Christopher Booker (Deceased)

Credentials

• Studied History at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. [1]

Background

Christopher Booker was an English journalist, author, and columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. He passed away at the age 81 in July 2019. [2], [38]

Booker opposed the scientific consensus on numerous issues including global warming, the link between second-hand smoke and cancer, and the negative health effects of asbestos. [3], [4]

According to Carbon Brief, despite the agreement of major agencies including the World Heath Organisation and the US Department for Health and Human Services that all forms of asbestos are carcinogenic to humans, Booker also repeatedly claimed white asbestos “poses no measurable risk to health.”[1], [5], [6], [7]

In 2009, he published The Real Global Warming Disaster, described by The Observer as “the definitive climate sceptics’ manual.” [8]

Stance on Climate Change

2015

“As many now also recognise – however fiercely it is denied – the late 20th century rise in temperatures, which set off the warming scare in the first place, has simply not continued. The pressure to keep the panic going dies away a little further with each passing year.

So Paris does indeed mark a historic turning point. It is the moment when the political panic over climate change finally begins to collide with inescapable realities.” [9]

2009

“[A]lthough CO2 levels in the atmosphere have continued rising, it has become clearer than ever that global temperatures are no longer following suit… . evidence for a human link to such warming as has occurred in recent decades was not just being seriously exaggerated but even deliberately manipulated, to produce findings which the data simply did not justify.” [10]

Key Quotes

September 3, 2016

Writing in The Telegraph, Christopher Booker described the Paris Climate Agreement as “all smoke and mirrors”:

“In reality, the Paris agreement was no more than a vainglorious act of collective wishful thinking, orchestrated to fool the world into thinking that anything of significance had actually been achieved,” Booke writes. “The one huge consolation from all this is that nothing said or done in Paris last December will have the slightest effect on the world’s climate.” [11]

February, 2015

“When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.” [12]

June 21, 2014

“When I first began examining the global-warming scare, I found nothing more puzzling than the way officially approved scientists kept on being shown to have finagled their data, as in that ludicrous “hockey stick” graph, pretending to prove that the world had suddenly become much hotter than at any time in 1,000 years. Any theory needing to rely so consistently on fudging the evidence, I concluded, must be looked on not as science at all, but as simply a rather alarming case study in the aberrations of group psychology.” [13]

September, 2010

“The proselytisers for man-made global warming have long exercised a tight stranglehold over the contents of Wikipedia.” [14]

July, 2007

“The scientific evidence to support their belief that inhaling other people’s smoke causes cancer simply does not exist.” [3]

Key Deeds

January 24, 2019

A complaint lodged with the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) watchdog regarding Booker’s article from July 25, 2018 was rejected.

In a blog post, Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, argued there was a “fundamental flaw” with the watchdog’s complaints process, writing: [36]

“Unfortunately the IPSO Complaints Committee decided that the article did not breach the Editors’ Code of Practice and that Mr Booker was allowed to make up his own definition of heatwave, ignore the results of experts, and present meteorological information in a selective and misleading way.” [36]

Ward wrote a letter to the chair of IPSO, Sir Alan Moses, stating that the article “completely ignored robust and rigorous analysis by the Met Office which shows that the occurrence of heatwave conditions is becoming more frequent.” The letter asks Moses to review and amend the complaints process. [37]

July 25, 2018

During a heatwave in the UK, Booker wrote an article in the Daily Mail denying climate change had any role to play. He wrote: “We shall continue to have abnormally hot summers from time to time, just as we did in 1976 and 1846, way back before global warming was invented.” [35]

February 21, 2018

Booker wrote a GWPF report titled “Global Warming: A case study in groupthink,” which was subsequently promoted by a range of climate change denial blogs including JoNova, Watts Up With That?, and Climate Depot. Booker also wrote about his study at the Foundation for Economic Education. [29], [30], [31], [32]

The GWPF released a promotional video for Booker’s paper:

Daily KOS reported that Booker’s report “debunks itself,” pointing to “many self-contradictions Booker makes throughout the report that undercut his contention that climate science is groupthink.” [33]

When Booker introduced his report at the GWPF, he wrote: “Since we’ve now been living with the global warming story for 30 years, it might seem hard to believe that science could now come up with anything that would enable us to see that story in a wholly new light.” [34]

