Here are the emails I’ve exchanged with the Spectator over the Plimer affair
23 July 2009
Sir,
Ian Plimer challenges me to debate his claims about climate change. I accept. In fact I accepted a fortnight ago, when I began this debate by taking him to task.
Along with other critics, I have laid out a list of specific errors of fact and misrepresentations, which he uses to support his argument. The ball is now in his court. To participate in this debate, he should answer the points I listed, as well as the other issues raised by Tim Lambert, Ian Enting and David Karoly. Then we can reply. But Plimer, as far as I can discover, has yet to produce any specific response to the very serious allegations made by his critics, preferring to heap insults on them instead.
These are all scientific matters, some of which are complex. To engage in this debate, we need to establish the facts and provide references. This is why it is better to debate these issues in writing; ideally, as Plimer’s critics have done, in electronic format, so that people can follow the links. Attempting to resolve these issues in person is likely either to become extremely boring or to degenerate into a slanging match. The Guardian’s website is open to him, and we look forward to his responses.
Is he up to this, or will he keep ducking our challenge? The floor is his.
George Monbiot
24 July 2009
Dear George
Thanks for this. I understand your argument but – as Al Gore has shown – there is great power in personal presentation which simply cannot be achieved in print or online.
I think the sort of people who would attend such a debate would be more than willing and able to follow a complex argument and we could of course arrange any technical assistance you needed.
I respect the strength of your position on Ian Plimer. I also think that face to face debate has an immediacy which simply cannot be matched in regular journalism. Please say yes to such an event. I think it would generate great interest and be a fascinating discussion.
Go on – where is the intrepid Monbiot I remember fondly from my days at Index?!
Best
Matthew
29 July 2009
Dear Matthew,
Thanks for writing.
I’ve lost none of my enthusiasm for debate, but in my experience it works best when there are differences of opinion to be discussed. There is neither opinion nor theory at stake here, simply a series of factual claims which are either right or wrong. Unless we have all missed something, Plimer’s claims are wrong. He has so far failed to respond to any of our refutations, preferring to malign his critics instead. This suggests another reason why a face to face debate with him would be a waste of time.
While we’re discussing this, perhaps you could help explain something to me. If a man walked into your office and claimed that the entire canon of lunar science was wrong and the moon was, after all, made of green cheese, I suspect you would do one of two things: either send him on his way or, if you were feeling generous, ask him for evidence, then give it to experts in the field to assess. When they assured you that it was nonsense, you would drop the matter.
But when it comes to climate change, you and other editors are prepared to accept assertions which are just as nonsensical, without any attempt to check – or even to request – the evidence. As Michael Ashley said, “It is not “merely” atmospheric scientists that would have to be wrong for Plimer to be right. It would require a rewriting of biology, geology, physics, oceanography, astronomy and statistics.” Plimer’s claims, in other words, are scarcely less crazy than those of the lunar theorist. Yet you not only put him on the front cover of your magazine, but also urge his critics to debate him.
What is it about the words “climate change” that makes intelligent people like you abandon all editorial standards? I am genuinely puzzled by this – I simply do not understand what is going on.
With my best wishes,
George
29 July 2009
Dear George
Thanks for your reply.
All you say may well be true, which fortifies my belief that a debate would be fantastic!
Whether or not Ian chooses to engage with you on the Guardian website is a matter for him and you. But we would be really honoured if you would take part in a public event under The Spectator banner. Indeed, I’d be more than happy for you to repeat what you said about the propriety of the magazine publishing the Plimer interview in the first place. I think it is a very interesting argument about media responsibility – in addition to all the other points you raise.
As much as I love the printed word, I think the presence of the speaker adds depth and authority to debate. I was hugely impressed by Al Gore’s presentation which I was lucky enough to see at a BBC event (I was on a panel with Zac Goldsmith and Ian McEwan – I think Lomborg was there, too). I guarantee that the Spec debate would be chaired with meticulous fairness to your position and – speaking personally – I would be thrilled if you could be there. Your journalism is awesomely powerful and a must-read for anyone intelligent.
