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Climate Change Change

 

A few notes on climate change…..

Firstly there’s a 163 page complaint gone in to the BBC about its coverage of climate change…I imagine the reply will be somewhat briefer.

Major New Complaint Submitted To BBC Over Climate Bias

A major new and serious complaint has been sent to the Director General of the BBC, regarding the Corporation’s persistent bias in reporting of climate change issues. The complaint is a massive 163 pages long, and is a joint submission from ten complainants. In addition, there are several technical annexes, totalling 125 pages.

We enclose a complaint from all of us about persistent partiality in the BBC’s coverage of climate change. From the outset, on the climate question the BBC has tended to reflect only one view – that of the climate science establishment who are promoting a view that man is causing significant global warming (which, with the plateau in temperature, has morphed into “climate change”, a term that is used to cover a wide range of weather events). It has excluded those whose opinions, though based on factual science and sound economics and logic, differ from the “official” position. The BBC has often promoted tendentious and scientifically illiterate but “politically-correct” opinions and has kept from the airwaves those who do not agree.

We and many others alongside us have come to the opinion that the BBC’s continuing bias on the climate question – its performance is too often like a scientifically illiterate, naïve, oft times emotive green activist organisation – is unacceptable and must now be brought to an end. In future, both sides in the climate debate must be fairly heard, whether BBC staff like it or not.

Good luck with that.

Second, it is interesting that Roger Harrabin doesn’t seem to have used the ‘97% of all scientists‘ stick to support his climate change campaigning and beat the Sceptics with…I’ve tried to find something from him but no luck.   Now that is very telling if confirmed…Harrabin is a hardcore propagandist for the climate lobby and yet he seems to have taken a look at this ‘killer’ statistic and decided not to use it.  Is that because he recognises the stat is bogus and essentially a lie?   His non-use of the stat would seem to indicate that it is entirely worthless, and so obviously worthless that Harrabin knows he would get called out on it and he wouldn’t be able to justify its use…exposing him as a propagandist.

Third thing of note relates to that 97% claim.  The BBC has frequently reported on fraud and corruption in science, both from the scientists and those who report on it in the scientific journals….but not once have I heard the subject of climate change come under scrutiny in a similar manner….will that change? …from WUWT:

Climate science might become the most important casualty of the replication crisis

After a decade of slow growth beneath public view, the replication crisis in science begins breaking into public view. First psychology and biomedical studies, now spreading to many other fields — overturning what we were told is settled science, the foundations of our personal behavior and public policy. Here is an introduction to the conflict (there is pushback), with the usual links to detailed information at the end, and some tentative conclusions about effects on public’s trust of science. It’s early days yet, with the real action yet to begin.

This crisis emerged a decade ago as problems in a few fields — especially health care and psychology. Slowly similar problems emerged in other fields, usually failures to replicate widely accepted research.

“Men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.”
— Goethe, from Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soretclip_image001.

With what we know about the likes of the CRU after their emails were hacked, what we know about the 97% claim, what we know about the ‘hockey stick’ manipulations, what we know about the conspiracy to hide the medieval warm period, and the ‘decline’, it is fairly obvious that the ‘science’ of climate change may in fact be more about big, big money, politics, ego and corruption.  With so many reputations, careers and lucrative research grants on the line there has long been a hard fought battle to silence the critics and those who question the status quo, the so-called ‘consensus’.  You just had to see the BBC’s science journos’ united front that marched out to defend the CRU and climate scientist Phil Jones when the emails surfaced to understand the problem…some people were more interested in covering up for the sicentists than in exposing wrongdoing or bad science.

