Letter to the Independent, 15.04.12
Sir,
It is testimony to how far climate change has sunk down the political agenda that an environmental pressure group feels it necessary to pay for a full-page ad in the Independent in order to rebut the nonsense being propagated by the Daily Telegraph (Advert by Friends of the Earth, 14 May). The truth is that the climate change contrarians, led by Nigel Lawson and his shadowy think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, have outfought, outwitted and out-manouvered scientists world-wide and the NGO’s in this country. Now even the BBC seems scared to touch the climate change issue, or if it does it seems to think that a balanced debate is the best approach. So the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and all of the reputable scientific journals in the world say that two plus two makes four. Then along comes Lawson and says “no it’s not. The answer is five”. And the BBC behaves as if the answer is four and a half. As the editors of the British Medical Journal and Lancet wrote on 24 January (Guardian Letters): “Denying the link between greenhouse gas emissions and man-made climate change is akin to denying the link between HIV/Aids and unprotected sex, smoking and lung cancer, or alcohol consumption and liver disease. In each of these cases, well-funded deniers have had to be exposed and confronted before appropriate health-promoting legislation was put in place”.
Yours sincerely
Dr Robin Russell-Jones MA FRCP FRCPath
Chair Planetary SOS