Please say yes! We are all so keen that you should take part.
All best
Matthew
29 July 2009 12:18
Dear Matthew,
I’d be delighted to take part in a Spectator debate, but I am mystified by your insistence that I should debate with Ian Plimer. There are thousands of people out there making crazy and demonstrably false claims, about everything from the shape of the earth to seven-foot lizards, but none of them are worth staging an event for. Why him? It reinforces my observation that otherwise-sane editors take leave of their senses when it comes to climate change.
Now how about a debate on a genuine matter of opinion, like what policies we should pursue in response to the vast array of scientific findings on climate change. I’ll take on anyone worth debating: James Lovelock, Ed Miliband, Bjorn Lomborg, David Cameron, Zac Goldsmith – I disagree strongly with all of them. Or name your choice. I can promise you it would be fun.
I’m still looking forward to some answers about why people like you abandon their standards when it comes to climate change.
With my best wishes, George
30 July 2009
Dear George
I think the answer may be that what I call mischievous – and it is part of the Spectator Editor’s job description to be mischievous – you would call deeply immoral and grotesquely irresponsible. The response to Plimer’s piece – for and against – was passionate and cacophonous: exactly what I had hoped. Again, that may not strike you as an excuse. But perhaps it suffices as an explanation.
I think, too, you underestimate your success in achieving agreement on climate change: most media organisations now sign up to the scientific consensus as far as I can see. What makes Plimer interesting to the Spectator is precisely his maverick quality. I take your point about seven-foot lizards but nobody was offering a piece on that subject that week.
I have another suggestion: why not a three way debate between yourself, Plimer and A.N. Other to be agreed?
Let me know if that appeals.
Best, Matthew
30 July 2009
Dear Matthew,
Thanks for this. It’s not the morality or responsibility of your decision I’m questioning; it’s the thinking behind it. I’m not so pure at heart that I can’t see the value of both noise and mischief, but surely there must be some grounding in fact? Every week the Spectator publishes noisy and provocative articles. I disagree with many of them, because they express interpretations of the facts that differ from mine. But in most cases the facts they are interpreting are real ones. James Delingpole’s article, by contrast, possessed no grounding in fact at all. It was built on a fantasy as easy to debunk as the seven-foot lizard story.
So your response doesn’t answer my question. Why climate change? Why is this issue uniquely viewed as fair game by editors who tread carefully around every other scientific issue for fear of making idiots of themselves? Why don’t you attempt similar mischief by publishing claims about alien abductions or the sun’s orbit around the earth? You would certainly receive a passionate and cacophonous response: not because these stories are challenging but simply because they are wrong. Why have editors stopped championing Andrew Wakefield’s crazy “facts”, while continuing to publish equally batty statements about climate change?
And where is the mischief in doing what hundreds of publications and broadcasters have already done? I have been reading articles identical in theme and tone since 1989. New versions of the same piece are published every week. Surely to be mischievous you have to be orginal?
On the other matter, I have already given you my answer, three times.
With my best wishes,
George
30 July 2009
Dear George
I know – I am just trying to change your mind! This really matters to me. I’d like this to happen. I am a terrier when it comes to such matters!
Here’s what I think about climate change: you and many, many others make an eloquent case for what amounts to a transformation in human behaviour. I think you are winning the argument (I mean for hearts and minds, not the scientific variety).
However, it isn’t a done deal with the public: far from it. And there are people like Plimer who argue the contrary and will continue to do so: you scorn his argument and you may well be right, but I would like to see you do so in person.
As for my approach to climate change, I can only speak for myself and say that, as an Editor, I don’t single it out for loony treatment. Rather, it seems to me that you have more work to do – to see off the Plimers once and for all. And I would love to see you do it!
Wakefield is a good example of somebody who was driven to the margins by long years of slog in public forums and print. This must have been hugely distasteful for those who saw him as a quack and a con artist. But they did it nonetheless. They got down and dirty and crushed him in every medium and context available.