Maybe that will change as WUWT suggests and more and more of that bad science and bad faith is exposed.  Again good luck with that.   Climate change is a massive industry worth billions which has sucked in not just the scientists but the politicians and journalists as well as the cultural cheerleaders such as artists, actors, singers and writers who so usefully give a ‘human face’ to the science that they so little understand.  They have so much tied up in climate change actually happening and being man-made that any criticism or undermining of that belief will only succeed if there is an equally massive turn of events that stops people in their tracks, radically alters their perceptions and dramatically proves the science wrong or maybe wrong.  Again, good luck with that….glaciers advancing down Salford high street would be presented as conclusive proof of global warming I’m sure…..and as I said they will fight tooth and nail to maintain their privileges and the cash flow….as noted by Matt Ridley in the Times recently …and spot the hand of the Rasputin-like Richard Black in this (You can’t keep a good man down)…..via ‘Not a lot of people know that’…

Climate change lobby wants to kill free speech

The editor of this newspaper received a private letter last week from Lord Krebs and 12 other members of the House of Lords expressing unhappiness with two articles by its environment correspondent. Conceding that The Times’s reporting of the Paris climate conference had been balanced and comprehensive, it denounced the two articles about studies by mainstream academics in the scientific literature, which provided less than alarming assessments of climate change. 
Strangely, the letter was simultaneously leaked to The Guardian. The episode gives a rare glimpse into the world of “climate change communications”, a branch of heavily funded spin-doctoring that is keen to shut down debate about the science of climate change.

 The letter was not entirely the work of the peers but, I understand, involved Richard Black, once a BBC environment correspondent and now director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, an organisation that spends more than £500,000 a year, largely trying to influence the media.

 

Of course there is one redoubt in the BBC where journalism is given a fair go…Andrew Neil holds the fort…and here explains, & his colleagues should read it, what good journalism is all about…

Andrew Neil on Ed Davey climate change interview critics

The Sunday Politics interview with Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey on July 14 provoked widespread reaction in the twittersphere and elsewhere, which was only to be expected given the interview was about the latest developments in global warming and the implications for government policy.

The Sunday Politics remit and interview duration means we are able to carry out proper forensic interviews on such matters.

It is becoming a hallmark of our programme, whether it’s challenging the global warming assumptions of the climate change secretary, the NUT’s historic resistance to school reforms by Tory and Labour governments, or the activities of the leader of the English Defence League.

Many of the criticisms of the Davey interview seem to misunderstand the purpose of a Sunday Politics interview.

We did come at Mr Davey with a particular set of evidence, which was well-sourced from mainstream climate science. But it was nothing to do with advocating a “position”.

First, the Sunday Politics does not have a position on any of the subjects on which it interrogates people.

Second, it is the job of the interviewer to assemble evidence from authoritative sources which best challenge the position of the interviewee.

There is hardly any purpose in presenting evidence which supports the interviewee’s position – that is his or her job.

It is for viewers to decide how well the interviewee’s position holds up under scrutiny and the strength of the contrary evidence or points put to him or her.

Taking an opposite or challenging position from the person being interviewed is pretty much standard practice in long-form broadcast interviews.

But the contrary position has to be based on reputable evidence.

 

 

Weather, climate or pure lies

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Skeptical Climate Documentary Set to Rock UN Climate Summit – ‘Climate Hustle’ To Have Red Carpet Premiere in Paris

 

The BBC is blitzing us with unadulterated pro-man-made climate change propaganda with green activists allowed free rein on the airwaves to say the most outrageous things….then repeated with sincere, uncritical approval by the BBC presenters.

What we are being told is that CO2 is the cause of global warming…..em…except where’s the proof?  Not only is there no proof of that but in fact CO2 is not the most powerful so-called greenhouse gas…water vapour is.  Is water vapour a pollutant?  CO2 is being denounced as a pollutant, one that the West is guilty of having produced and now we must pay the price for our sins…our moral obligation to fund the corrupt third world countries whose politiicans know a good scam when they see one.  Lovely new airport in the Maldives.…shame it will be under water very soon, won’t it?…what optimism those Maldivian politicians must have.

Curious that the world is about to burn if we don’t reduce CO2 emissions to, well, zero, if you believe, and yet, such is the urgency and the danger that nations like China, India and Brazil, which are pumping out huge quantities of CO2 emissions, are to be allowed to keep on pumping.   Odd that.  Anyone looking on with an impartial eye might think that those demanding the West close down its industry whilst allowing other nations to ramp up theirs might, just might, have an agenda that is completely unrelated to the climate.

 

Anyway here’s a reminder of just what the BBC produces on behalf of the climate lobby, just one of many, many films the BBC airs in order to manufacture our consent….

