Delingpole Does More Dishonesty

The climate change denial’s dynamic duo from Telegraph land has been hard at work of late: while Christopher Booker has taken a break from his paranoid meanderings through the world where all decisions by Government are imposed on them by some New World Order to talk rubbish about biomass for the Mail, James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole has been back to school.

Sadly, Del Boy has been given time off for bad behaviour, so while Booker is talking his customary guff about what is happening at Drax power station (more factually correct information HERE and HERE), Delingpole is borrowing freely from The Register to reinforce his pretence that the population is opposed to measures to alleviate the effects of climate change.

Over at the Reg, Lewis Page has latched on to studies that show climate change well down the list of concerns over a number of years. The economy – that being jobs and money – inevitably comes top. This is manna from heaven for Del Boy, who then makes the switch to asserting that this means public opinion is opposed to climate change measures.

Hang on a minute.

Not being fussed about an issue does not mean you oppose resources being directed to tackling it. It means you are not fussed about it: there is no strong opinion one way or the other. In the UK, the EU hardly ever figures in the top concerns of voters, yet it’s not difficult to find those who are both pro and anti.

Delingpole does not stop to dwell on his straightforward dishonesty, though, instead proceeding immediately to doling out abuse. “Enviro loons”, “lies” and “junk science” swiftly gives way to “trashing of our beautiful landscape ... thousands of deaths caused by fuel poverty ... sabotage of the global economy ... shrill minority ... mendacious scuzzballs”.

From there, Del concludes that we should be angry, though this time spares his audience the attempt to compare advocates of renewable energy to paedophiles. But if folks are not fussed about an issue, the last thing they are going to do is get angry about it. Delingpole is so busy congratulating himself for being incredibly clever that he misses the glaringly obvious.

So that’s another example of the “interpreter of interpretations” not interpreting his chosen interpretations very well. Might be an idea to go back to that school, Del, but this time sit on the other side of the teacher’s desk.