Years ago I used to see a South African relation who had married what I can only call a financial trophy husband. Whenever this unfortunate man dared to express an opinion he would be silenced by his wife, who would say: "Barney, don't talk about things you don't know." It is to avoid Barney's fate that I have written so little about global warming.

All I would say about the main argument is that the attempt to ignore or silence dissenters is more reminiscent of the Catholic Church's crusade against the Albigensian heresy in the Middle Ages than of the free inquiry of the Enlightenment.