Smelling salts, please. I expected a fair amount of "on the one hand, and on the other.." from Overselling Climate Change, Radio 4's critique of the global warming debate. But Simon Cox's programme took a refreshingly aggressive approach to the eco-warriors. I'm not hostile to greens per se (I still haven't got round to cancelling my subscription to Friends of the Earth.) What I don't like is the blandly uncritical coverage. Does anyone seriously doubt that there's something bizarrely off-centre about the reporting of Kyoto, for example?
Do your best to give it a listen. One of the strengths of Cox's report is that he makes a point of interviewing scientists who are indeed worried about global warming, but still don't like the way the issue is hyped by the media. (Others were too scared to take part in the programme.) Lazy journalists seem to be every bit as guilty as the single-issue fanatics. [Heads-up: Jackie Danicki]
More on the eternal appeal of doom-mongering in an essay by Frank Furedi:
The big question today is not whether humans will survive the twenty-first century, but whether our faith in humanity will survive it.
(BTW, the picture is the view from my study. An appropriately threatening sky...)
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