Lavoisier Group

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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.

Following an inaugural conference in May 1999,^[1] the group was founded in April 2000 by former Finance Minister Peter Walsh^[2], Ian Webber, Ray Evans, Harold Clough, Robert Foster and Bruce Kean. Currently headed by Walsh, the group's 90 members consist mostly of retired engineers and scientists from the mining, manufacturing and construction industries. The annual subscription fee is 50 dollars, and the annual budget is 10,000 dollars.^[3]

The group has promoted a variety of theories contradicting the scientific consensus on global warming, including the arguments of retired judge and astrologer Theodor Landscheidt [2].

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^[4]. A supporter, former minister Tony Staley, has characterized global warming as a form of "political correctness".^[1]

Critics of the group have pointed out its ties to greenhouse gas emitters.^[5] 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.^[3]

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

[edit] References

^ ^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.
^ Fridtjof, Tim. The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. Atlantic Monthly Press. 2006. p. 244. ISBN 0871139359.
^ ^a ^b "The global warming sceptics." Theage.com.au. Nov. 27, 2004. Retrieved Jan. 27, 2007.
^ Agriculture & Environnement, no 18, October 2004 [1]
^ McSweeny, Linda. "Fed: Divisions on greenhouse deepen." AAP Newsfeed. May 24, 2000.