Groundhog Day at the Express

Ever get the feeling that you are stuck an endless, repetitive cycle of boredom and monotony? Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day you relive the same set of circumstances day after day with no hope of ever escaping the sequence. I get this feeling solely when I read the Daily Express.

Like a broken record, the newspaper's coverage perpetually focuses on immigration, taxes, Gordon Brown and, as readers of this blog will know, the great global warming conspiracy.

Yesterday's paper contained a story entitled Global Warming: No, World's Cooling Down says Expert, which again underlined the biased nature of its reporting of the environment.

The article focused on comments made by Michael Beenstock, a professor of economic affairs at Hebrew University, who suggested that global warming is set to become global cooling this century.

In a speech to London's Cass Business School, the academic, who has no background in environmental science, claimed that the link between rising greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures is "spurious".

"The greenhouse effect is an illusion," he said.

Now I do not doubt that Mr Beenstock is an intelligent man, but his theories on global cooling don't stand up to scrutiny.

Last year, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies disclosed that the ten warmest years recorded since temperature analysis began in 1800 occurred between 1997 and 2008. Recently, data released by the state-run publication China Daily disclosed that temperatures in Tibet - often referred to as the roof of the world - increased in 2009 to the highest level ever recorded. India also experienced its hottest 12 months since records began last year, while Australia has just experienced its second warmest year ever.

Need I go on?

Beenstock should not be quoted when newspapers discuss global climate change science. He has no standing in the international scientific community and thus is sidelined from any reasoned debate.

But I expect no better from the Express. Its reporting of the environment always manages to maintain a delicate balance between stupidity and absurdity. Instead of interviewing anyone associated with the global climate change debate, it instead relies on a rabble of celebrities, sceptics and outright crack-pots to justify its views.

The public should know that some publications are undergoing a blatant effort to alter peoples' views on climate change. And the problem is that it is working. A recent survey of 1,000 people conducted by the BBC discovered that the number of Britons who believe the science of climate change has fallen substantially in the last 12 months. The poll revealed that 25 per cent of adults do not believe in global warming, which is eight per cent less than recorded in November.

This is serious. Our actions over the courses of the next couple of decades will determine whether the stable environment on which human civilization has depended since the last ice age 10,000 years ago continues. All reasonable data suggests that unless carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by 60 per cent by 2050, global temperature rises will surpass the tipping point of two degrees. This is going to be impossible if second-rate newspapers recklessly choose to highlight spurious stories for their own agendas.