Even Pravda Admits 'Global Warming' Jig is Up

by JAMES DELINGPOLE January 14, 2013

It's Death of Little Nell time again in the field of climate "science." The New York Times - aka Pravda - has announced the closure of its Environment Desk. Rumours that the entire environment team, headed by Andy Revkin, have volunteered to be recycled into compost and spread on the lawn of the new billion dollar home Al Gore bought with the proceeds of his sale of Current TV to Middle Eastern oil interests are as yet unconfirmed. What we do know is that it's very, very sad and that all over the Arctic baby polar bears are weeping bitter tears of regret.

A spokesman for the New York Times, quoted in the Guardian, has reaffirmed the paper's commitment to environmental issues.

"We devote a lot of resources to it, now more than ever. We have not lost any desire for environmental coverage. This is purely a structural matter."

Absolutely. It's what newspapers always do when they're committed to a particular field: close down the entire department responsible for covering it.

But it's still not going to stop some mean-minded cynics sniping and casting aspersions, I'll bet. Why, some of them will be pointing out the eerie coincidence with the Met Office recent tacit admission that "global warming" isn't anywhere near what that their dodgy models predicted it would be. And also with NASA's recent admission that solar variation has a much more significant on terrestrial climate than it has hitherto been prepared to acknowledge. If you didn't know better, you'd almost get the impression that AGW theory has been so crushingly falsified that hard-headed newspaper executives, even ones at papers as painfully right-on as the New York Times, just aren't prepared to fund its promulgation any more.

What this means for similarly overstaffed environment desks at other left-wing newspapers one can scarcely begin to imagine. Might it be that we never again read a piece by Leo Hickman entitled "How Do You Tell Your Five Year Old Son That His World Is About To Explode In A Blazing Fireball Because Of Man's Selfishness And Greed And Refusal To Change His Lifestyle?"

What, and no more Caroline Lucas essays, either on jaunty topics like "My plan for Britain: rationing; cold baths; the banning of cars; and hairshirts for everyone - to be enforced by my new green Mutaween of Environmental Commissars"?

And how would we cope if we never get to read any more Damian Carrington articles on "Official: wind farms are brilliant for bats and rare birds, boosting their numbers by gazillions every year - says new research by RenewablesUK," and "Global warming: why the latest evidence that it's going down is sure-fire proof that it's going up, says Met Office" and "How fracking poisons the water supply, steals food from the poor, encourages racism and causes baby kittens in wicker baskets to die in agony mewling for their mothers".

And what, for pity's sake, about poor George Monbiot??????