There have been headlines across the mainstream media following the BBC and Met Office complaints of “unprecedented levels of trolling” during the recent brief heatwave in the U.K. Hundreds of “abusive” tweets and emails have been received, claimed the BBC, one of which urged the forecasters to “get a grip”. BBC meteorologist Matt Taylor said he had never experienced anything like it in nearly 25 years working in weather. Violently abusive and threatening messages are, of course, unacceptable, but a review of Mr. Taylor’s own twitter feed for the period around the heatwave shows no abuse, unless one counts a sarcastic comment that, “we are doomed Captain Mainwaring, we’re doomed”.
Met Office lead meteorologist Alex Deakin claimed it was “scary in some ways”. He added that he found it “frustrating and offensive” on behalf of his colleagues – some of the great minds in climate science. “Show a bit of respect,” he said. One of the tweets complained: “What a load of rubbish nanny state again having another fake emergency as you will do as your (sic) told.” The “Get a grip” man went on to say: “This will not last. It will be back to freezing soon.” Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society and a former BBC meteorologist, added that no one should have to deal with this kind of abuse, “especially when the scientific evidence is so clear”.
Needless to say, this level of ‘abuse’ would barely register with anyone who dares to challenge climate groupthink. After all, we are all used to being called ‘deniers’ with its clear implication that we are morally indistinguishable from Holocaust deniers. Seemingly without irony, the Metro newspaper wrote: “Weather forecasters have faced unprecedented levels of trolling from climate change deniers over this month’s extreme heatwave.” Over at the Met Office, Professor Peter Stott has recently written a book entitled Hot Air: The Insider Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial. In the course of a promotional interview in the Guardian, he referred to “denialists”, and noted there were “fewer false-balance debates on TV between deniers and scientists”. Recently, the green activist Al Gore compared “climate deniers” to the Uvalde police in Texas who waited an hour to attack the gunman who shot dead 21 students and teachers.
