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# To ensure that the full extent of the economic consequences, for Australia, of the regime of carbon withdrawal prescribed by the yet-to-be-ratified Kyoto Protocol, are fully understood by the Australian community;
# To ensure that the full extent of the economic consequences, for Australia, of the regime of carbon withdrawal prescribed by the yet-to-be-ratified Kyoto Protocol, are fully understood by the Australian community;
# to explore the implications which treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol have for Australia's sovereignty, and for the GATT/WTO rules which protect Australia (and other WTO members) from the use of trade sanctions as an instrument of extraterritorial power.
# to explore the implications which treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol have for Australia's sovereignty, and for the GATT/WTO rules which protect Australia (and other WTO members) from the use of trade sanctions as an instrument of extraterritorial power.

Author [[Clive Hamilton]], is his book ''Scorcher'', says that one can find the following arguments in the various papers promoted by the Lavoisier Group:<ref name="scorcher">{{cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=z-Vv6nNLlsEC&lpg=PA139&dq=Lavoisier%20group&pg=PA142#v=onepage&q=Lavoisier%20group&f=false |title=Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change |pages=142 |author=Clive Hamilton |authorlink=Clive Hamilton |isbn=0977594904 |year=2007 |publisher=Black Inc.}}</ref>

*There is no evidence of global warming.
*If there is evidence of global warming, then it is not due to human activity.
*If global warming is occurring and it is due to human activity, then it is not going to be damaging.
*If global warming is occurring and it is due to human activity, and it is going to be damaging, then the costs of avoiding it are too high, so we should do nothing.


== Current activities ==
== Current activities ==

Revision as of 04:41, 29 July 2011

The Lavoisier Group is an organisation based in Australia that promotes scepticism of current scientific consensus on global warming. The organisation questions the fears of the effects of global warming, the idea that human activity causes it, and the wisdom of policies designed to curtail it. They believe that political influence has trumped scientific truth, and that most of the scientists that support the theory that human activity is a cause of global warming do so because scientists that disagree with that prevailing belief lose access to government funding, the primary source of funds for any scientific study. [citation needed]

The sources of funding for the group are not public, but the Sydney Morning Herald claimed it has links to many groups that have until recently been funded as part of the Exxon Mobil climate change skepticism campaign. That campaign recently ceased after a shareholder revolt.[1]

Creation

The Lavoisier Group was created in response to submissions by the Australian Greenhouse Office to Cabinet to implement a carbon trading scheme. Its founders claimed that there had been "very little ongoing public debate about these proposals... are of the view that the science behind global warming policy is far less certain than its protagonists claim, and we also believe that the economic damage which Australia would suffer, if a carbon tax of the magnitude canvassed in AGO documents were imposed, would be far, far greater than is currently appreciated in Canberra" [2]

Following an inaugural conference in May 1999,[3] the group was founded in April 2000 by former Finance Minister Peter Walsh[4], Ian Webber, Ray Evans, Harold Clough, Robert Foster and Bruce Kean, with an opening address by supporter Hugh Morgan [5]. Secretary Ray Evans describes the 90-odd Lavoisier members as a "dad's army" of mostly retired engineers and scientists from the mining, manufacturing and construction industries,[6] such as Garth Paltridge and Ian Plimer. The annual subscription fee is 50 dollars, and the annual budget is 10,000 dollars.[7]

Aims

The Lavoisier Group lists its aims as:

  1. To promote vigorous debate within Australia on greenhouse science and greenhouse policy;
  2. To ensure that the full extent of the economic consequences, for Australia, of the regime of carbon withdrawal prescribed by the yet-to-be-ratified Kyoto Protocol, are fully understood by the Australian community;
  3. to explore the implications which treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol have for Australia's sovereignty, and for the GATT/WTO rules which protect Australia (and other WTO members) from the use of trade sanctions as an instrument of extraterritorial power.

Current activities

The Lavoisier Group continues to hold annual conferences, and the group has promoted a variety of theories contradicting the mainstream scientific positions on global warming, including the arguments of retired judge, amateur climatologist and astrologer Theodor Landscheidt,[8] whose work on solar cycles was used to argue that observed warming is based on solar cycles, and hence is not anthropogenic and will soon be reversed.

Walsh has blamed politics for the current consensus on global warming. The group claims that many scientists choose to endorse prevailing theories of global warming to protect their research funding by the government, a view that is held by French climatologist and author Marcel Leroux,[9] and was the subject of the book Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media by Patrick Michaels. A supporter, former minister Tony Staley, has characterised global warming as a form of "political correctness".[3]

Critics of the group have pointed out its ties to greenhouse gas emitters.[10] The group's top members have denied receiving compensation from industry, unlike some global warming skeptics in the United States, who have admitted to receiving compensation by fossil fuel companies.[7]

The group was named after French scientist Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), the father of modern chemistry who disproved the Phlogiston theory of combustion.

References

  1. ^ "The Sydney Morning Herald: national, world, business, entertainment, sport and technology news from Australia's leading newspaper". smh.com.au. Retrieved 2009-10-13.
  2. ^ The Lavoisier Group
  3. ^ a b Hamilton, Clive. "Green conspiracy theory; An anti-greenhouse group has been taking its message to the extreme, conducting a systematic campaign to muddy the waters on climate science." Canberra Times (Australia). Jan. 10, 2002.
  4. ^ Flannery, Tim Fridtjof. The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. Atlantic Monthly Press. 2006. p. 244. ISBN 0-87113-935-9.
  5. ^ The Lavoisier Group: 'Opening Address' by Hugh Morgan
  6. ^ "The global warming sceptics - Science - www.theage.com.au". Melbourne: theage.com.au. 2004-11-27. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
  7. ^ a b "The global warming sceptics." Theage.com.au. Nov. 27, 2004. Retrieved Jan. 27, 2007.
  8. ^ Bob Foster (2003). "Inquiry into the Kyoto Protocol : Submission to the Australian Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and Arts Legislation Committee" (PDF). The Lavoisier Group. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
  9. ^ "Submission from the Lavoisier Group to the Garnaut Climate Change Review APPENDIX A" (PDF). The Lavoisier Group. 2007. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
  10. ^ McSweeny, Linda (2000). "Article: Fed: Divisions on greenhouse deepen - AAP General News (Australia)". www.highbeam.com. Retrieved 2009-12-13. {{cite web}}: Text "HighBeam Research" ignored (help)

External links

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