I accept that you see taking on Plimer as a bit like taking on flat earthers or devotees of the view that the moon is made of blue cheese. Why would you bother? The answer is that – like it or not – his ideas do appeal to some members of the public, and they need to be taken on if only to be flattened.
Come on, George: saddle up and do the business.
Best, Matthew
30 July 2009
Dear Matthew,
There are hundreds of Plimers in every field, and no one will ever see them off “once and for all”. I can picture people like him standing up to their necks in water, still telling us not to worry – it’s all a conspiracy.
Why indeed would I bother? Nothing and no one will convince Ian Plimer or any of these people that they are wrong. The science of climate change has been summarised and explained more clearly and more often than any other scientific issue: by the IPCC, the Royal Society, the Met Office and scores of similarly august bodies. In fact the IPCC exists solely for this purpose. If people aren’t prepared to read and understand the science, I can’t force them. All I can do is to explain why their claims are wrong. In Plimer’s case I have already done this. He has failed to answer my refutations or anyone else’s.
You say you don’t single out climate change for loony treatment. Could you then give me some examples of similarly loony articles you have published about other scientific matters?
With my best wishes,
George
30 July 2009
Dear George
Well, MMR for a start where I supported Wakefield initially!
You are right that Plimer will never concede defeat. My point is about the public’s attitude to him, not the scientific community’s response. Here, I think it is worth you “bothering”. Of course, your articles and blogs have an impact. But face-to-face debate is more vivid and (I believe) often more effective.
There is always a reason not to engage our opponents face to face. I am a great believer in doing so, even if their views seem ridiculous, abhorrent or unscientific. In any campaign of persuasion, one has to go back to basics repeatedly. You cannot repeat the foundational principles too often, even if it seems bizarre that anyone should advance the opposite view.
I think it would make a difference if you crushed Plimer in a public debate. It would be widely reported, not least by the Spectator but also by other media organisations and would be a natural for YouTube.
Don’t stay out of the ring.
Best
Matthew
30 July 2009
Dear Matthew,
Well, I can see you didn’t get where you are today by taking no for an answer. OK, you win. I will do it, on three conditions:
1. It’ll be a joint Guardian/Spectator event.
2. Ian Plimer responds to my challenge, and writes precise and specific responses to each of the numbered questions that I will send him and you over the next few days, for publication on the Guardian’s website. The reason for this condition is that I don’t want him to use our debate as an excuse not to answer my points. I accept his challenge if he accepts mine.
3. We can cross-examine each other. Ideally I would like the event to take the form of a trial, in which we each test each other’s claims.
On the Wakefield comparison, by the way, the difference between MMR then and climate change now is that no one knew any better when Wakefield first published. Today we have 20 years of evidence, across tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers, to show that people like Plimer are talking out of their hats. But never mind: I’ve jumped into your cesspool now!
With my best wishes,
George
31 July 2009
Excellent! I am thrilled. I’m copying in Phoebe Vela, our brilliants events chief, who will handle the specifics.
Do let me know if you need more.
All best
Matthew
04 August 2009
Dear George,
Hope you are well today.
I have left a message on your mobile ansaphone and office. I would be most grateful if you could contact me on —- ——-.
Kind regards
Phoebe Vela
Head of Corporate Affairs and Events
Press Holdings Media Group
05 August 2009
Dear George,
It was good to speak to you today. I am pleased to learn that you are still willing to participate in this event as is Ian. We just need to find a convenient date for you both. I will communicate this shortly. I understand that you will put your questions to Ian, this week. I would be most grateful if you could keep us all copied in on any further emails, so we are all in the loop.
If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. In the meantime, I look forward to organising this event and working with you both.
Many thanks
Phoebe Vela
05 August 2009
Hi Phoebe,
here is the letter I have just sent to Ian.
