VitalAccurateThinking

Into the "alarmist" camp the authors put articles published in newspapers such as the Independent, Financial Times and Sunday Times, as well as statements from environmental groups, academics including James Lovelock and Lord May, and some government programmes."It is appropriate to call [what some of these groups publish] 'climate porn', because on some level it is like a disaster movie," Mr Retallack told the BBC News website. "The public become disempowered because it's too big for them; and when it sounds like science fiction, there is an element of the unreal there."

Mr Retallack, however, believes some newspapers take an alarmist line on climate change through commercial motives rather than ideology.

"Every newspaper is a commercial organisation," he said, "and when you have a terrifying image on the front of the paper, you are likely to sell more copies than when you write about solutions."