Dear Mr Crook,

Many thanks for providing me with the data for Nigel Lawson's assertion that 'the recent warming trend seems to have paused since 2000' (From your review of his book: 'The climate heretic's handbook', FT, April 14th http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/879e2ab8-096e-11dd-81bf-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1)

I forwarded your reply to Naomi Oreskes of the University of California in San Diego and to the Hadley Centre itself, presumably the sort of people you had in mind when you referred to climate change's 'secular priesthood' in your article.

Naomi Oreskes has studied the discrepancy between the consensus about climate change in the scientific literature and the relentless assertions in the media that the science is uncertain.

She said that Mr Lawson's data just showed natural variability, and that it is a common tactic of contrarians to quote data out of context.

The Hadley Centre's response was similar. They referred me to their general response to questions of this kind, which is on their website; http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/2.html

Would you agree that the Hadley Centre paints a very different picture from the one that you did?

In your book review you stated that the climate models did not predict this.

However, the Hadley Centre said in its response to me, 'Climate models show that even when global average temperatures rise rapidly - at a rate of a degree or so per century - there are still short periods when global average surface temperatures remain steady or decrease slightly.'

Do you not think that it might have benefited your readers' understanding of climate change science if you had said this?

Also, do you think that your readers benefit from your analysis, when the only reference in your article to potential mass death and extinction scenarios is the dry word 'costs'?

'You finished your article thus: "The PC at the heart of the IPCC ... is the most oppressive and intolerant form of political correctness in the western world today," says the author. He is right.'

Do you think I am just being 'PC', because I am concerned about these 'costs', and think that the world needs to cut carbon emissions radically to mitigate them?

I realise that you are extremely busy, but would be grateful if you could give a response to these important questions.

Yours sincerely,

Huw Peach

Dear Mr Peach,

Forgive me for not replying sooner. I hope you will understand that it is difficult for me to engage in detailed debate with all my correspondents. I receive hundreds of emails each week. I promptly replied to your request for the source of the data behind that particular Lawson claim, but much as I would enjoy an ongoing conversation with you, please understand that this just isn't possible. I will try to respond in a moment to the points you make in your further email, but I suspect that you will not be satisfied and I cannot promise that I will be able to respond a third time. I do hope you will not find this unreasonable. (Moreover, allow me to say that your larger argument is with the Lawson book, is it not? I imagine you have read it by now. Perhaps you should be having this discussion with him, rather than with his reviewer.)

I don't know Naomi Oreskes. I do know that the claim that the science is certain, if that is what she said, is preposterous. Self-evidently, the science is not certain. When is science--least of all climate science, with its vast complexities, measurement difficulties and other unknowns--ever certain? Even to make that remark would be anti-scientific. One does not conclude from this that zero action is appropriate. But to talk as though the science were settled is indeed akin to an act of faith, and by itself justifies the term "secular priesthood".

The Hadley Centre was the source of the data on the pause in warming. They have their own view on the significance of the pause, and it may very well be correct--but it is one view. Were you previously aware that temperatures have not gone up since 2001? Many people have told me they were not. Perhaps this tells us something about the way this issue is reported. You talk of relentless media scepticism about global warming. I find that remarkable. I see just the opposite--and would submit that the non-reporting of this particular fact is a case in point.

You talk of "mass deaths"--do you mean of humans? For the foreseeable future moderate warming reduces premature deaths, because many more people die from hypothermia than from heat. So far as I know, no projection--including those with huge costs, which if true would call for bold action--invokes "mass deaths". Extinctions of cold-weather species, yes...but this too is an area fraught with difficulty and controversy. (For many decades, hunting at the present rate will kill more polar bears than moderate warming.)

I don't know you, so I have no idea whether you are PC. I would never dream of saying that or accusing you of it on the basis of our correspondence. Absolutely, it is not PC to be most concerned about global warming, and to propose bold action to deal with it. What is PC is to attack climate-change sceptics, as they are misleading called, like Lawson, as "deniers", unworthy of attention...and indeed worthy only of derision and contempt. Unlike you, perhaps, I see that constantly. In our exchange, you have not fallen into that category, but I agree with Lawson that the prevailing mood in policy circles and the media is a prickly, hypersensitive, closed-mindedness to inconvenient truths (to coin a phrase). And I know of many climate scientists who, while agreeing that we need to move forward on mitigation, are far more doubtful of the prevailing consensus than they dare say in public. That is a pernicious result of PC, and I completely agree with Lawson in his desire to resist it.

Thank you again for reading the review and for taking the trouble to write.

Regards, Clive

Dear Mr Crook,

Thank you for your e-mail. I do understand that you are very busy, am not surprised that you receive so many e-mails and very much appreciate the fact that you replied at such great length.

You suggested that I direct my questions away from you and towards Lord Lawson instead. However, that was not the point of my initial e-mail. This was definitely directed to you, a journalist in Britain’s top financial newspaper, whom I –rightly or wrongly- view as highly influential.

The Iraq War has shown us how journalists, who, in the run-up to the invasion, did not examine the views of the powerful critically enough, did their readership, and the people of Iraq, a tremendous disservice.