Booker’s statement would suggest the “debate” started in 1987, Daily KOS noted. However, Booker later wrote that “the story began in obscurity in the late 1970s,” making it 40 years ago. He further modified this date when he suggested that Richard Revelle’s measuring of CO2 in the 1950s was what “more than anything else that helped to set the great alarm over global warming on its way.” [34]

The key to Booker’s argument is that a groupthink belief is accepted “without a proper appraisal of evidence.” [34]

“Curiously, the report notes how ‘countless billions of dollars’ have been spent testing the theory of climate change, including $2.8 billion appropriated for federal research by George H. W. Bush over four years. Billions of dollars of research sure sounds like an appraisal of evidence, but that’s just the first of many self-contradictions Booker makes throughout the report that undercut his contention that climate science is groupthink,” DailyKOS reported. [34]

June 24, 2017

Writing in The Telegraph, Christopher Booker wrote that a recent heat wave was not as record-breaking as reported by the media. Booker pointed to data from the blogger Paul Homewood at notalotofpeopleknowthat who, in turn, linked back to Booker’s article in The Telegraph. [27], [28]

“All we can safely say, therefore, is that those official computer models didn’t predict anything of what has been actually happening,” Booker wrote. [27]

In the article, Booker also revealed that he was working for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK climate change denial think tank founded by Nigel Lawson. [27]

“I have lately been analysing in a paper for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, to show how the belief in man-made climate change has in every respect been a perfect case study in the rules of groupthink first identified 45 years ago by Irving Janis, a professor of psychology at Yale.” [27]

February 11, 2017

Booker wrote an article in The Telegraph where he describes global warming as “the greatest and costliest scare story the world has ever known.” Referring to an article he wrote in 2015, Booker claims that: [26], [12]

“[T]emperature records all over the world had, seemingly, been systematically ‘adjusted’ to show older temperatures lower than those originally measured and more recent temperatures higher than those recorded: thus conveying the notion that the world is warming significantly more than the actual data justified.” [26]

Booker goes on to highlight accusations made by John Bates who made allegations regarding NOAA paper written before the Paris climate conference in 2015. [26]

“That, to many, looks like the paper was designed to stoke up hysteria over global warming in the run-up to the conference,” Booker wrote. “What Dr Bates now claims is that, in defiance of rules he himself drew up and over his (Bates’s) private objections, Karl’s paper had again been based on ‘adjustments’ that the scientific evidence didn’t justify,” he added. [26]

September 3, 2016

Writing in The Telegraph, Christopher Booker described the Paris Climate Agreement as “all smoke and mirrors.”  [11]

Booker contended that large emitters like China have “no intention of halting the rise in its ‘carbon emissions’ at all,” making it a “meaningless […] exercise.”

“In reality, the Paris agreement was no more than a vainglorious act of collective wishful thinking, orchestrated to fool the world into thinking that anything of significance had actually been achieved,” Brooker Writes. “For the rest of us, of course, the one huge consolation from all this is that nothing said or done in Paris will have the slightest effect on the world’s climate – as eventually, to their undying shame if they live long enough, all those poor deluded politicians may come to realise.” [11]

February 7, 2015

Christopher Booker wrote an article in The Telegraph titled, “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever.” Booker writes future generations will “look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years” and “nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records […] were systematically ‘adjusted’ to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.” [12]

Booker references “statistician Steve McIntyre“ as one of the first people to “expose” “examples of these ‘adjustments’” in 2007. [12]

January 2015

Christopher Booker accused climate scientists of falsifying data in the global surface temperature record, describing a “wholesale corruption of proper science,” citing a paper by the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) as evidence. [24]

SkepticalScience responded to Booker’s accusations, where Kevin Crowtan examines the data and explains why the adjustments in question “are clearly justified and necessary, revealing the baselessness of Booker’s conspiracy theory.” Video below: [25]

December, 2009

Christopher Booker and Richard North wrote a prominent feature article in The Sunday Telegraph titled “Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri” which made allegations of financial impropriety against the IPCC Chairman. [15]

The article alleged that Pachauri had been “making a fortune from his links with ‘carbon trading’ companies,” and that he had outside interests which would cause a “conflict of interest” with his position at the IPCC. 

