A letter to the (right-wing) Editors

A transcript of my recent email to the Editors of the Daily Express, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph newspapers here in the UK… Dear [x], Please don’t let your newspaper become anachronistic Please forgive the unsolicited email, which I hope you will read and consider carefully as your future may depend upon it. I do not wish to alarm you but, with regard to climate change “scepticism”, I think it is fair to say that your newspaper is in danger of backing a loser. I am therefore writing to you, as Editor of the [x] newspaper, because I value both the freedom and the balance of the British newspaper media. However, I believe that both these things will be in danger of being severely eroded by the increasingly self-evident ideological prejudice and selective blindness of leading commentators in our right-wing newspapers. I therefore fear that, if these people are not denied a platform soon, an entire section of our newspaper media is in danger of becoming anachronistic and irrelevant. In these momentous times in which we live, I believe that we need newsprint journalism – and indeed all media – to hold our politicians to account; to highlight issues where special interests retain undue influence upon those politicians; to educate the general public on key subjects of common interest; and to campaign for a more representative and participatory form of democracy in this country. In your key role, I would hope that you share these aspirations. However, if you do, I would hereby wish to put it to you that such goals are not served by continuing to paint anthropogenic climate change as any or all of the following: a hoax, a new religion, a politically-motivated conspiracy, a scam, environmental alarmism, not a problem, not certain, not significant, and/or not worth fixing. There is much I would like to say but in the interests of brevity, and in the hope that you will therefore read to the end of this letter, I will just say this: The temperature change over the last decade (or absence of it) is utterly irrelevant in the context of 7,000 years of stable climate and stable sea level. Similarly, the fact that the Earth has been much warmer than it is today in its distant past is utterly irrelevant in the context of the conditions to which all life on Earth is currently adapted. As I said on my blog recently: “There is simply no evidence for your left-wing conspiracy to over-tax and over-regulate people (so as to make everyone poorer). Whereas, there is a great deal of evidence for a right-wing conspiracy to under-tax and under-regulate industry (so as to make a few people richer).” Therefore, if you do not change course, I believe that your newspaper – along with the Republican Party in the USA – will become an anti-scientific, anti-intellectual joke. I therefore hope that you will not let this happen; because we need a sensible alternative to unfettered socialism and/or a return to the financial irresponsibility of the last Labour government. I should like to conclude by saying that I hope you will not see this letter as antagonistic but, rather, receive it as a piece of constructive criticism – and as an appeal to reason – from someone who would like you to join with me in being part of the solution to – rather than an obstacle to solving – some of humanity’s most pressing problems.

The banner image on my old Earthy Issues blog

—————— UPDATE 17 December 2011 (1500 hrs): For the record (i.e. Delingpole readers feel free to save this comment for posterity), it will be a bitter-sweet moment when I am proved right. However, any vestigial smugness will be completely eclipsed by annoyance over the consequences of climate change denial – the prevention of timely action to minimise the impact of AGW.

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