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A$$#*(& of the Week

Last week I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed. Tucked in among the cat videos and “here’s what I’m having for dinner” pictures was a piece from the Daily Express written by James Delingpole.

James Delingpole is an English columnist who has written for the Daily Mail, the aforementioned Daily Express, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator. He’s also the executive editor for the London branch of the Breitbart News Network, a radical right wing news blog founded by the late Andrew Breitbart.

It seems like every week on the A$$#8(& of the Week I’m talking about some anti-science blowhard who denies that anthropogenic climate change is real. This is becoming not unlike trying to convince people that the earth is a sphere and not as flat as a pizza.

Last week a new NASA study came out that shows there’s been a net increase in land ice in Antarctica in recent years, despite a decline in some parts of the continent.

The study's lead author predicted that climate science deniers would distort this study for their own agenda.

Although the conclusions from this study do nothing to contradict the worldwide scientific consensus on climate change this didn’t stop James Delingpole from doing just that.

In this piece, titled MELTDOWN MYTH: Antarctic ice growing is just the first EVIDENCE global warming is NOT REAL, Delingpole even brings up the instance in 2013 where an Australian research ship was trapped in sea ice. He ignores that this phenomenon of increased sea ice was predicted to occur because of the measurably less saline seas in that region...less saline because of the increased level of meltwater from that part of the Antarctic continent. As most of you know, saltwater has a lower freezing temperature than fresh. Result, increased sea ice for a while.

But don’t let the science get in the way, James Delingpole.

He once wrote, "I am not a scientist and have never claimed to be," and that he does not have a science degree. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you read the scientific literature and just follow the evidence, wherever it leads, and look at the entirely of it, then fine.

However, In a BBC Horizon documentary called "Science under Attack", Delingpole responded to a question as to whether he had read any peer-reviewed papers. He replied that as a journalist "it is not my job" to read peer-reviewed papers, but rather to be "an interpreter of interpretations".

That is exactly what he did with this article. He interpreted interpretations and ignored the peer-reviewed science...again.

For this unresearched hit piece, James Delingpole, you are the Blue Streak Science A$$#*(& of the Week.