A core function of government is to protect the person or property of its citizens from unlawful infringement by other citizens. This can be done privately, of course, but the point is to have an independent third party assigned to protect citizens from each other, to amicably resolve disputes, and to act against those who infringe on the rights of others.

When a government takes it upon itself to protect citizens from their own stupidity, carelessness and recklessness, however, things get rather silly. First, you’ll be told that you can’t smoke, because your likely early death doesn’t make up for your medical care, paid for by others. Then, you’ll be told that you can’t eat this or that variety of fat, because some fraction of the population (probably not including you) is overweight and too lazy to do something about it.

Eventually, they cover objects in foam padding, to prevent you from carelessly injuring yourself if you don’t look where you’re going. The Daily Mail deserves a nod for referring to “the dangers of ‘unprotected text’“.

Is Britain turning into a taxpayer-funded padded cell? A communal, egalitarian bedlam?

Yesterday, either CNN or Sky News reported on the Heartland Institute’s conference on climate change. (It was CNN — see update.) The three-day conference, held in New York earlier this week, was designed to answer some of the questions that would be relevant to my “10 reasons to reject” and “10 more reasons to disbelieve“. Questions such as:

• how reliable are the data used to document the recent warming trend?
• how much of the modern warming is natural, and how much is likely the result of human activities?
• how reliable are the computer models used to forecast future climate conditions? and
• is reducing emissions the best or only response to possible climate change?

The conference was addressed by leading sceptics of the political orthodoxy emanating from the UN’s IPCC, including many sporting doctorate degrees or other distinctions. The lengthy speaker list included Fred Singer, Ross McKitrick, Anthony Watts, Barun Mitra, Václav Klaus, Craig Loehle, Willie Soon, Roy Spencer, Lord Monckton, Marc Morano, and South Africa’s very own Free Market Foundation man, Leon Louw.

The report ended with a snide comment: “The Flat-Earth Society didn’t shut up shop in 1492.”

Not only does this flippant insult illustrate the media’s clear bias on the subject of climate change, but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny itself.

For a start, the Flat Earth Society either originated with Samuel Rowbotham’s book, Earth Not A Globe, in the 19th century, or was founded in 1547, depending on whom you believe. I’d bet on the former, which is corroborated by a a Flat Earth Society FAQ and by Wikipedia. The latter date comes from a tagline on a Flat Earth Society page.

Moreover, the notion that Columbus sailed west against the prevailing wisdom of the Flat Earth Society is a fiction that first appeared in a historical novel by Washington Irving, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, in 1828. Never happened. He probably wasn’t widely mocked for his notion of reaching India by sailing west, and even if he was, by failing to reach India he did not prove the earth was round. That the earth was circumnavigable was proven in practice not by an American icon, but by Ferdinand Magellan, who reached the Phillipines on two voyages, one heading east and the other west from Spain, in the early 16th century. This was also well before the Flat Earth Society claims it was founded. Thing is, the notion that medieval scholars believed the Earth was flat is a myth.

If the media’s snide dismissal of any debate around climate change is itself a fiction, why would anyone believe the editorial opinion about climate change they can’t resist injecting into their news reporting?

Update: It was CNN, which was still running the “news report” today, 13 March. The exact insult by “reporter” Miles O’Brien was: “Even the Flat Earth Society didn’t fold its tents in 1493.” Earlier in the story, he interviewed one of the participants and without blushing asked what planet he was on. No biased editorialising there, either.