For @BBCr4today to bring on Lord Lawson 'in the name of balance' on climate change is both ignorant and irresponsible. Shame on you.

— Jim Al-Khalili (@jimalkhalili) August 10, 2017

Dear BBC News,

While thankfully you don’t do it as often as you once did, you do still give air time to Climate Change Skeptics / Deniers ostensibly in the interests of “balance”. What’s more, these skeptics / deniers are rarely climatologists but instead tend to be politicians, ex-politicians or business people with no recognised qualification in the field; though often with ideological positions or personal agendas that are fundamentally opposed to industrial regulation.

However, I have noticed that — when discussing the Holocaust — you fail to provide air time to David Irving so that we may hear both sides of that story (or better yet, perhaps a non-historian, ex-politician with overt antisemitic views… perhaps give Jean-Marie Le Pen a prominent slot next Holocaust Remembrance Day?) In the interests of “balance” of course.

For the sake of clarity, let me point out that I’m not actually suggesting you give air time to Holocaust-deniers. You have quite correctly accepted that the evidence for the Holocaust is strong enough that it doesn’t merit a contradictory voice.

What I would like to know, therefore, is precisely what standards of evidence are applied by the BBC that are passed by the Holocaust, but failed by Climate Change? Why does the BBC feel the evidence for Climate Change is lacking? What aspects of the scientific consensus does the BBC find unconvincing or doubtful? If there is doubt about the science, why doesn’t the BBC interview a climatologist on the matter rather than a politician and industrial lobbyist? And — importantly — precisely what further evidence does the BBC require before they stop giving air time to Climate Change Deniers?

Yours, very etc.