I was sent this article by my climate sceptic friend.  It's a good example of how Booker weaves a self-confident self-confirming web (in a manner similar to Richard Dawkins) around relatively mundane arguments.

The jist of Booker's argument is "I don't like the theory that mammoth extinction caused climate change, and I don't like Chris Huhne's energy policy".

How does Booker do it?  How does he wave his magic wand over his adoring Telegraph-reading anti-windfarm carbon-burning Brussels-detesting fanbase?  What incantations does the wizard of planet-heating have in his spell book?

Liberal Use Of The Vocabulary Of Psychiatric Illness

Scientific theories are "Batty", energy policy belongs to the "higher realms of lunacy", we can choose to commit "economic suicide",  Chris Huhne suffers from "delusions" and will shut down the economy for "no sane reason at all".  The first of Booker's tricks is to convince that his opponents are mad.

Heroic Ephithets For Climate Deniers

In this article, climate sceptic Christian Gerondeau is "hard-headed" and "much-respected".  Where Booker takes this from is unclear.  A glance at Gerondeau's French Wikipedia entry does not reveal when he received his Nobel prize, or a give a list of articles in Nature.  Instead we discover a career in building transport infrastructure, employment by the world bank and his future appointment as the president of the French federation of automobile clubs and road users.  This is not the CV of a climate scientist, but as Booker admits an "engineer".  Here"engineer" should be taken in its most literal sense.  Gerondeau is a lover of engines.  This Gallic Jeremy Clarkson is not the first person I would look to for an impartial analysis of the science of climate change.  Then again, neither is Christopher Booker.

Unmoderated Use of Generalised Hyperbole

Ever since Booker referred to the "hockey stick" as "the most discredited artefact in the history of science" I realised his flamboyant exageration was a trick for magicking away subtley, nuance and doubt.   This was the point at which I lost any trust, he had outed hiimself as propagandist rather than an impartial chronicler, he had broken any commitment to truth-telling, he had shamed himself with the hypocrisy of jumping over small errors in the IPCC report whilst failing to come close to such standards himself, the righteous facade had revealed its rotten underbelly of shameless distortion.

The key conclusions of the "hockey stick" have been corroborated by later studies - check out New Scientist and Fred Pearce.  Booker has no interest in paying the slightest attention to this.

Enough of past crimes, what of the article on Chris Huhne and the Mammoths.

Here the generalations are applied to the French and Germans (who are to a citizen "horrified" at any thought of carbon reduction), the Indians and Chinese are pressing ahead with development regardless of climate damage (there is some truth to this, but takes no heed of the climate lobby in either of those nations.  With regard to India, respect for the environment is more deeply embedded in the national consciousness than in Western societies).

Also, Gerondeau now agrees with a wide range of "eminent" scientists who conclude that climate change has wholly naturalistic causes.  Booker is hand waving at these point, not even bothering with a reference.  Who are this band of distinguished scientists who happen to agree with our noble columnist and Monsieur Automobile? 

My guess is that they might be the group of scientists who signed an open letter questioning some IPCC processes whilst remaining convinced the global warming has human causes.  Alternatively they might be the members of the Royal Society who wanted a more nuanced report from the Royal Society - these were headed by electrical engineer Alan Rudge (those engineers again) who admitted that few of his fellow protestors had worked directly in climate change and many were retired.  Or they could be the scientists listed in this Wikipedia page - who include such discredited sceptics as Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon and our old friend Ian Plimer.

Once again Booker does not need to tell us.  He only needs to reassure us that the warmists have been smitten by some strange collective delusion, and that we are at liberty to destroy the planet.  Beneath his confident patter lies distortion and half-truth.  How he can live with this I cannot fathom.  The only explanation is that the first victim of this verbal sorcery was Christopher Booker himself.