Mail Claims “Open Mind” On Climate Change

Today’s Daily Mail Comment – the authentic voice of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre – is on the subject of climate change. “Global warming and an inconvenient truth” announces the headline, as the Met Office is upbraided for releasing information at a time not to the satisfaction of the Vagina Monologue, before the biscuit is well and truly taken.

No I'm not getting f***ing warmer, c***

“This paper keeps an open mind on climate change – and accepts that the Met Office’s revised prediction doesn’t prove the scientific establishment and its staunch disciples at the BBC wrong”, readers are informed. Quite apart from the routine attempt to smear the Beeb and drag it into Dacre’s gutter, his paper gives every sign of keeping anything but an open mind on the subject.

Let’s see just how open a mind the Mail keeps, then, starting with the now infamous recent slice of climate change denialism by David Rose, in which he produced a temperature graph based on a highly selective time series. “Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it” was the title. The Met Office had revealed nothing of the sort.

Then there is the Mail’s unfunny and tedious churnalist Richard Littlejohn to tell readers “It’s raining, it’s pouring, that’ll be the global warming” (Dick can’t quite stretch to understanding that cold does not necessarily mean wet, nor hot dry). This is backed up with talking about global warming being a “scam” and a “lie” (Littlejohn knows all about lies). Dick then plays the victim and talks about cooling.

And talking of the denial lobby, it should surprise nobody that the Mail has also willingly given space to Christopher Booker, the man who asserts that the Europol HQ in den Haag was once used by the Gestapo (difficult, as it was only opened in 2011), Nigel Lawson, who bought Dacre a very good lunch not long ago, and Lawson’s point man “Dr” Benny Peiser of the GWPF.

On top of all that was this week’s “Global warming has STALLED since 1998: Met Office admits Earth's temperature is rising slower than first thought”, a magnificent slice of deceit, accompanied by a chart showing slower temperature increases marked “fall”. The Met Office has actually said this: “we will continue to see near-record levels of global temperatures in the next few years”.

To back up the slanted hackery has come a slice of whining abuse directed at the Met Office from James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole. “Was there ever a Government quango quite as useless as the Met Office?” he asks, in the style beloved of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). Hiring Del Boy does not augur well for those protestations of keeping an open mind.

Because that the Mail isn’t keeping that open mind is the really inconvenient truth.