Son, we need to talk. Please, have a seat.

I’ve heard some disturbing things. There’s a book out there that levels some very serious charges. It says you don’t follow the rules. It says you have trouble telling right from wrong. On page after page, in chapter after chapter, it says you cheat, you mislead, and that you thumb your nose at commonplace standards of behaviour. That book backs up it allegations by pointing to concrete evidence of you saying one thing and doing something totally different.

The young man picks at a dirt spot on his untucked shirt. He shrugs his shoulders, looks at the mud on his boots, and gets to his feet. The sum total of his response, as he leaves the room is:

On page 63 it says I wear a pale blue ball cap. Everyone knows mine is grey. And it says I only mowed two-thirds of Mrs. Smith’s lawn when I’m certain that I cut three-quarters.

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There is a chapter in my book, The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert titled “Moral Midgets.” It is about the steadfast refusal of people involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to address that organization’s profound shortcomings.

IPCC partisans refuse to see the long, long list of warning signs that something is seriously amiss. No matter how badly that organization misbehaves, nothing ever fazes them.

When faced with allegations that it kicked the neighbour’s dog, broke into the neighbour’s house, set the neighbour’s sofa on fire, and sent grandma scrambling for her heart medication they don’t feel ashamed. Rather, they insist the real issue is that the police say all this happened at 2:54 pm when, really, it was 3:03.

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