Banged up by a criminal bloody headline.

A pissed off polar bear sniffing something

 I​n my Herald column this week, I said climate change denial ought be seen as a crime in order to express how gravely it should be viewed. Unfortunately, it ran under the headline 'Why Climate Change Should be a Criminal Offence', i.e. let’s bang people up for thought crimes. I didn’t write that and I sure as hell don’t believe it. 
 
"That decision was bloody criminal!" on a football filed is never a call for legal sanction against the referee.
 
Similarly, "Olympic athletes ought be seen as ambassadors of their country" is not a suggestion we give them diplomatic immunity.
 
You get the picture.
 
I don’t believe any rational person could read my column and think I wanted to criminalise anything.
 
But that's what the headline said. Despite two emails and one phone call to the paper, that misleading headline remains online. It has now been linked to my university's newsletter. Terrific.
 
While I’m disappointed that right-thinking people may be left with the impression that I want to curtail free speech, I’m more gutted that I had to address such a silly red herring with the climate change deniers who flooded my email inbox.
 
I would have preferred to spend that time calling them complete twonks.


* Shayne Currie, the editor of the Herald has jumped onto this and sorted it out. He's a good man.

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