Best wishes,
George
[this contains my question to Ian Plimer]
05 August 2009
Dear George,
Thank you for sharing your letter with us all. I thought it necessary to reiterate what we discussed today that you agree to participate in the public event organised by Spectator/Guardian on a Wednesday evening in the Autumn (date to be confirmed), conditional upon Ian Plimer answering the questions below.
I feel it is necessary to ensure that there is no confusion amongst us all and that it is clear, that Ian Plimer’s response to your questions below in writing is not in place of a public event.
I would be grateful if you could please clarify this by return. I am sure Ian will respond accordingly upon receipt of your confirmation.
Many thanks
06 August 2009
Dear Phoebe,
I don’t think I can make it any clearer than I have done already. I have agreed to take part in a public, face-to-face debate with Ian, with these three conditions:
1. It’ll be a joint Guardian/Spectator event.
2. Ian Plimer responds to my challenge, and writes precise and specific responses to each of the numbered questions that I will send him.
3. We can cross-examine each other.
I take it you have agreed to 1. Please confirm this. Ian has indicated, though not yet definitively said, that he will answer my questions. Assuming he does and we all agree to 3, thunderbirds are go.
Best wishes, George
06 August 2009
Dear George
Many thanks for your email. We are struggling to get a venue that can accommodate us can I just ask if by any chance you could pls do Monday 30 Nov?
06 August 2009
The Guardian’s suggesting King’s Place. What do you think? G
August 06, 2009
Hi Phoebe,
can’t do any Mondays or Tuesdays. I’m away from Thurs 26th November and then busy until the end of the Copenhagen coference, so it will have to be before then. Please confirm you’re OK with condition 1.
G
On 6 Aug 2009
Dear Phoebe,
I have just noticed this message* in the thread and have two comments.
1. It is not an accurate summary of my discussion with Matthew.
2. It suggests that you are not acting in a neutral capacity in organising this debate.
Can I have your assurance that there will be no further misrepresentation and that you will not seek to take sides in this debate?
Yours Sincerely,
George Monbiot
*Dear Ian,
I would like to introduce myself, Phoebe Vela, I am in charge of the Events for the Spectator. As I sure you are aware, we finally managed to hold George Monbiot’s feet to the fire and get him to agree to debate with you on the topic on Wednesday 21 October 2009 in London. He did specify that he wanted you to answer some specific questions which would be put on our website and that of the Guardian as a prelude to the debate/trial. Please see below. I hope you will agree that Matthew d’Ancona taunted him on your behalf in order to guarantee a good event. We are very excited our end and are very much looking forward to what will be a box office event.
I did call George this morning to finalise the details and understand that there is a problem and that you have pulled out. I find this hard to believe. Please can you let me know the state of play. What I can do to facilitate what will be a historical and enjoyable evening. I hope we can find a way to make this work. I await your response.
Kind regards
06 August 2009
Dear George
You have my assurances that we completely neutral on this and my email to Ian was to understand why he pulled out having taunted you.
I have today had a good conversation with the Guardian and we are in agreement on how to forward and they are equally excited.
The date we are looking at is 11 November.
If you any further assurances pls do not hesitate to contact me.
Many thanks
06 August 2009
Hi Phoebe,
11th November suits me very well.
G
07 August 2009
Morning G – sorry to be pest. If we had to change the date to 12 Nov…would that work for you? Please let me know. P
07 August 2009
that’s fine for me
07 August 2009
Great – thanks G.
21 August 2009
Dear George
Hope all is well with you. Just to confirm that we are going to start the marketing for the debate scheduled on 12 November 2009. It will be held at Savoy Place, London WC1. I will send you a formal letter to confirm. The motion will be “Global Warming Myth or Reality”. Hope you are happy with this suggestion.
If you have any queries or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Warm wishes
02 September 2009
Dear Phoebe,
I’m sorry not to have replied before – I am recovering from surgery. Please be aware that Professor Plimer has not yet met my conditions for the debate and shows no sign of doing so. I repeat – it cannot go ahead until he has done so. So please do not market it yet: he will be wasting your time and money if he won’t meet my terms.
