Chair of Nuclear for Australia denies that calling CO2 ‘plant food’ means he’s a climate denier (whatever that is)

Image credit: nuclearenergytech.net

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Is there anyone who thinks ‘climate’ has no meaning, or doesn’t exist? The whole topic seems stuck in a primitive mode sometimes, or maybe most of the time. It doesn’t take much to trigger outpourings of paranoia, which the alarmist tendency in the media is quick to pounce on.
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The chair of a leading Australian nuclear advocacy group has called concerns that carbon dioxide emissions are driving a climate crisis an “irrational fear of a trace gas which is plant food” and has rejected links between worsening extreme weather and global heating, reports The Guardian.

Several statements from Dr Adi Paterson, reviewed by the Guardian, appear at odds with statements from the group he chairs, Nuclear for Australia, which is hosting a petition saying nuclear is needed to tackle an “energy and climate crisis”.

Nuclear for Australia was founded by 18-year-old Queensland nuclear advocate Will Shackel, who has said repeatedly he believes reactors are needed to fight “the climate crisis”.

Two climate science experts told the Guardian that Paterson’s statements were misguided and typical of climate science denial.

Paterson defended his statements, telling the Guardian he was “not a climate denier”. He described himself as “a climate realist” and an “expert on climate science”.
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In April, Paterson told an audience at the Centre for Independent Studies that “you can’t make a correlation between extreme events and climate” and said “no matter what you believe about carbon dioxide – it is plant food”.

“Increasing carbon a little bit is not going to dramatically change the climate. The plants will grow better,” he said, saying the planet was in a period of low CO2.

Full report here.
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Image credit: nuclearenergytech.net