11th January - Today's News: Delingpole Lies to the Public

A very poor personal opinion piece by James Delingpole in the Mail yesterday, masquerading as a serious news story, prompted myself to write a letter to the Editor and the Met Office to issue a firm rebuttal.   The crazy climate change obession that's made the Met Office a menace says Delingpole,  who clearly bases his opinions on tabloid headlines and conspiracy websites, and not the actual source data (which he'd probably not understand anyway).  Addressing the Daily Mail and James Delingpole's 'crazy climate change obsession' article reply the MetO.  Doesn't paint Delingpole in a very good light!   But sadly, the latter is unlikely to be read by anything like so many as the former, and once again the public have been deliberately lied to and misled by the media. 

My full letter to the Mail is reproduced below:

Dear Sir

Having given up a whole page of the Mail to an ill-informed personal rant by someone who clearly garners all his information on meteorological matters from old newspaper headlines and never even thinks to read the source material, I wonder if perhaps the Met Office’s rebuttal to his lies will also be published in full? Especially since Mr Delingpole’s letter was published as if it were a serious news item?

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/addressing-the-daily-mail-and-james-delingpoles-crazy-climate-change-obsession-article/

Or will the issue be dropped – and yet more people, through no direct fault of their own, be left in dangerous ignorance?

Perhaps whilst you are at it you might also correct your previous and equally misleading news story that falsely claimed that the Met Office had not only declared global warming to have ‘stalled’ (they have said no such thing), but that they tried to ‘hush up’ their annoucement (which is simply unfounded journalistic speculation – and suggests childish pique to my mind).

Maybe in future it would be better to employ someone who understands the issue and the content of a news release to write an article based upon it?

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2013/decadal-forecasts

The boring, unsensational, mundane truth of the story is that the Met Office are now using an improved computer model and, coupled with improved knowledge on how various natural systems affect global temperature, are now predicting that the global temp over the next 5 years will not increase as much as previously predicted. Obviously this is still only a prediction. And there remains an ongoing warming trend.

There is never shame in admitting you were wrong. There is however great shame in deliberately misleading the public and allowing them to remain misled and/or in ignorance of the truth.

What are great newspapers for?

(By the way, I do find it interesting that certain people, who would rather believe that humans have no effect on climate, object when the Met Office spend millions on new improved computers and then object when those computers tell us that warming is not likely to occur quite as much over the next few years as previously thought. Surely just what they wanted to hear? I guess some folk are never happy?)

Yours faithfully

Andy Mayhew

www.ukweatherworld.co.uk
www.weatherearthnews.blogspot.co.uk

Meanwhile, Tom Chivers offers a much more sober and informed opinion as Aussie heatwaves and the Met Office reveal the certainties and uncertainties that are forgotten in the climate row

And other news:

Israel's snow, wind and rain ease as Kinneret rises after Jerusalem hit by worst snowstorm for 20 years.   Meanwhile businesses, schools reopen after deadly Lebanon storm

80 die as temperature hits record low in Bangladesh

Spectacular pictures as freaky orange dust storm hits Western Australia whilst Australian heatwave nears 50c inland as severe fire threat declared

Good news as killer whales escape as Canada's Hudson Bay ice shifts - and nice that locals had plans afoot to save them had the ice not shifted.

Life possible on extrasolar moons

And are we ready for the big freeze? Cold spell puts councils and airports to the test.   Looks certain next week will be cold with some snow in some areas, not just the hills - though at present too early to say just where and when will be worst hit.  We might even get a flake in Evesham!