‘Climate Change – Britain Under Threat’

 

 

 

 

And here’s what they don’t want you to see:

The Great Global Warming Swindle

 

 

 

 

 

BBC climate lies

 

The BBC tells us…

‘A combination of a strong El Nino and human-induced global warming made the five-year period from 2011 to 2015 the warmest on record, researchers say.’

Hmmm….yes but isn’t the global warming still on pause?   2010 was another warming El Nino…so why cherry pick from 2011 and not mention that?  The global temperature has stayed pretty much the same in the period quoted, and longer, it may be hot but no hotter than ‘normal’ so the BBC’s claim that it is the hottest for 5 year period in history is disengenuous to say the least, intended to create a false impression of a planet on fire.  The BBC and its co-conspirators always try to tell us that the period from 1998 is too short to be significant and yet they now claim a 5 year period is significant to their narrative of a warming globe.

 

The BBC’s top headline tonight….

Global rallies demand climate action

Kind of gives the impression that there is a world wide movement to tackle the climate…which is curious as only two days ago the BBC told us this (a now hard to find report, gone fom its pages)…

Public support for tough climate deal ‘declines’

Sky gives us a different angle that the BBC doesn’t…about the Public’s growing scepticism about not only climate deals but the causes of climate change…

Poll: Growing Doubts Over Climate Change Causes

The finding comes on the eve of the UN summit in Paris that is expected to result in big cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Why would the BBC not like to reveal that?

The Express isn’t hiding the uncomfortable truthes…

Global warming FARCE: Overwhelming majority of Britons think climate change is FAKE

 

The BBC though is still twisting the story telling us…

‘Canada, France, Spain and the UK are the only four with majorities in favour of their governments taking a leading role.’

Once again a misleading slant on the story as in all those countries save Spain support is waning…

Poll

 

And do I believe that there is majority support for heavy-handed government action to tackle climate change in the UK?  No.  How many people really believe the major cause of climate change is man-made?  How many would attribute any man-made climate change to CO2 if they knew the facts?  Not many.  And yet the BBC et al present CO2 as the major factor in climate change and the one that must be tackled before any other….a convenient approach that fits neatly with the Left’s ambitions to undermine Western economic and industrial power.

Here’s a more reasoned and considered comment on the climate, from WUWT not the BBC…Climate and Human Civilization over the last 18,000 years.

 

And another thing….from the BBC…

Prince Charles links climate change to Syria conflict

 

Been there, done that…from WUWT…

The ultimate ‘Godwin effect’ – Science In 1941: ‘Global Warming Caused Hitler’

hitler-globalwarming

 

Increasing warmer temperatures throughout the world may produce a trend toward dictatorial governments in the opinion of Dr Clarence A Mills, professor of experimental medicine at the University of Cincinnati. In fact, Dr Mills believes that the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy may be due in part to the gradual warming temperature of the world. —The Mason City Globe-Gazette, 27 March 1941

 

 

 

 

French weatherman taken off air after questioning climate change

 

Believe!

 

The Guardian reports……

A French TV weatherman has been taken off air after writing a book in which he questions climate change. Philippe Verdier, a familiar face on the state-run France 2 channel, said he had been told not to return to work for the foreseeable future.

“I received a letter asking me not to come,” Verdier told RTL radio this week. “I don’t know any more than that, I don’t know how long it will last. It’s all to do with my book.”

Verdier had taken time off to undertake a publicity tour for his book – entitled Climat Investigation – but had been expecting to return to work.

“It’s France Télévisions’ decision, I’m not on holiday,” he said.

In the book, Verdier throws doubt on the findings of leading climate scientists and political leaders, saying they have “taken the world hostage”. It is timed to coincide with France’s hosting of a major UN climate summit in December.

We are told that….

France Télévision’s said its rules “prevent anyone using their professional status … to push forward their personal opinions”.

That never stopped Roger Harrabin.  Then again as an english graduate I suppose he might not be classed as a ‘professional’ when it comes to climate change science.

And it is curious that the BBC, as far as I can tell, made no mention of this very significant story…from Christopher Booker in the Telegraph….

