UNUSUALLY, I found myself shouting at a co-panellist on The Westminster Hour on Sunday evening. In my defence, the co-panellist in question was Caroline Lucas.

The Green MEP and I were discussing the issue of climate change sceptics (I refuse to call them “deniers”) and the stupidity of scientists who undermine their own credibility by exaggerating the effects of climate change in order to create a headline or to scare politicians into action. The scientific basis for man-made climate change is already overwhelming; why undermine it by making ridiculous claims about the Himilayan glaciers melting in 35 years’ time when you know it not to be the case?

One of the exaggerated claims which I have found unhelpful in the past was Caroline’s, which she made during The Westminster Hour last July:

Climate change is killing 300,000 people every year, according to the latest UN report.

But two days ago, when I quoted this as an example of the same kind of scare-mongering, she responded:

I knew there were climate change sceptics in the Conservative Party. I didn’t realize there were quite so many climate sceptics (sic) in the Labour Party.

This is a very typical Green smear: accuse anybody who casts doubt on any apocalyptic predictions as a sceptic. That way, you can close down any debate without having to talk about the scientific facts, even though the International Panel on Climate Change has admitted that one of its predictions was untrue,

For a party which claims to put the environment at the top of its agenda, this is crazy. The public have to be persuaded to accept the scientific case for the causes – and cures – of climate change, not scared into accepting it by “facts” which turn out not to be facts at all.

The 300,000 figure Caroline had quoted previously is a case in point. It’s taken from the Human Impact report of the Global Humanitarium Forum, published last year. And it does indeed state quite unambiguously that:

every year climate change leaves over 300,000 people dead…

Case closed. Game, set and match to Lucas.

Except that, a little further on in the report, there’s this:

The human impact is still difficult to assess with great accuracy because it results from a complex interplay of factors. It is challenging to isolate the human impact of climate change definitively from other factors such as natural variability, population growth, land use and governance. In several areas, the base of scientific evidence is still not sufficient to make definitive estimates with great precision on the human impacts of climate change.

Recognizing that the real numbers may be significantly lower or higher than suggested by these estimates, they should be treated as indicative rather than definitive. (my emphasis)

Yet, listening to Caroline back in July, I got the distinct impression – and I’m quite sure this was her intention – that she was offering a definitive figure on the number of fatalities which result each year from climate change. She offered no caveats or qualifications and in doing so she misled her audience.

Is it possible that Caroline hadn’t read the report beyond the executive summary? No, of course not. I’m sure she read the whole thing more than once, including the bit that warned that the 300,000 figure should be “treated as indicative rather than definitive”. Then, not only did she start quoting it as being unambiguously definitive, she accused those who questioned that figure of being climate change sceptics!

If Caroline Lucas is one of the nation’s leading advocates of man-made global warming, then it’s little wonder that the sceptics have their tails up at the moment.

The public are not as thick or as gullible as Lucas would have us believe – they’re prepared to be convinced by fact and reason, not by scare stories and slander.