Here is mining company director/shareholder and sometimes owner, as well as consultant to industry, Ian Plimer, joining in the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison-Murdoch Coalition's ongoing attempt to deny anthropomorphic global warming and climate change.
In the opening paragraphs of the article Plimer exceeds his previous infantile opposition to the science of climate change.
The Australian, 22 November 2019, p.12:
Talk of an emergency is ignorant, populist scaremongering
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, vote-chasing 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 advanced economies is the polluting of minds about the role of carbon dioxide. 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...... [my yellow highlighting]
As most high school students would be able to tell Mr. Plimer - not that he needs telling as he was university educated and his purpose here is to obfuscate not inform - "Carbon" is shorthand for "Carbon Dioxide Equivalent" or CO2-e.
These terms covers what are known as "Greenhouse Gases" such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, some artificial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons and hydrocarbons.
Again, a high school student would be aware that black carbon is a dangerous air polluting element - mainly produced by the incomplete combustion of oil or coal and the burning of wood. It also contributes to global warming.
However, the reason black carbon has not turned the sky into permanent darkness that Plimer suggests as an outcome is that it has not yet reached saturation levels in the atmosphere.
Though black carbon can lead to very low visibility for prolonged periods as the bushfire smoke over Sydney and rural/regional Australia this month demonstrated and, open-cut coal mining on a weekly basis and city traffic periodically demonstrate throughout the year.
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| Bushfire smoke over Sydney NSW, 21 November 2019 2GB Image |
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| Bushfire smoke in Clarence Valley NSW, 22 November 2019 NSWRFS Image |
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| Air pollution over coal mine, Hunter Valley NSW, circa 2019 The Singleton Argus Image |
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| Smog in Melbourne Vic, 28 June 2018 ABC News Image
Mr. Plimer makes a fool of himself in his attempt to fool others - when the evidence of black carbon pollution is both before our eyes and in the air quality readings that state governments collect. [See NSW EPA website]
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