Judges plan to outlaw climate change ‘denial’

We might think that a semi-secret, international conference of top judges, held in the highest courtroom in Britain, to propose that it should be made illegal for anyone to question the scientific evidence for man-made global warming, was odd enough to be worthy of front-page coverage….But only a series of startling posts by a sharp-eyed Canadian blogger, Donna Laframboise (on Nofrakkingconsensus), have alerted us to what a bizarre event this judicial gathering turned out to be (the organisers even refused to give her the names of those who attended). 

The fact that it could be seriously proposed in the highest courtroom in the land that the law should now be used to suppress any further debate on what has become one of the most contentious issues in the history of science (greeted with applause from the distinguished legal audience) speaks volumes about the curious psychological state to which the great global warming scare has reduced so many of the prominent figures who today exercise power and influence over the life of our Western societies.

Curious that the BBC would censor that when they are so often keen to bring us news of what judges and lawyers think on subjects close to the BBC’s heart…Migrant crisis: UK response criticised by senior former judges.

Curious the BBC would censor news that judges would seek to silence free speech on climate change when the BBC along with the Guardian et al are at the forefront of protest journalism when it comes to the government trying to close down certain debates.

 

The Role of the Media in Aiding and Abetting the Deceptions Seen in Climategate

 

 

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From climate sceptic site WUWT:

The deception about global warming was only effective because of the aiding and abetting of the mainstream media.

Those most active in pushing the false information were exposed in the leaked Climatic Research Unit (CRU) emails. They represented very influential media outlets including The Guardian, The New York Times, and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

 

Enjoyed this quote:

“And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.”

Everybody knows information is power. Control of power through control of information has evolved, like everything else. Those with power needed a conduit for their version of information. In the global warming deception, they found a media willing to be the messenger. Instead of performing their original role of exposing and limiting power, they aided and abetted.

 

Can quite easily see Harrabin and his sidekicks motoring around with tommy guns gunning down the sceptics….he did after all admit a desire to punch Delingpole…or was it Booker?

 

rodge dodge

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BBC’s Climate Cover Up Cover Up…..Update

 

 

Bishop Hill reports:

Simon Buckle of the Grantham Institute at Imperial has penned some nice thoughts about the Bengtsson affair:

‘Professor Lennart Bengtsson’s resignation from the GWPF Academic Advisory Council has received wide coverage and raises important issues.’

 

 

‘received wide coverage’?…..but not from one of the world’s biggest and best resourced news organisations.

And a matter that ‘raises important issues’…….so important that one of the world’s biggest and best resourced news organisations deliberately ignores them.

 

Proof positive that the BBC is engaged in a cover up and is manipulating climate coverage to hide ‘inconvenient truths’.

The climate lobby is intimidating and threatening other scientists to remain silent about their doubts on the ‘science’……threatening their careers and sometimes threatening the very lives of anyone who dares to raise a sceptical question.

It was the BBC’s very own Harrabin who wanted to punch the sceptical Christopher Booker for ‘spreading  lies and disinformation’….or good common sense, truth and reason to you and me.

No doubt who is helping to foster the atmosphere of bullying and threats then.

 

 

Buckle from the Grantham Institute went on:

It is regrettable that perceived political stances on the climate issue are apparently so affecting academic activity.  The Grantham Institute at Imperial has always opposed such behaviour, believing that scientific progress requires an open society.  We try to engage with a wide range of figures, some with radically different views on climate change.

 

Sorry but his boss, who stumps up the cash for these people says different.

Grantham’s aim is to silence the critics with a bombardment of propaganda:

 

The misinformation machine is brilliant. As a propagandist myself [he has previously described himself as GMO’s “chief of propaganda” in reference to his official title of “chief investment strategist”], I have nothing but admiration for their propaganda. [Laughs.] But the difference is that we have the facts behind our propaganda. They’re in the “screaming loudly” rather than the “fact based” part of the exercise, because they don’t have the facts. They are masters at manufacturing doubt. What I have noticed on the blogs and in the comments section under articles is that over several years, as the scientific evidence for climate change gets stronger, the tone of the sceptics is getting shriller and more vicious and nastier all the time.

