The myth of self-denial

It’s a cheap joke, but it cheers me up. When Starbucks started that habit of asking your name and writing it on your cup, I began giving my name as ‘Chantelle’, ‘Monique’, ‘Desirée’ or ‘Pixie’. Then, when I’d collected four or five of these empty cups, I would leave them all lying around in the car to stop my wife getting too complacent.

In the same way, I always use a false name when I book an executive car. It amuses me to see a black Mercedes S-Class parked somewhere prominent with a big white card in the passenger window with ‘Monbiot’ written on it.

But I remain open-minded about the climate change debate: for it seems to me perfectly possible that doom-saying scientists and James Delingpole both have a point. The scientists may be right in warning that anthropogenic carbon emissions are having an irreversible and unpredictable effect on the weather.