How to look guilty No. 94

Plato may not be Max Clifford when it comes to PR - but the Met Office appear to have the same media advisers as the University of East Anglia.

On Sunday, two bright sparks [who appear to also be the Met's Chief Executive and Chief Scientist] decided to start a petition extolling the virtues of climate scientists...

“to defend our profession against this unprecedented attack to discredit us and the science of climate change”. They asked them to forward the petition to colleagues to generate support “for a simple statement that we . . . have the utmost confidence in the science base that underpins the evidence for global warming”.

They decided to spam 70 colleagues with this little bit of strong-arming and encouraged the recipients to pass it around their friends. [No pressure or self-interest there then, Ed.]

Now, is it just me - or does that smack of rather desperate people doing exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time?

What are these people thinking of?  There is a massive scandal emerging - it's clocking over 30m hits on Google and what do they do?  Circle the wagons.

So far, Plato has seen one of the funniest TV interviews with Prf Andrew Watson on Newsnight call another guest an 'arsehole' shortly after conspiciously rolling his eyes and telling said guest to 'stop shouting' and to 'shut up'.

And then there's the desperate press coverage - which is either damning, or if supportive of the CRU - is subsequently drowned in criticism by readers.

We've also had some brilliant statements too - such as the admission by Prf Phil Jones, that the CRU didn't have the data as it'd been thrown out.

There is a time to be quiet, reflect on the issues and learn from it.  The AGW proponents appear to still be stuck in the 'denial' phase - how ironic...