The sceptics are getting angrier and more vicious every year despite the more storms we have, and the more mad crazy weather we have…
One of the problems is that typically you are not dealing with the facts. Putting in more facts makes the sceptics more angry. They have profound beliefs – as opposed to knowledge – that they are willing to protect by all manner of psychological tricks.

 

Ironically he says…….

If you’re saying something that people don’t want to hear or accept, a significant proportion of them will reply with hostility. Not because they know the facts, or because they have researched it themselves, but because they’re so psychologically involved in believing good news that they will oppose it with a reflex.

Could be talking of the climate fanatic’s response to any scepticism couldn’t he?

 

Grantham suggests the climate lobby is all sweetness and light despite the relentless, nasty attacks of the sceptics:

The equivalent on the other side is a weary resignation, sorrow and frustration and amazement that people on the other side can’t look at the facts.

 

We can try to bypass them on one level and we try to contest the political power of the sceptics. They are using money as well as propaganda to influence the politicians, particularly in America.

That from a man who coughs up £165 million to fund his climate propaganda.

So concerned is Grantham, 70, over this issue that he has set up the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, endowed with £165m of his own money, to fund environmental research and campaigns. From it he is funding the LSE and Imperial donations, and other grants to American groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund.

 

 

Grantham is hoping the sceptics will all die off…the sooner the better:

Changing people’s minds is almost impossible, even among scientists. Max Planck said, to paraphrase, that science advances one funeral at a time. You could add that economics advances the same way. You have to wait to get rid of the people who have career investment in a topic before a new generation can see the light.

 

Where Grantham’s real loyalties lie…..

Our first responsibility is to make money for our clients….and nothing is more important than oil.

 

 

Climate Insurance Fraud?

 

 

Today let loose a climate change advocate…Trevor Maynard(08:47)… but they didn’t tell us his links to the climate lobby.   Today didn’t question his claims…..that hurricanes are getting stronger,  that we’re heading for a 4 degrees temperature rise (a horrible scenario!), that we have to decarbonise…they did suggest there might be a pause in warming but were told that there has  definitely been no pause in global warming…’that’s completely wrong’…an answer they were happy to accept, as they were with his claim that the ‘excess’ heat is going into the ocean….not being a ‘climate scientist’ he’s obviously learnt his script well….spoon fed to him by the likes of Bob Ward no doubt.

Climate activist Bob Ward (paid for by Big Oil) who has worked closely with Maynard….a relationshp that the BBC didn’t bother to reveal either.

 

Trevor Maynard works for Lloyds Insurance and is keen to tell us that the risks from climate change are immense and that the damage done by extreme weather are increasing….no vested interests there?

In 2008 we had Maynard and Ward working together….

Coastal flooded high-risk property insurance losses could double by 2030- Lloyds

“The research shows that, with an effective adaptation strategy, future losses could be reduced to below present-day levels with losses for high-risk properties reduced by as much … must be location-specific and risk informed. They must also begin today.”  Co-authored by Trevor Maynard, Manager of Emerging Risks at Lloyd’s and Bob Ward and Nicola Patmore ..

 

And again here:

Finally, Robert Ward, Trevor Maynard, Emmanuel Leblanc, Erwann Michel-Kerjan and Frederic Morlaye present the main concerns and recommended strategies of private sector stakeholders involved in risk management, to deal with the new challenges and opportunities associated with climate change adaptation and mitigation.

 

 

The insurance companies have a huge vested interest in hyping climate change and they fund climate lobbyists:

As well as funding by the ESCR the CCCEP is also funded by a large insurance company, who might obviously have a vested interest in creating some alarm about climate change:

‘Generous support for the Centre’s work is also provided by Munich Re’

The Munich Re programme
Evaluating the economics of climate risks and opportunities in the insurance sector
This research programme is funded by Munich Re and benefits from research collaborations across the industry and public sectors. It is a comprehensive research programme that focuses on the assessment of the risks from climate change, and on the appropriate responses, to inform decision making in the private and public sectors.

