James Delingpole is an interesting man. Today he blogged that he could
no longer enjoy Peep Show because one of the actors in it, David
Mitchell, disagrees with him about climate change.
can't, and I've looked. I mean if he found out that David Mitchell was
a Nazi or Man City fan or something I could understand. I could see
that then it might be difficult to enjoy Peep Show in quite the same
way. But he's not, he just disagrees with you about climate change. The problem I have with James Delingpole is that as opposed to putting
forward a cogent balanced opposition to climate change science he just
shrieks in that stereotypically indignant, pejorative, histrionic way
that all bad sceptics do. He doesn't actually seem interested in
debating the evidence, rather he'd prefer to get into self-regarding
arguments with other columnists to further his own celebrity. His blog consists solely of posts where he either slags off, most
elegantly, climate change believers or responds to other columnists
who have called him names. He doesn't see that by being so melodramatically convulsed by anyone
or anything that believes or has anything to do with climate change he
is undermining his very cause. People can see him saying stupid things like Peep Show is shit because
David Mitchell thinks climate change is real and think to themselves,
"Ahh a shrieking indignant climate change sceptic -- I'll just pop him
in this neat little pigeon hole and never listen to another word he
says". There is a balanced, evidenced opposition to climate change -- I've
read some it, and I've read the argument for it. Whether it's
happening or not... I don't know. But I know that James Delingpole is
making it a lot easier for people to ignore the argument against it. Even if, even if, climate change is all bollocks and the polar ice cap
hasn't receded like all that silly empirical evidence shows it has, is
it such a bad thing that we're trying to live in a cleaner
environment? I live on Holloway Road and the air quality round here is nothing
short of disgusting. Now if everyone started driving electric or
hydrogen powered cars that would improve. The fact is pollution is a
massive problem beyond just climate change. It causes disease, and
generally makes the world a less pleasant place to be. I don't think climate change should be used as a stick to beat the
poor or to stymie emerging economies. I don't think people should be
priced off the roads or out of the sky. And yes, there are, climate
change extremists who hijack the debate and say disproportionate
things. So maybe the best thing we can do is take the most extreme 20%
on either side and cut them out, ignore them, just leave them to snarl
at each other from their respective apocalypse bunkers. That includes you Delingpole.
