18th August 2017
Dear BBC
Climate Change ‘Debate’
I am writing to complain about the coverage of this issue on the ‘Today’ programme on 10th August. You included Nigel Lawson as one of the few climate change deniers willing to speak out. As acknowledged in your own article at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40899188 he falseley claimed that global temperatures had declined over the last ten years, an allegation that should have been challenged then and there. Instead people have been reassured that there is nothing to worry about.
Lawson is chair of a charity called Global Warming Policy Foundation. In 2014 the Charity Commission ruled that the GWPF had breached rules on impartiality in its climate change coverage, blurred fact and comment and demonstrated a clear bias.In response, the GWPF agreed to establish a non-charitable organisation to do the lobbying, alongside the existing organisation, to be called the “Global Warming Policy Forum” or “GWPF”. The GWP Forum is a wholly owned subsidiary of the GWP Foundation.
There is a debate to be had, but it should be about what to do about climate change, not about its reality. Your interviewer was grossly under prepared, and you have done much to put the lives of future generations at risk.
yours faithfully
David Smith
