The Independent in London has an interesting story that I picked up on via Crikey.

An oft cited quote that is used to discredit the scientists behind global warming is the one (allegedly) by Sir John Houghton, who was the head of the first three IPCC reports. The quote is:

Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.

As the Indie says, it was:

A quotation by one of the world's most eminent climate scientists was supposed to demonstrate the depths to which he and his ilk would stoop to create scare stories exaggerating the threat of global warming.

And the quote is supposed to come from his book "Global Warming, The Complete Briefing" - only it didn't come from that book at all. The quote seems to have come from a very, very different source:

In fact, the earliest record of the quote comes not from 15 years ago but from November 2006 when it appeared in a newspaper column written by the journalist Piers Akerman in the Australian newspaper The Sunday Telegraph. Akerman, a controversial right-wing columnist and global warming sceptic, appears to be the first person to use the quote verbatim in an opinion piece criticising the Stern Review, which looked at the economic effects of global warming.

And what did Piers say?

"This alarmist approach reeked of stupidity, snake oil, and misguided gospel preaching but was in line with a formula adopted by the first chairman of the IPCC, Sir John Houghton, who produced the IPCC's first three reports in 1990, 1995 and 2001 and wrote in his book Global Warming, The Complete Briefing, in 1994: 'Unless we announce disasters no one will listen',"

Oh dear, could it be that the alarmist is actually Piers himself?