IMV one of the reasons that print media is failing is the low standards and low quality of journalists, which reflects back to the education system. The problem isn't always or only that Johnny can't read, it is also that Johnny can't think.

As next month’s Copenhagen conference approaches, politicians should not be distracted by the apparently growing volume of sceptical voices challenging the need for global action against climate change. Some of the sceptics may have scientific backgrounds but they are not in the mainstream of contemporary climate research. The real experts – hundreds of scientists worldwide who are examining the link between climate and carbon dioxide emissions – have no doubt that man-made global warming is a real crisis that must be addressed urgently.

Nonsense. Scientific dispute should definitely "distract" politicians. It is their duty to pay attention to such disputes and seek to govern well in conditions of ambiguity . . . i.e. real life.

When science and politics mix, scientists have to simplify their arguments to enable politicians to grapple with the issues. The sheer complexity of climate science, from atmospheric physics to polar glaciology, makes it harder to convey than some other science-based issues such as space policy, stem cells or HIV/Aids. And there has inevitably been oversimplification – sometimes amplified by environmental groups keen to present the threat of global warming in the starkest terms.

The problem isn't simplification, or even oversimplification, it is spin. Activist scientists and environmental extremists sought to conceal scientific knowledge and understandings and substitute their own political objectives for honest scientific accounts.

Ultimately, when all the uncertainties are combined with the scientists’ view that we are doing something significant to the global climate, a good reason why the world should invest hundreds of billions of dollars in cutting carbon emissions is to insure against truly cataclysmic climate change that might destroy industrial civilisation . . .

It isn't as if this is the only threat faced by civilization, or even the most immanent. There is no scientific or logical reason to privilege this threat above all others. The only way such ideas can be advocated is if they are grounded in profound ignorance of the general situation. This is precisely why politicians should listen to all views: those of domain specialists and activists are uninformed. They have exceedingly narrow and self-interested knowledge and views.

Politicians aren't often interested in good governance, it is primarily power and personal advancement that animates them. Even ideology is secondary to that, with good governance seldom rising to consciousness. But if we are talking about what they should do then the idea of narrowing their focus to exclude dissent, contrary hypotheses and inconvenient data is the last thing that ought to be advocated.