Even George Bush accepts that global warming is a problem, and for the second time in six months a major report has found that Global Warming is real, that it is man-made and that it is going to hurt us unless we take major steps now. Furiously battling against the scientists are a small but powerful band of Climate Change Deniers who have the world of PR at their fingertips and think nothing of stooping to dirty tricks in order to deceive the public and further delay action to tackle the human causes of global warming. Typically people deny climate change for financial reasons, but that may not be the only reason. Let's take Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips, who has long been at the cutting edge of UK climate change denial. Obviously people who actively deny climate change know they are wrong. They fake the research, spin the results, write the articles and champion true junk science. The question is, why is she so obsessed with the idea that environmentalists are lying to us? Often people deny climate change for financial reasons; cheaper to put out junk science on the subject than change polluting and wasteful business practices. Others do it simply because they hate the left-wing, or can't stand being dictated to by the intelligentsia. With Phillips I suspect that it is something else. Phillips, to make a huge understatement, supports Israel. She is an apologist for Israeli governments regardless of the number of UN resolutions they breach, women and children they kill, and self-defeating policies they adopt. It is clear from her articles and speeches that she wants the UK to support Israel politically, militarily and economically regardless of whether that support is in the UK public interest. So how does Phillips' love for Israel affect her denial of climate change? Simple. Israel is only really important to the USA and the west as a "force for good" in the Middle East, a loyal friend in the midst of the world's greatest oil reserves. If the environmental lobby really took off and the world did start to shift away from fossil fuels, Israel could lose its economic importance and with it it's near-blanket support from the west. A personal disaster for Melanie Phillips. Interestingly though, if we don't act to avert major climate change large parts of the economically vital south east of the UK are likely to become uninhabitable. Interesting how this catastrophe for the UK is not very high on Melanie Phillips priority list. del.icio.us tags: melanie, phillips, global, warming, denier, climate, change, israel Submit to Digg