Since the release of Professor Ian Plimer‘s book titled ‘Heaven and Earth‘ was published, a number of reputable scientists and authors including Tim Lambert, Ian Enting, Barry Brook, Michael Ashley, David Karoly, Kurt Lambeck and Charlie Veron have taken the book to task, pointing out a multitude of issues ranging from deliberate misquotes, paraphrasing journal articles and deliberately falsifying graphs. George Monbiot, a journalist with the british newspaper The Guardian summarised Plimer’s efforts:

“…seldom has a book been more cleanly murdered by scientists than Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth, which purports to show that manmade climate change is nonsense. Since its publication in Australia it has been ridiculed for a hilarious series of schoolboy errors, and its fudging and manipulation of the data.”

Since then, Monbiot has consistently (and correctly) attacked Plimer on the falsehoods of his book on his blog at the Guardian, which culimanated in Plimer challenging Monbiot to a public debate. Monbiot agreed to this, with the condition that Plimer first respond to the detailed critique as previously outlined (see ‘Why can’t the champion of climate change denial face the music‘ for the ensuing hilarity). Unsurprisingly, Plimer has rejected this challenge, although Monbiot doesn’t say why. Read the full article here (“Let battle commence! Climate change denialist ready for the fight“). I can only hope that Plimer does his best to answer the list of questions, as it would be entertaining to watch Monbiot nail Plimer to a wall… More updates as they come.