When David and I wrote our Guardian piece in defence of climate sceptics a couple of weeks ago, we included a story from Stephen Sackur, host of BBC’s Hard Talk, which went like this:
The former vice president harrumphed when I cited a British high court judge who had concluded that the Gore epic An Inconvenient Truth contained a valuable message, but was marred by several exaggerations and distortions. His pallid complexion darkened even more when I mentioned the name of his long-time political foe Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish statistician, who claims that the resources spent on curbing global emissions would be better spent on adaptation and mitigation strategies.
The rest of our encounter was marked by Mr Gore’s heavy sighs and deep frowns … But when the cameras stopped rolling the peace prize winner from Tennessee let me have it with both barrels. I’d compromised my journalistic integrity. The BBC had lost its nerve.
Since then, other victims of Al Gore’s temper have been coming out of the woodwork. One senior private sector climate change expert commented,
I meant to mention to you both that when reading your article I was struck that I had the same experience with Al Gore that Stephen Sackur did. I’d thought I was alone.
Far from it! Earlier that week, an environment correspondent at a UK broadsheet newspaper had been in touch to say that he too had “had a similar experience with Gore” – as had a friend of his in broadcast news.
It’s clearly time to inaugurate a survivors’ group for victims of Al’s temper. Help is here. Reach out.
