesus Christ:Yesterday ~ Today ~ Forever. Fr Anthony Percy is the current rector of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd and his first book Theology of the Body Made Simple has sold over 3500 copies with editions in France, USA, Great Britian, Spain, Mexico, Singapore, South East Asia, Poland and Kenya.

- Anthony Cappello

Part 1: Professor Ian Plimer Interviewed by Brian Carlton; Heaven and Earth

- Maria Giordano

PRESS IN THE UK

Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth is set to be released in the UK by English publisher Quartet Books. The book is already causing a stir with the Spectator's Melanie Phillips writing an excellent article. Click here to read this article.

- Maria Giordano