Two of the Government’s climate change adverts have been banned by the Advertising Standards Agency. To be more effective they presented possible effects of climate change without waffling that there’s only a 90+% chance that manmade CO2 is affecting the climate in potentially catastrophic ways. The lack of this, frankly irrelevant, caveat means that the Government ads made “exaggerated claims” according to the ASA. Silly Government, didn’t they know that only the people with no evidence to back up their denial are allowed to exaggerate?

In an ideal world there would be no need for these emotive adverts, people would simply be presented with the facts and statistics and allowed to make up their own minds. In this ideal world the denial lobby would be stumped because they have so little evidence, and we could get on with doing something about the problem. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and the tiniest scrap of misunderstood data which appears to support the denial lobby gets orders more coverage than the reams of evidence which says they’re wrong.

I had issues with the Government ads. I didn’t think they were radical enough. Telling people thay can turn off a light and save the planet is nonsense. Far much more than that is needed, but that’s a different post.

John Redwood’s delighted by the ruling, of course. But then, he’s shown he either doesn’t know what he’s talking about or is feigning ignorance to curry favour with denial vote.