The spin, like the agreement itself, was crammed down our throats.

Energy stocks weren't affected in the slightest by the diplomatic agreement.I read the stories that day, and the next and the next, and the continuing coverage for weeks that nearly every reader – apart from a few dedicated activists and permanent regime bureaucrats – ignored. The stories appeared on the international pages and didn't touch the business pages. Energy stocks weren't affected in the slightest.

The stories had all the signs of dutiful public service announcements – "fake news," as they say today – and they contained not a single quote from a single dissenting voice, because, of course, no respectable news outlet would give voice to "climate deniers."

Deniers?

Let me pause to protest this "denial" language. It attempts to appropriate the widely shared disgust toward "Holocaust denial," a bizarre and bedraggled movement that belittles or even dismisses the actual history of one of the 20th century's most egregious mass crimes against human rights and dignity. Using that language to silence questions about an attempt to centrally plan the energy sector is a moral low that debases the language of denial.