Leading Australian winemaker Darren De Bortoli says predictions of climate change have more to do with politics than science.
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The Griffith-based businessman, who believed the earth was heading toward a “mini ice age” and not global warming, said the “whole mindset towards science” needs to change.
“Science is about finding out why things happen,” Mr De Bortoli said. “If you’re consistently getting results that do not make sense then there’s obviously something you’re missing.”
Mr De Bortoli said there was a problem with the integrity of science.
“A change started to happen in the 1970’s and 80’s where if they don’t give the outcomes their political masters deem to be correct they won’t get funding,” he said. “There’s no doubt there’s man-made factors here but they’re minor.”
Mr De Bortoli said a Perth-based mathematician and engineer had found evidence that greenhouse gas emissions from humans didn’t have as great an impact on the climate as mainstream science claimed.
Dr David Evans, who had previously consulted for the Department of Climate Change, changed from being a “warmist” to a sceptic after “evidence supporting the idea that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself from 1998 to 2006”.
However, Charles Sturt University educator Dr Andrew Wallace said there was “irrefutable” evidence that man-made CO2 was causing climate change.
“Well over 99 per cent of the scientific community hold a clear consensus that climate change is happening,” Dr Wallace said. “This doesn’t mean we won’t still get cold days, that’s weather, but the long-term climate trend is changing the way those weather patterns work.”
Dr Wallace said counter-claims about the science either held no water or were “conspiracy theories”.
“The reality of climate change has hit everywhere,” he said. “If by some miracle we’re wrong then we’ll have cleaned up the atmosphere, but if we’re right we’ve lost forever.”