Although the story was untrue, it circulated over hundreds of blogs and its allegations were widely spread before The Telegraph retracted it. An archive of the original is still available here. [15], [16]

Shortly after the article was published, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the organization that Pachauri works for, asked auditors to review his financial relationships.

Auditors concluded:

“No evidence was found that indicated personal fiduciary benefits accruing to Pachauri from his various advisory roles that would have led to a conflict of interest.” [16]

When Pachauri first approached the Telegraph he was rebuffed while their journalists continued to produce damaging articles and blog posts. He was forced to start a libel suit, and months later the Telegraph issued an apology and retraction. [17]

March, 2009

Christopher Booker was a speaker at the Heartland Institute‘s 2009 International Conference on Climate Change.

His speech, titled “From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth” can be viewed below. [18]

DeSmogBlog researched the funding behind the conference and found that sponsor organizations had collectively received over $47 million from energy companies and right-wing foundations, with 78% of that total coming from the Scaife Family of foundations. A transcript of Booker’s speech is available at the Heartland Institute website as a “Policy Document.” [10]

February 4, 2009

George Monbiot of The Guardian launched a prize to be “presented to whoever crams as many misrepresentations, distortions and falsehoods into a single article, statement, lecture, film or interview about climate change.” [19]

The prize, named the “Christopher Booker Prize” was first awarded to Christopher Booker himself for an article he wrote on Arctic sea ice published in The Sunday Telegraph. [19], [20]

November 16, 2008

Booker published an article titled “The world has never seen such freezing heat” in The Telegraph. [21]

While the article portrays itself as a exposé that brings mainstream climate science into question, other sources suggest that the article contains significant bias and logical fallacies. [22]

Affiliations

• The Sunday Telegraph  — Former Columnist. [2]

Publications

According to a search of Google Scholar, Christopher Booker has not published any scientific articles relating to climate change. [23]

Here is a list of the articles he has written for The Sunday Telegraph.

Books

• Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, How Scares Are Costing Us The Earth.
• The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is The Obsession With Climate Change Turning Out To Be The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History?
• The Mad Officials: How the Bureaucrats are Strangling Britain.

