To each of us, having more money, more freedom, more choice is a good thing; that is pretty universal. For the majority of the Earth’s population, it is survival, and a never-ending struggle to secure food, clothing and shelter, let alone healthcare and education. In the richer countries, we strive to gain :

a. Sufficient for our needs or

b. Plenty so we don’t have to worry or

c. Loads so we can have anything we want or

d. Even more than the next billionaire.

For many people, having enough is sufficient, but we now know that for certain people there is no limit to greed and that it is infectious. Thus corporate executives constantly compare their earnings to others, and society is sucked in to believing that they have to advertise higher salaries to secure ‘the right quality’ of person. This has contributed to the huge disparity in wealth that exists across the world today, and the earnings gap is socially divisive, unfair and damaging to corporate finances, especially where failure is being rewarded because of gilt-edged pay deals. It contributes to corporate executive arrogance, which can result in the sort of disastrous decisions that led to the banking crisis of 2008.

Prior to then, people in general in the developed nations were becoming better off, and I have been surprised at how quickly we have forgotten the ‘waste not want not’ ethos of the post war mid 20th century. The throw-away society, started in the USA in the late 50s and fostered by Western governments’ pursuit of economic growth as THE measure of success, has resulted in people believing that it is their right to buy anything, go anywhere, waste anything and have everything tailored to their personal desires, particularly if they have money. This generates waste for the sake of it as people manufacture anything at all that will earn some money: just consider the pile of rubbish that a Disney store pedals for example, or the growing dumps in peoples’ lofts and cellars, and this is just the good stuf.

For countries relying on ever-increasing economic growth, it is like a heroin addiction in that the body feels very sick without the drug and ever increasing amounts are needed. Anyone who suggests that the drug is not a good thing is a boring, kill-joy bore and, by the way, the final outcome is fatal.

So there was huge disruption and worry at East Anglia University and damage done to the reputation of climate change science in general aided and abetted by the media, who claimed that climate science itself was a scandal.

The latest investigation results to be published last week exonerate the U.E.A. scientists and it turns out that one reason for the (admittedly inappropriate) emails was that the scientists were constantly asked for their data and it had become too onerous as they didn’t have the resources to deal with the queries.

Now scientists are a sceptical bunch who rarely, if ever, say that something has been ‘proved beyond doubt’, or is ‘fact’. Unlike the newspapers, they do not tend to shout rubbish and lies from the rooftops, then forget about it when it turns out to be wrong (unless sued of course). If a scientific theory is shown to be erroneous, they argue about and investigate more and update their findings, regarding being wrong as part of the process of investigation and learning rather than as a sin.

So where are these climate change deniers who were so noisy a few weeks ago now? Have they, or the newspapers who gave them voice, screamed at us that, in fact, climate science is NOT a scandal and that the scientists have been vindicated, whereas the deniers were wrong?

It has been very quiet. The damage has been done, but no-one involved seems to have to do anything to repair it.

It does nothing to improve my opinion of Lawson or his self-seeking cronies.