OH DEAR, I’m in trouble with Morgan Parry, head of WWF Cymru. This morning he fired off an angry missive to the letters page after reading today’s Farm & Country.
What stuck in his throat was an article on farming attitudes to climate change. In it I’d outlined the results of a Farming Futures survey which found that 81% of farmers now believe the world’s climate is changing.
Nothing particularly earth-shattering about that. What I found more astonishing was that 19% - or one in five - of farmers remained sceptical about climate change.
Mr Morgan described it as an “extraordinary piece of one-eyed reporting”. He was angry that the emphasis had been placed on the non-believers, not the believers.
True, it wasn’t the most spectacular article I’d ever written. But there’s never much around at the start of the New Year as most people are, sensibly, still on holiday, foolhardy journalists excepted.
Mr Morgan went to lambast me for writing the headline “farmers are sceptical on climate change”. It amazes me there are still people out there who believe reporters write headlines. They don’t, sub-editors do.
In mitigation, headlines, in their brevity, can sometimes be misleading. However there was nothing factually incorrect with the story itself, which clearly stated the overall position: that two-thirds of farmers are taking action on their farm to combat climate change and 70% believe that these changes offer business benefits.
Mr Morgan added: “There is a tiny minority of sceptics in every profession, farmers and journalists included.”
I don’t believe I’m a climate sceptic, but even scientists must retain an open mind. In fact journalists - myself included - now glibly write so many climate change articles that the opposite charge, if anything, can be more appropriately levelled.
Had I been a sceptic, I don't think I would have found it surprising that a fifth of farmers refuse to believe in global warming.
Of course the WWF has its own axe to grind. But all’s fair in PR and publicity, and I suspect that, at some stage in the future, I shall be doing a nice article on the WWF’s wonderful work to curb climate change.
Mr Morgan’s letter is reproduced below:
“WHAT an extraordinary piece of one-eyed reporting from Andrew Forgrave (Daily Post, January 3).
“Presented with the results of a survey which clearly show that 81% of farmers believe the climate is changing, Andrew turns the story on its head and reports that “one in five farmers does not believe the world’s climate is warming”.
“Readers who were not put off by Andrew’s claim that “farmers are sceptical on climate change” would have discovered that the survey tells a very different story.
“60% of farmers are taking action on their farm to combat climate change and 70% believe that these changes offer them business benefits.
“There is a tiny minority of sceptics in every profession, farmers and journalists included, but the facts are clear and evidence of climate change is regularly reported by those who work on the land.
“Farmers who pretend the climate isn’t changing will go out of business. Farming journalists who present the views of the sceptics as if it was the majority view are helping them do so.”
David Insall wrote...
How refreshing to read about the work of a journalist who isn't in the palm of one of the new breeds of 'all's good that's green' journalist. Open minds have successfully rubbished the pillars of the climate change argument, as we've just experienced the coldest weather of all recorded time in recent years.
So we are back out of the 'WWF clouds', realising that of course we must conserve stocks of fossils fuels, not squander them, as otherwise they'll run out earlier than necessary, leading to a lot of inconvenience. Thank-you Andrew, for your balance and common sense in this commercialised world of damned lies and statistics.
Posted by: David Insall | January 8, 2008 9:30 AM