I want to ensure that journalists, who are doing the same with climate change, are challenged to explain why they advocate views, which deny the seriousness of climate change.

In radio interviews and newspaper articles [1] Lord Lawson said that the science of climate change is ‘rubbish’ and referred to NASA research on the hottest years [2] as ‘lies’. Your use of the words ‘cogent’ and ‘splendid’ to describe the views of this man seem to be contradicted by the language of polemic and smear that he uses.

I believe Mr Lawson’s goal for his book, like ExxonMobil’s aim with its infamous and well-documented distortions of the climate change debate [3], is to spread doubt and confusion about this subject, where many vested interests have a lot to lose. Your article clearly shares this goal, and has succeeded to some extent, as shown by your correspondents expressing surprise about Lawson’s figures.

Would it not have been more honest to concede that the Hadley Centre is right to say that some years will be cooler, even in times of rapid temperatures rises?

I felt that your side-stepping of this issue and your book review raised questions about your credibility as a journalist. If quoting data out of context is a known trick of climate change contrarians, as Naomi Oreskes (who has studied the history of the climate change debate in some detail [4]) insists, then surely journalists, caught out doing it themselves, should either concede the point or say exactly why they think it is significant and why they think the Hadley Centre is wrong.

You avoided it, by saying that the Hadley Centre’s conclusion is ‘one view’.

Naomi Oreskes’ research confirmed that there is a scientific consensus on climate change. After analysing a sample of 928 papers published in scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 under the keywords "climate change", she discovered that NOT ONE of the papers disputed the consensus position that climate change is happening.

The Hadley Centre stated that temperatures sometimes go down when the trend is unequivocally upwards. You referred to this as ‘one view’, which makes it sound insignificant. However, that is far from the truth. This ‘one view’, as you put it, happens to be the consensus view.

Lord Lawson (with your fulsome support) may deny the idea that global temperatures can decrease slightly, even when global average temperatures rise rapidly. However the IPCC as well as the science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the UK and the USA, as well as countless scientific institutions [5] clearly do not. They, like the Hadley Centre, are aware of the cooling effects of La Niña, but are nevertheless keen to communicate to the public the danger that overall rising temperatures constitute.

Climate change is a subject with such a long timescale that a rapid e-mail response from you is not essential. I am a member of the Shrewsbury Green Party. I have been waiting for many years for the votes to come in, so I can definitely wait for your response -a week, a month or a year.

As soon as it comes in, we will post it on the Shropshire Green Party site. Like Aesop’s tortoise, we will arrive at our destination eventually, and are willing to wait for busy people like you with your cogent, rational ideas, because this is an issue, which matters more than any other, and which will have repercussions for billions of people worldwide [6].

The only reference to these billions in your book review was the word ‘costs’. It is in the hope that you will concede what is potentially at stake here that I am trying to keep open a debate, which you seem so keen to close down.

Many thanks again for corresponding,

Yours,

Huw Peach

[1] World Tonight, Radio 4, 7th April + Guardian, 3rd May

[2] The 5 warmest years over the last century occurred in the last 8 years (2005, then 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2006)

[3] http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/exxon-secrets ; And see the Royal Society’s rebuttals at http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=6229)

[4] http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686 (Quoted, Naomi Oreskes, University of California at San Diego , 'Beyond The Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,' Science, 3 December 2004: Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1686, DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618;) After analysing a sample of 928 papers published in scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 under the keywords "climate change", 75% either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or climate issues in the geological past, taking no position on current human-induced climate change. Remarkably, not one of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. NB She did NOT claim that the science is certain; that, I concede, was my error.

[5] as well as the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences; European Academy of Sciences and Arts; Network of African Science Academies; the International Council for Science; the European Science Foundation; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Federation of American Scientists; the World Meteorological Organization; the American Meteorological Society; the Royal Meteorological Society (UK); the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society; the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society; the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences; the American Geophysical Union; the American Institute of Physics; American Astronomical Society; the American Physical Society; the American Chemical Society; the National Research Council (US); the Federal Climate Change Science Program (US), the American Quaternary Association; the Geological Society of America; Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia); the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London; the European Geosciences Union; the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics; and the International Union of Geological Sciences.

[6] This is what you refer to as ‘costs’. What you said about deaths due to cold is true of temperate climates, but you ignore the vast majority of humanity in your response. At least 150,000 more people are dying each year of malaria, diarrhoea, malnutrition and floods, all of which can be traced to climate change, according to the WHO (April 7th 2008, http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKSP24314620080407). The UN warned in its 2007 Human Development Report that climate change will disproportionately affect the poorest people on the planet. ‘A warmer world 'could stall and then reverse human development' in the countries where 2.6 billion people live on $2 a day or less.' "We could be on the verge of seeing human development reverse for the first time in 30 years, the lead author of the report said. In a world where some 18,000 children already die every day because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-17-un-hunger_x.htm, the effects of climate change can only make matters worse. You spoke in your book review about ‘costs’. Is it not important to give these ‘costs’ a human face to awaken compassion in your readers? Or is that not the point of your journalism?