by James
Delingpole
Daily
Telegraph

Recently
by James Delingpole: Red
Pill, Blue Pill

No, not really.
It’s just my little joke, based on pretending to take people like
the BBC’s resident climate activists David Shukman, Richard Black
and Roger Harrabin seriously.

I’ll tell you
what doesn’t amuse me, though. Here I am in Wales, on my holidays,
enjoying the semi-sun, and suddenly I get emails from and Tweets
from sensible people on my side of the argument saying: “Help!
Help! The BBC has gone mad for this story about the NASA satellite
showing that 97 per cent of Greenland has melted and apparently
it’s ‘unprecedented’. What do we do?”

Sigh. The right
thing to do on occasions like this, I find, is to head straight
for Watts
Up With That? Unlike, say, the BBC, or the Guardian, or the
Independent or most of the rest of the MSM, WUWT’s posts are grounded
in actual science and real world data.

And, yep, WUWT
makes two very simple points.

1. 97
per cent of Greenland hasn’t melted. (If it had we’d be underwater
by now)

IÂ’m
sure our readers donÂ’t really need to have it pointed out
that the melting event did not melt 97% of GreenlandÂ’s ice
sheet, but rather occurred over 97% of the surface area of the
ice sheet and that the melting event has ended. We will undoubtedly
be treated to that 97% statistic for a long time to come.

2. “Unprecedented”
is not a strictly accurate adjective to describe something that
has happened before.

I had to laugh
at the title of their
press release, where they cite “Unprecedented Greenland
Ice Sheet Surface Melt”, then contradict themselves when the
main researcher goes on to say “melting events of this type
occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening
in 1889.” Do these guys even read their own press releases?
Climatologist
Pat Michaels concurs saying: “Apparently NASA should
start distributing dictionaries to the authors of its press releases.”

Read
the rest of the article

July
30, 2012

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© 2012 Daily Telegraph