I cannot abstain from my personal responsibility to myself. Neither can we, as a global community, abstain from our responsibility, our duty of care if you will, towards our stewardship of this small blue rock we can home.

Look, if someone throws a punch at me, I make a common sense judgement call …and duck. I do not stand there like a numpty and wait for a group of arguing ‘ologists to debate mass, momentum and velocity, before giving me their majority verdict that that ducking might likely result in short-to-medium term benefits.

Certain things are common sense. Certain things are just plain right and should not need to wait upon a concensus of impact advice from others.

Believing I should duck is one.

Believing that we should reconsider digging, sifting, pumping and burning the irreplaceable inner core of our planet is another.

So by all means let science have a say in this debate if you like. But for goodness sake, let it be from the back benches, and not the dispatch box.

The recent Channel 4 sun-spot documentary caused several worthy folk to argue that the other side of the argument should not even be presented on a mainstream UK TV channel.

If the baldies-with-clipboard are wrong (and their own most recent IPCC report discusses a 90% chance that they are correct) then science will suffer a huge credibilty problem.

The MMR vaccine debacle does not bear close comparision with climate change. But it’s easy to see how public confidence can be lost in scientific knowledge.

David Jones

I mean, what ever happened to the common sense we were born with? We should not need to wait for 100 concensus from the bald men with clipboards and white coats to get this right; in the same way as I do not need to believe in the Big Guy, or eternal damnation, to make me pick up six eggs and the Argus for my elderly neighbour.

I just do, because it is the nice, right, and common sense thing to do.