A Choice of Tyrannies

So apparently an Ipsos Mori poll has revealed that 56% of a cross- section of Britons "believe[s] scientists [are] still questioning climate change."

Now you may well rejoice at the prospect of so many sane people still left in the world, but you'll forgive me if I save my Hosannas for some time much later. I'm sorry but, given the choice between public opinion and settled science, it's less a matter of which one I'm more likely to trust, than which one gives me fewer chills.

But I like (Royal Society vice-president) Sir David Read's, ahem, reading of the situation. He got very upset and said:

People should not be misled by those that exploit the complexity of the issue, seeking to distort the science and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of climate change.

That is to say, I like that he assumes that people have been made sceptical of man-made climate change theory because of all the supposed Big-Oil-funded propaganda that the media have been dispersing all over the place and so irresponsibly. Rather, that is, than imagining that they have been made so simply by the flagrant inaccuracies and utter falsehoods to be found in the only scientific statement upon the matter that they are likely to have seen.

Just you try and stay the flood of Sir David's scientific rigour!