And Malcolm Roberts joins us now from Canberra.
Malcolm, I've got to ask - what is it going to take
to convince you, if not the CSIRO,
United Nations, Royal Society of the United Kingdom,
The American Institute of Physics,
the European Science Foundation, NASA,
and the 193 countries who've signed up to
the Paris Climate Agreement?
If not them, what is it going to take
to convince you that human activity
has contributed to the warming of the planet?
Well first of all, you've got to stop using
appeals to authority -
that means absolutely nothing in science.
The only thing that decides science
is the empirical evidence.
That's the measured data,
the physical observations,
the hard facts.
That's the only thing that'll matter
and that's the only thing that will convince me.
- And you're saying that all of these institutions - And I've already seen the hard facts
and organisations don't have empirical data,
don't have hard facts,
don't have anything of the kind.
But there's no physical evidence for that,
there's no human cause of climate change.
Full stop.
Senator Roberts, I've got a copy of your CV here
from your company website,
and it says you've basically worked for coal companies
for most of your adult life.
So is that what's driving your campaign
against climate science?
So that's another tactic people use
to take people off the empirical evidence.
So why are you implying that?
Because all I'm asking people to do
is not look at my background,
not look at any of my beliefs or clubs that I join,
just look at the empirical evidence.
You can't keep running away from that Marc.
That's the only thing that matters in science.
I looked at it overall,
after a couple of years of engaging in this Jan,
I looked at it and said, why am I doing this?
And going away without income.
First of all, freedom.
I'm protecting freedom.
Secondly I'm protecting the environment.
This is a huge environmental issue,
and people are destroying the environmentalism
and environment itself
by following these lunatic policies...
Senator, do you understand why people would
read your history, and conclude
at the very least, do you understand why people
would conclude, he's worked for coal,
of course he's against the argument for
human induced climate change?
Well I do, because you guys
have come up with it in the first place,
with erroneous statements
with two erroneous claims,
erroneous statements,
that have nothing to do with empirical evidence.
And that sadly reflects what happens...
- So which thing is erroneous? - in the media, in politics and in journalism.
The fact that you did or didn't work for coal companies?
So which part is erroneous?
No no, what you've done...
No you asked me a question as to whether or not
it would be easy for people to believe that.
Of course it is.
Because a lot of people sadly have been dumbed down
on the science, and they think that
appeals to authority
and claims of consenus and so on
are science, when they're not.
Today by your side, we saw
Tony Hellar, he's got degrees in geology and
and electrical engineering,
he's also suggested though that
the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre
may have been a hoax.
He believes that US President Barack Obama
was not born in America.
Do you believe those things too?
I don't make any comment about things
thatI don't research and don't know about.
Sorry, just to come back to it -
do you believe Barack Obama was born
in the United States?
i don't know where he was born.
I haven't done the research on that
so I haven't got a clue.
You know he revealed his birth certificate, right?
He's got one, and he showed everybody.
Good, that's fine, I'm a politican
that's not afraid to say I don't know everything,
I'm not going to give you an answer if I don't know.
I haven't seen his birth certificate
Now that you're stating that,
sure, that makes sense to me.
So just talking about the person standing next to you,
why are you taking his word on climate change
if you can't necessarily back up his
other conspiracy theories?
Well you raise the c word yet again:
we've never ever discussed that c word.
Malcolm, just between you and I,
you've mentioned that term a lot today.
I don't think the c word
means what you think it means.
I've only mentioned it once!
That is true, you have.
When has once become a lot?
All right, so what's next for you?
Are there any other scientific theories
that you'd like to throw out?
Theory of gravity, theory of evolution maybe?
Well, you know, gravity pretty well exists, doesn't it?
There's my report dropping.
So, that's the empirical evidence.
Gravity exists.
Do they understand everything about it?
Not quite -
but we know it exists.
- There it is. - So that's the empirical evidence.
That's what I'm looking for.
Thankyou Senator Roberts.
We appreciate you doing science on this show.
Thankyou for coming on!
Remember - empirical evidence
is the only thing that decides science.
You're very welcome Jan and Marc.