Resources

1. “Christopher Booker,” The Carbon Brief. Archived January 7, 2012. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/7CfjR
2. “Christopher Booker: fifty years at the Sunday Telegraph,” The Telegraph, February 5, 2011. Archived September 6, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/pEdz0
3. Christopher Booker. “Christopher Booker’s Notebook,” The Telegraph, July 1, 2007. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/tmRf1
4. Christopher Booker. “Christopher Booker’s Notebook,” The Telegraph, October 15, 2006. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/AsWVi
5. Christopher Booker and Richard North. “Asbestos – the most expensive word in history,” The Telegraph, November 6, 2007. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/YNYTe
6. “Asbestos: elimination of asbestos-related diseases: Fact Sheet,” World Health Organization, Updated June 2016. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/hg91m
7. “Asbestos: CAS No. 1332-21-4” (PDF), REPORT ON CARCINOGENS, ELEVENTH EDITION. Archived .pdf on file at Desmog.
8. Philip Ball. “The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker,” The Guardian, November 15, 2009. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/I8ifJ
9. Christopher Booker. “At the Paris climate summit, panic over global warming finally collided with reality,” The Telegraph, December 12, 2015. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/RohVZ
10. Christopher Booker. “The Mother of All Scares,” The Heartland Institute, March 16, 2009. Archived June 27, 2014. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/hQQGY
11. Christopher Booker. “Rising emissions show Paris climate agreement is an act of delusion,” The Telegraph, September 3, 2016. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/KfT7R
12. Christopher Booker. “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever,” The Telegraph, February 7, 2015. Archived February 27, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/PPtbS
13. Christopher Booker. “The scandal of fiddled global warming data,” The Telegraph, June 21, 2014. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ceJWl
14. Christopher Booker. “The truth is getting lost in the Amazon,” The Telegraph, September 11, 2010. Archived September 7, 2016. Arhive.is URL: https://archive.is/vQEHY
15. “Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri,” The Telegraph, December 20, 2009. Archived December 22, 2009. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Yvc5S
16. George Monbiot. “The Smearing of an Innocent man,” Monbiot.com, August 26, 2010. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/kxNkJ
17. “Dr Pachauri – Apology,” The Telegraph, August 21, 2010. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/qs6nM
18. “From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth,” International Conferences on Climate Change (climateconferences.heartland.org). Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zQ3t1
19. George Monbiot. “Booker’s work of clanger-dropping fiction,” The Guardian, February 4, 2009. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/PuYEq
20. “BBC abandons ‘impartiality’ on warming,” The Telegraph, January 31, 2009. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive .is URL: https://archive.is/Gyeqa
21. Christopher Booker. “The world has never seen such freezing heat,” The Telegraph, November 16, 2008. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/tqP88
22. “The Bias and Logical Fallacies of Christopher Booker’s ‘Freezing Heat’,” EcoWorldy, November 17, 2008. Archived December 21, 2008. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/SLrt8
23. Search for “Climate” by author “Christopher Booker,” Google Scholar. Performed September 6, 2016.
24. “Climategate, the sequel: How we are STILL being tricked with flawed data on global warming,” The Telegraph, January 24, 2015. Archived September 7, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/0guDk
25. “Kevin Cowtan Debunks Christopher Booker’s Temperature Conspiracy Theory,” SkepticalScience, January 27, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/4I6R5
26. “Will Donald Trump and the Republicans bring an end to the costliest scare story ever known?” The Telegraph, February 11, 2017. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.
27. Christopher Booker. “Nice heatwave, but June 1878 was hotter,” The Telegraph, June 24, 2017. Archived June 27, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/yfAEr
28. Paul Homewood. “Nice heatwave, but June 1878 was hotter,” notalotofpeopleknowthat, June 25, 2017. Archived June 27, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Gm6w4
29. “Christopher Booker gets serious about understanding ‘Groupthink’,” JoNova, February 22, 2018. Archived February 26, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/uqe7m
30. Anthony Watts. “Global Warming Zealotry: A case study in groupthink,” Watts Up With That? February 20, 2018. Archived February 26, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/JLrdp
31. “Christopher Booker gets serious about understanding climate ‘Groupthink’,” Climate Depot, February 22, 2018. Archived February 26, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/1VThb
32. Christopher Booker. “Groupthink on Climate Change Ignores Inconvenient Facts,” Foundation for Economic Education, February 24, 2018. Archived February 26, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Vnb8F
33. “Booker’s Groupthink Report for GWPF Debunks Itself,” Daily KOS, February 22, 2018. Archived February 26, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/AVpjG
34. “CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: GROUPTHINK ON CLIMATE CHANGE IGNORES INCONVENIENT FACTS,” The Global Warming Policy Foundation, February 21, 2018. WebCite URL: http://www.webcitation.org/6xWjYZNUs 
35. Christopher Booker. “Yes it’s scorching, but claims that the heatwave is down to climate change are just hot air: June was even hotter when Victoria was on the throne,” Daily Mail, July 25, 2018. Archived January 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: http://archive.fo/hhuga
36. Bob Ward. “Fundamental flaw in Press watchdog’s complaints process helps newspapers to promote climate change denial,” LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, January 24, 2019. Archived January 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: http://archive.fo/GS3cq
37. Bob Ward. “Letter to Sir Alan Moses,” January 24, 2019. Archived January 25, 2019. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.
38. Gareth Davies. “Former Telegraph and Private Eye journalist Christopher Booker dies aged 81,” The Telegraph, July 3, 2019. Archived July 3, 2019. Archive.is URL: https://archive.fo/U1qPK

Other Resources

• “Christopher Booker,” Wikipedia.
• “Christopher Booker,” SourceWatch.
• George monbiot. “How much longer can Christopher Booker go on misleading readers?”, The Guardian, May 13, 2011.
• George Monbiot. “The superhuman cock-ups of Christopher Booker,” The Guardian, October 13, 2011.
• George Monbiot. “The Patron Saint of Charlatans,” Monbiot.com, September 23, 2008.

Photo credit: screenshot from YouTube.