I have now given him a deadline of September 11th and told him that if he has not answered my questions by then, I will conclude that he has called off the debate. See my latest here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/sep/01/heaven-earth-answers-plimer
He has also failed so far to answer my request that we may cross-examine each other during the debate.
Throughout our correspondence, you have given me the impression that you either haven’t listened to or haven’t understood a word I’ve said. So please confirm that you have read this email and understand its contents.
Thank you.
With my best wishes, George
07 September 2009
(From Phoebe Vela):
Gentlemen: we have a debate to organise and marketing to begin and we cannot continue with this ceaseless exchange of e-mails. Too many pre-conditions are being laid down and we are getting nowhere.
Andrew Neil has authorised me to say the following.
George: we have reached a stalemate on pre-debate Q&As. You have always made it clear that you won’t debate without these answers. So we must proceed on the basis that you will not now be part of the debate. That is a great pity and many will wonder why the pre-conditions were necessary. But so be it. We’ll miss you — could have been a great debate.
Ian: On the assumption that George will not now debate you, can we proceed on the following basis: on the agreed date of Thursday 12 November at 2 Savoy Place, London WC1, you will give a 30 minute lecture on global warming and then take questions/points from the audience for 60 minutes. We will make sure the audience contains a number of experts with different views to yours so we will get some debate going. Can we proceed on this basis.
I look forward to your responses.
Kind regards
07 September 2009
Dear Phoebe,
Thank you for your letter. I have laid down no further pre-conditions. I have just stuck to the simple terms that I requested at the beginning of this process. Ian agreed to answer my questions; he now appears to be backtracking. If this debate cannot go ahead, it will be because he has failed to meet his side of the bargain. I am still ready and willing to debate him, provided that he answers my questions by Friday afternoon. He has had more than a month in which to respond, and the door is still open. But so far, instead of answering them, he has gone to elaborate lengths to delay, distract and obfuscate. He appears to have sabotaged our attempts to conduct a debate, perhaps because he fears the outcome.
Andrew says: “many will wonder why the pre-conditions were necessary”. I have made it abundantly clear, several times, but here we go again:
In a face-to-face debate, any specific claims he makes will be impossible for the audience to check during the event. In a written exchange, readers can see for themselves whether or not his specific claims stack up. The two debates are complementary: having had the opportunity to check his specifics, people at the face-to-face debate can better assess his generalisations.
There is no good reason that I can think of why he would wish to avoid this process: in fact it gives him an excellent opportunity to answer the very damaging allegations made by his critics. There is an obvious bad reason: he has no answers to their points. As far as I can discover, Plimer has yet to produce any specific response to the points made by his scientific critics, preferring to heap insults on them instead. My questions prevent him from doing what he has done all along: performing the Gish Gallop* in order to avoid answering the refutations of his claims.
Is Andrew unable to understand this, or so partisan that he refuses to hear it?
Anyway, unless the answers appear by Friday, Professor Plimer will have demonstrated that, for all his bluff and bluster, he is a coward at heart, a man who has never answered his critics and is either unwilling or unable to respond to the simple questions about his work that I put to him, or to the request that I might cross-examine him. He will also have squandered a great opportunity. I hope very much that he will change his mind before then.
Yours Sincerely,
George Monbiot
*“Named after Duane Gish, the Gish Gallop is a special case of fast talking (the technique famously employed by Snake Oil Salesman that confuses people with fast long strings of words long enough to convince them to buy snake oil). In the classic Gallop, a long string of assertions are thrown out in an argument, most of which have questionable sources if any at all; consequently addressing all of the issues raised with the depth that they deserve is practically impossible: it would simply take too long.
In spoken debate Gish would reel out so many points in a short time, his opponent would be in the impossible position of either trying to quickly refute all the points (and failing because he hasn’t enough time) or letting some points slide (which might convince people that the some arguments were left undiscussed because they are irrefutable).” http://www.youdebate.com/cgi-bin/scarecrow/topic.cgi?forum=3&topic=22020