Professor Ian Plimer

and cycles of climate and what can we expect, you'd immediately find a stampede in the other direction for people to get funded for their research looking at a potential glaciation.

So I don't think science is changing it because the money's still there, but I think the community's changing because it's burning their pocket.

Well, there are a number of CEOs of major mining companies who are very green.

and who are going down the path of having electric vehicles, having greenwashed operations.

In my case, my views arose well before I was in the mining industry, and they will change depending upon the data.

The mining industry, especially the petroleum industry, understands climate change very well because they constructed

probably 50 years ago, a sequence of sea level curves based on climate, based on sediments.

And this is a guide as to where to find oil.

It's where to find coal, where to find gas.

So we practically apply

everything I've been saying about sea levels and about carbon dioxide to look for oil.

I'm not a petroleum geologist, but to look for oil and gas.

So I'm fortunate in the position I have now where I have more freedom than I ever had when I was in the academic world.

Far more freedom.

I think it is.

Well, my first book on climate change, Heaven and Earth, came out while I was a chair at the University of Adelaide.

It created a storm because no one had dared to do that, and I integrated history, archaeology and geology.

I looked at previous agriculture that might have been done in the north of England.

I looked at Stone Age societies and how they adapted to climate.

I tried to cover the whole spectrum.