Letter to James Delingpole (2)

Dear Mr Delingpole,

When I politely enquired of you recently regarding your qualification to pronounce on Climate Change science, I did hope that you would reply to me in a similarly polite manner.

After all, we’re both professionals, in our own ways, aren’t we ? And it would be unsporting to be rude or underhanded, wouldn’t it ?

I am therefore surprised to find that you see fit to metaphorically tear me to shreds in your now infamous column.

You quoted me entirely out of context, apparently with a desire to mock me. I was quite shocked.

You referred to a little misunderstanding that I had with a certain BBC reporter, without explaining the resolution of the matter.

Plus you have allowed all manner of unpleasant and unfair comments to appear unmoderated at the base of your column.

I trust that you will feel the weight of public opprobrium and moderate these unkind and baseless comments away, for I am but a humble, warmhearted, friendly human being and I do not deserve or warrant you or your correspondents’ ire.

What intrigues, amuses and beguiles me is that you have not for one split-second sought to answer my original question.

I know your mind flits through matters of politic, art, literature and whatnot. You think you see an oppressed underling – Climate Change scepticism – victim to self-righteous whitecoated men – and you valiantly try a rescue using your high arts of scorn, indignation and your internal rectitude.

You stick up for the people who deny the Hockey Stick. You rail against international consensus-building. You have, if I may visualise it, your underpants over your trousers, and you are flying over Gotham. All very noble, I’m sure.

Yet I am still un-answered. Do you have a comprehensive understanding on which to base your scepticism ? Have you read the IPCC reports before you rubbished them, their authors, your own Government, Europe and the whole of the United Nations ?

Is your mind free enough to take in both the nuances and the brutalities of the evidence of Climate Change in the natural world ? If you have not studied it, then I would most amicably suggest you are joining a scrum about which you haven’t a clue.

It is not a matter of academic degrees which count, in the end, or which kind. It is the matter of Global Warming degrees that count.

You are advised to read more widely, without emotional bias, and come back to me when you understand at least the basics of the enhanced Greenhouse Effect and the data on real and worsening Climate Change.

Call me a “fear-monger” if you will, a “climate alarmist”. Talk to people who have looked at the evidence in detail and one of the overwhelming responses you will get is strong concern, mixed with high anxiety.

I admit my poetry, e-mail snippets to journalists and forum posts may lack a certain finesse. They are not intended to be science.

I refer you to the work of Kevin Anderson, Research Director at the Tyndall Centre, or any number of other well-recognised academics for a much finer description of the parlous state we’re in, since you clearly don’t place much trust in my credentials.

I challenge you to find out more and remain unmoved.

Have a Globally Warmer day,

Ms J. Abbess BSc