Clive Hamilton

"Over the last 20 or 30 years . . . academics have been less willing to engage in public debate," the former Australia Institute boss said.

That had to change, and by Gaia, Hamilton was the man to change it.

So how odd to see Hamilton a fortnight later telling a popular discussion website, On Line Opinion, he's no longer going to debate there.

"I will not be contributing any further pieces to the site because it has been captured by climate change denialists," he huffed.

Hamilton conceded he actually didn't know the science he's defended: "I do not presume to engage in arguments about climate science because I do not have the expertise to do so without making a fool of myself."

But, as with other such preachers, this didn't stop him from vilifying the "denialists" who disagreed with him as "loopy and deceptive" - the sort who'd accuse "the Royal Family (of) being in cahoots with global Jewry".

Actually, Hamilton's retreat is part of a pattern.

Al Gore, the Great Profit of Doom himself, now bans journalists from his lectures. The ABC's chief science presenter, warming believer Robyn Williams, refuses to have on the former head of the National Climate Centre, William Kininmonth, because this sceptic allegedly can't understand climate.

And Greenpeace says "we no longer debate people who don't accept the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change".

Better, Wellington Shire Council is dropping a plan to halt development on a part of Ninety Mile Beach it claims could be drowned by rising seas unleashed by global warming.

Residents had said its scaremongering was driving down property prices and they might sue if it didn't stop.

What a shame the council dodged that debate, too, given what happens when courts start checking evidence.

See, in Britain last year, a judge ruled that Gore's An Inconvenient Truth told at least seven exaggerations or untruths on global warming.

One, of course, was his claim of big rises in sea levels, so no wonder debate is banned.  Source

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