A convenient lie?

Man-made climate change is a scientific fact, right? If you believe it is, you're not being scientific. Because in science - real science, and not the media mumbo-jumbo that so often is passed off as science - there is no such things as a proven fact. Real science, and the real scientists who practise it, are the essence of scepticism. The scientific definition of science is that it is a never-ending contest between competing hypotheses whose falsity has yet to be proven. In short, there is no such thing as a scientific 'fact': there are only provisional theories which, inevitably, will have to be amended or even totally rejected one day, in the light of new theories which will take their place, till they in turn are displaced by newer discoveries which produce newer theories. In real science, the investigation is endless; the case is never closed. Closure belongs to the realm not of science but of dogma, which is the antithesis of science and is the cornerstone of superstition.

In the increasingly contentious discourse on global warming and man-made climate change (that carbon emissions resulting from industrialisation have produced a 'greenhouse effect' leading to higher temperatures which in turn will melt the polar ice, causing devastating floods and drastically altering rainfall patterns, which will lead to drought and famine) only one thing is not open to argument. And that is that climate change is a reality, an undisputable fact. There can be, and are, literally heated arguments about who is most responsible for climate change, and what should be done about it. The developed countries want the developing countries - like China, India and Brazil - to slow down on industrial growth, while the developing countries counter that the fault lies with the developed countries who both in absolute and in per capita terms remain by far the biggest polluters and must undertake to reduce their carbon emissions first before having the cheek to lecture the developing world about its emissions.

But no one - or at least, almost no one - questions if climate change is, in fact, a fact, beyond all doubt. If you try to question climate change - or even to suggest that perhaps it might not be as bad as it's cracked up to be - you are immediately branded a destroyer of the planet, a dangerous heretic who should be burnt at the stake. The 'warmists' - the high priests of the religion known as climate change - will not tolerate sceptics any more than did the Spanish Inquisition.

So why is it that climate change has become an irrefutable 'fact'? Because there's money, huge money, in climate change. Governments can make money by imposing extra taxes for environmental infringements. Industry can make money through selling 'green' technology. Billions can - and are being - made through the trade in carbon credits. Can we afford not to have climate change?

Yes, say the dissenters, the two most notable being Australian geologist Ian Plimer and journalist Christopher Booker. In his book Heaven and Earth, Plimer debunks many climate change 'facts' as does Booker in The Real Global Warming Disaster. Plimer, Booker and others have pointed out that though the polar ice shelf has become thinner in places, it has also become thicker in others; that the snow on Kilimanjaro has melted because of deforestation and not through global warming; that higher temperatures in cities are caused by localised 'heat island' effects and not by climate change.

But perhaps the most telling 'anti-warmist' cautionary tale is about a climate change media conference held, deliberately, on the hottest day of the summer of 1998 in a mid-western US city. The night before the conference, the windows of the auditorium were left open. TV cameras focused on the faces of profusely sweating delegates. Overnight global warming became hot news. One of the chief sponsors of the meet? Al Gore. A convenient lie? Check it out.