As a result of an activist campaign, the Australian Press Council took exception to my article in the Australian on 22 November, 2019. They claimed that my statement that there ‘are no carbon emissions. If there were, we could not see because most carbon is black. Such terms are deliberately misleading, as are many claims’ was false.

Journalists in the Press Council should know basic English and the difference between an element (carbon) and a compound (carbon dioxide). This is elementary schoolkid’s science. For the Press Council to claim that this is factually incorrect shows breathtaking ignorance. There are eight forms (allotropes) of carbon, one of them (diamond) is not black which is why the word ‘most’ was used. I was showing that to call the odourless, colourless. tasteless gas that is the food of life as ‘carbon emissions’ is Orwellian.

The Press Council objected to the use of ‘fraudulent’ in my statement about ‘fraudulent changing of weather records’. It is clear that the council is not aware of the widely publicised fraudulent expunging of the Medieval Warming and the Little Ice Age by Michael Mann and failed court cases initiated by Mann. They are clearly not aware of the admission of fraud in the Climategate emails.

The Press Council wrote ‘The Council considers that the statement concerning the Bureau of Meteorology fraudulently changing weather records is one of fact and implies an element of dishonesty or deception on its part’. I made absolutely no reference whatsoever to the Bureau of Meteorology. I have been verballed. When can I expect an apology?

It was claimed that my statement ‘unsubstantiated claims polar ice is melting’ was wrong. Polar ice concurrently melts, grows and moves and polar ice includes terrestrial ice and sea ice. Changes in polar ice are due to a diversity of reasons and my point was that we only hear from activists who claim that polar ice is melting due to human-induced global warming. We don’t hear that glaciers move due to recrystallisation, that many glaciers are growing or that there are more that 150 volcanoes and areas of hot rocks beneath the Antarctic ice.

The Press Council claimed that my statement ‘the ignoring of data that shows Pacific islands and the Maldives are growing rather than being inundated’ was false. There is a huge amount of scientific literature based on aerial photographs and satellite images showing that atolls are increasing in area. A ten-second Google search would have shown peer-reviewed publications supporting this statement. Why was this not done? Or maybe the Press Council has become yet another activist institution?

As soon as the words carbon footprint, emissions, pollution, and decarbonisation, climate emergency, extreme weather, unprecedented and extinction are used, I know I am being conned by ignorant activists, populist scaremongering, politicians and rent seekers.

Pollution by plastics, sulphur and nitrogen gases, particulates and chemicals occurs in developing countries. That’s real pollution. The major pollution in the West is the polluting of minds about the role of CO2. There are no carbon emissions. If there were, we would not be able to see because most carbon is black. Such terms are deliberately misleading, as are many claims. But then again, we should be used to this after the hysteria about the Great Barrier Reef. We’ve had reefs on Earth for 3,500 million years. They came and went many times, thriving when water was warmer and there was an elevated CO2 content of the atmosphere. Reefs need CO2; it’s their basic food.

It has never been shown that human emissions of carbon dioxide drive global warming. Climate models have been around 30 years. They have all failed. Balloon and satellite measurements show a disconnect from climate model predictions. We emit a trace atmospheric gas called carbon dioxide at a time in planetary history of low atmospheric carbon dioxide. Earth’s climate dances to rhythms every day, every season and on far larger lunar, oceanic, solar, orbital, galactic and tectonic cycles. Climate change is normal and continual. When cycles overlap, climate change can be rapid and large. Sporadic events such as supernovas and volcanic eruptions can also change climate. The main greenhouse gas is water vapour. It is the only gas in air that can evaporate, humidify and condense into clouds that precipitate rain, hail and snow. Earth is unevenly heated. Oceans hold most of the planet’s surface heat, not the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is plant food. It is neither a pollutant nor a toxin. Without carbon dioxide, all life on Earth would die. Plants convert carbon dioxide, water and sunlight during photosynthesis into sugars, cellulose, fruit, vegetables and grains, which animal life uses as food. Marine organisms also take up and use carbon dioxide. Plants need almost three times today’s carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere to thrive. For decades horticulturalists have pumped carbon dioxide into glasshouses to increase yields. The fossil record shows that a thriving and diversification of plant and animal life occured every time the atmosphere had a very high carbon dioxide content. In the past, warming has never been a threat to life on Earth. Why should it be now? When there is a low atmospheric carbon dioxide content, especially during very cold times, life struggles.

For the past 500 million years, the atmospheric carbon dioxide content has been decreasing and if we halved today’s atmospheric carbon dioxide content, all life would die. This carbon dioxide has been removed into the oceans and is sequestered into coral, shells, limey sediments and muds and on the land into coals, muds, soils and vegetation.

In our lifetime, there has been no correlation between CO2 emissions and temperature. Geology shows us again there is no correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature. Each of the six major past ice ages began when the atmospheric CO2 content was far higher than at present. The idea that a slight increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to unstoppable global warming is demonstrably wrong.

In the past decade China has increased its CO2 emissions by 53 per cent, 12 times Australia’s total output of 1.3 per cent of the global total. The grasslands, forests, farms and continental shelves of Australia absorb far more carbon dioxide than we emit. The attack on emissions of the gas of life is an irrational attack on industry, our modern way of life, freedoms and prosperity. It has nothing to do with the environment.