Climate change

I think my old colleague Neil Winton has misunderstood what this correspondence is all about.

The issue is not who is right about climate change/global warming and its causes - as I have said earlier I prefer to express no opinion on that - but on whether it would be correct for a senior Thomson Reuters editor, if it is true that he has, to seek to impose his own views on the issue on correspondents, editors and news desks, and close down reporting posts from which the question has been actively covered. I do not think The Baron should be a platform for supporters of one or another side in a major political/economic debate to air their views - there are many other fora for that - unless there is a close tie-in to Reuters. Apart from anything else, it could seriously damage some longtime friendships unnecessarily. However, as someone who over the past 20 years has covered the various reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Programme for Climate Change and got to know many of the undoubted climate experts among the tens of thousands around the world who contribute to its work, and are about to endorse another massively detailed report on the situation, I do feel Neil should do a little more than kiss them off as a handful of shysters misleading the world in pursuit of a lucrative career. ■