Plimer leads IPA fund-raising push for new climate denial book

Leading climate change denier Professor Ian Plimer is leading a new fund-raising campaign from Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s favourite conservative think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, to raise money for a new book attacking climate science, carbon pricing and renewable energy targets.

Plimer, a geologist, sent out an email to a bunch of folk today calling for tax deductible donations to support the new book, which features climate science denier luminaries such as Andrew Bolt, James Delingpole, Donna Laframboise, Lord Nigel Lawson, Professor Richard Lindzen, Joanne Nova, Mark Steyn, Anthony Watts and one John Abbot (no relation, not enough “t”s).

The fund raising campaign comes as the Climate Change Authority issued a report saying Australia needed to dramatically accelerate its emissions reductions program, and as a new study from the UK criticised Australia for back-tracking on its climate policies.

The IPA has been highly influential in those decisions, and is not shy of claiming credit. Its new target is the renewable energy target, even though some of the costs it has claimed, and which have been repeated by business lobby groups, are hopelessly wrong.

Plimer’s email begins with a triumphant boast that the IPA has helped kill the emissions trading scheme and the carbon tax, and appears to be about to do the same thing with the renewable energy target. “Australia is still suffering under bad policies (like the renewable energy target) based on bad science,” he writes.

Donors even get the opportunity to have their name acknowledged on the back cover of the book, to be called Climate Change: The Facts 2014. They have to cough up $400 first. Taxpayers will return nearly half of that, depending on their income bracket.

According to an email forward to RenewEconomy, Plimer says.

Today, you and I are winning. Kevin Rudd’s ETS is gone. Julia Gillard’s carbon tax is about to be repealed.

None of this would have happened without the Institute of Public Affairs and its members. But more needs to be done. Australia is still suffering under bad policies (like the renewable energy target) based on bad science.

I want the IPA to continue winning the climate change debate in this country. That’s why I’m asking you to make a tax-deductible donation to the IPA today so they can bring together the world’s biggest names on climate change.

The IPA needs your tax-deductible donation to publish a new book of research, Climate Change: The Facts 2014 featuring Andrew Bolt, Professor Bob Carter, James Delingpole, Donna Laframboise, Lord Nigel Lawson, Professor Richard Lindzen, Joanne Nova, Dr Patrick Michaels, Mark Steyn and Anthony Watts. I’ll be writing a chapter too. I’ve already made a donation.

Here’s what some of the contributors say about Climate Change: The Facts 2014:

“I salute what my friends at the IPA have done to make Australians start to see sense on climate change. The IPA’s Climate Change: The Facts 2014 is a very important book.”
– Mark Steyn, contributor to Climate Change: The Facts 2014

“This is a crucial year in the climate debate. Australia needs the IPA’s Climate Change: The Facts 2014 so our politicians get to see the evidence – such as the failure of the planet to warm since 1998, and the immeasurably small effect Australia’s global warming policies will actually have on world temperatures.”
– Andrew Bolt, contributor to Climate Change: The Facts 2014

“At last people are making up their own mind about climate change – they can see the doomsayers are wrong!”
– James Delingpole, contributor to Climate Change: The Facts 2014

“Climate change alarmists have done a great disservice to the cause of rational scientific enquiry. Climate Change: The Facts 2014 is significant because it deals with the evidence.”
– Professor Stewart Franks, University of Tasmania, contributor to Climate Change: The Facts 2014

John Roskam has told me he’ll send a copy of Climate Change: The Facts 2014 to every federal member of parliament. And he’s also told me about all the IPA members and supporters who want to stand up and be counted on climate change. Which is why if they choose, every person who makes a tax-deductible donation of $400 or more will be acknowledged by name on the outside back cover of the book.