Climate change death threats for Met Office boss

The chief executive of the Met Office, John Hirst, has revealed that, in common with global warming sceptics such as former children's TV presenter Johnny Ball, he has received death threats for his stance on climate change.

While Hirst and his organisation are firmly in the 'believer' camp, he said he felt empathy for Ball and had contacted him after hearing about the threats that were levelled at the former TV presenter.

"I wrote to Johnny and said: 'I get death threats too, it's crazy.  
Why don't we talk, because if we can take some of this small 'p'  
politics out of this conversation we might do a service to the world,'" Hirst told Exeter University's Environmental Protection and Sustainability Forum.

"He might have a different point of view from me, his point of view might be valid, but only by talking about stuff in a calm and sensible way will we be able to take the politics out."

Good luck to them. Death threats have been par for the course in the highly charged climate change debate for a long time. Scientists with the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia received death threats from climate sceptics when the 'Climategate' row broke in 2009.

Professor Phil Jones, the head of the CRU, told the Sunday Times at the time: "I was shocked. People said I should go and kill myself. They said that they knew where I lived. They were coming from all over the world." ·