Now surely just a coincidence but Bob Ward used to work in the insurance industry:

He was: Director of Global Science Networks at global risk insurance firm RMS.
While Ward’s employment is ostensibly with the Grantham, he also doubles up as PR man for the CCCEP. The CCCEP is funded jointly by the UK’s research councils and risk insurance giants Munich Re.
The close association between climate alarmists and the insurance industry is no less natural than that between ‘sceptics’ and Exxon. Just as Exxon might be expected to play down the threat of climate change when it suits them, Munich Re can be relied upon to overstate the dangers. Fear of risk is to the insurance industry what oil is to Exxon.

The difference is that Bob Ward doesn’t write letters of complaint to Munich Re insurers or articles for the Guardian when Munich Re disseminates ‘misleading and inaccurate information about climate change’ – which they surely do.’

 

And Ward writes papers about climate and insurance risk:

Herweijer, C., Ranger, N., and Ward, R.E.T. July 2009. Adaptation to climate change: threats and opportunities for the insurance industry. The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance: issues and practice, v.34 pp.360-380.

Ward, R.E.T., Herweijer, C., Patmore, N., and Muir-Wood, R. January 2008. The role of insurers in promoting adaptation to the impacts of climate change. The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance: Issues and Practice, v.33, pp.133-139.

Ward, R.E.T., Muir-Wood, R., and Grossi, P. 2007. Flood risk in New Orleans: implications for future management. Geophysical Research Abstracts, v.9, 04542.

 

 

A very small world, one that hasn’t been getting warmer for at least 16 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Climate Of Fear

 

 

Met Office: Arctic sea-ice loss linked to colder, drier UK winters

Richard Black ?@enviroblack @markpmcc Leveson… ‘a cultural tendency…to practice journalism which on occasion is deliberately, recklessly or negligently inaccurate’

 

 

On Sunday I posted this:

Strangle The Climate Sceptics In Their Beds!!

It was meant to add some context to a post I intended to write up looking at a BBC piece on the Today show, Is there a Green hush?,  which claimed that climate scientists, green lobbyists and the media were being bullied and intimidated into silence by climate sceptics….but a look at the Today interview had to be put off because the more I looked into climate scientists’ claims and their theories the more I realised they just don’t have a clue.

However here we go…..

Is there a green hush?

First the technical issue…just how was the piece set up?
We had Evan Davis, who volunteered that yes, climate sceptics were vitriolic, so no bias there,  and then we had Mark Lynas and Rowan Sutton…both pro-man made global warming.

And that was it.  No sceptical voices, neither to defend sceptics against the charges or to put the other side as illustrated by my post, nor to debate the ‘science’ when Davis asked if the recent floods were the result of climate change.

There was absolutely no mention of ‘vitriol’ from the pro-AGW side…nor any other reasons given as to why there might be a ‘silence’ from the alarmist side of things…or even if there is a silence….can’t say I’ve noticed such a thing.

What we did get was firstly a denial that there is a link between floods and climate change…but then we had ‘But physics says’…then it was ‘yes ‘….but you can’t claim a particular event…but….you have to look at the world as a whole and at patterns over many years.

So….that’ll be a sneaky yes then…they are claiming a link.

Em……

Prime Minister climate change opinion not backed up by science, says Met Office
Nicola Maxey from the Met Office said the Prime Minister failed to draw the crucial distinction between weather and climate change.
“What happened at the end of December and at the beginning of January is weather,” she said.
“Climate change happens on a global scale, and weather happens at a local scale. Climate scientists have been saying that for quite a while.
“It’s impossible to say that these storms are more intense because of climate change.”
She added: “In real terms we had a low depression over the Atlantic which deepened, which caused the swell, and that combined with the spring tide caused the coastal waves.”

or….em…

Paul Davis, chief meteorologist for the Met Office said that very strong winds much of the UK experienced which was caused by jet stream.
“December has been the windiest spell since 1969, but unprecedented perhaps not. It probably feels unusual because the last few winters have been fairly settled and cold and we haven’t had the story conditions that just experienced.”

or…em….

Direct from the Met. Office:   There’s currently no evidence to suggest that the UK is increasing in storminess.

 

Still…we’ll just ignore all that.

Carry on…and panic.

Davis then gets onto the ‘vitriolic’ sceptics…..asking ‘Just how bad is it on Twitter…why would that deter you?’

Why indeed.

Apparently sceptic reaction to ