The article is misusing the word sceptic here, which is a pet peeve of mine. That language indirectly contributes to a lack of respect for actual experts and a sense of “there is no objective truth” BS.

Skepticism is not blindly denying things. That would be more akin to cynicism, or well, denialism. You can’t be a “climate change skeptic”, any more than you can be a “round earth skeptic”, or a “gravity skeptic”.

Skepticism is about being willing to update or disregard beliefs that do not match the evidence. It’s about determining what is or isn’t high quality evidence, and letting your ideas be challenged and tested, as only the things most likely to be true will survive. It’s a process for how you approach new information, deeply held beliefs, your own assumptions, and the claims of others. It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than anything else we’ve got.

And unfortunately for “climate change skeptics”, that also means we can know with fairly high confidence, the truth of certain things. Climate science and climate change are some of the things we have very strong evidence for, and to be “skeptical” of them in this day is not critical thinking. It’s either lying, political posturing, or burying your head in the sand.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The new environment secretary, Steve Barclay, received a donation from a major funder of a climate sceptic thinktank just weeks before taking up his role, the Guardian can reveal.

Lord Hintze has been one of the key funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK-based thinktank that has denied the legitimacy of climate science, and he was one of its earliest backers.

Karen Barclay holds a senior position at Anglian Water as head of major infrastructure, planning and stakeholder engagement.

Regarding the donation, campaigners have said it is inappropriate for someone charged with protecting the natural world to take funds from someone who is such a major backer of a climate sceptic group.

Jolyon Maugham, the director of the Good Law Project, said: “Steve Barclay is taking money from a man who has been a key funder of a climate change denial group and who has ties to Tufton Street.

When our natural world faces ever-increasing threats as a result of the climate emergency, we can’t have an environment secretary taking donations from a major backer of the climate-denying GWPF.

The original article contains 617 words, the summary contains 181 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

So we’re going to remove him, riiiiight?