Politicians, pundits and the broader Twittering classes have adopted a perversely religious attitude towards the recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report.
They don’t see it for what it is – a tendentious 41-page ‘summary for policymakers’ document, written by a committee in cahoots with governments around the world, and supplemented by thousands of pages of likely-to-be-unread analysis, projection and reference.
No, they see a holy writ. An instruction from on-high. The Green Commandments. ‘The IPCC report is clear’, states UK chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance in the Guardian, ‘nothing short of transforming society will avert catastrophe’. Because, as Vallance presents it, that is what the report is – an unquestionable call to action.
Which would almost be fine if the IPCC was, like the pope, utterly infallible. But of course it’s not like the pope – and it’s certainly...........
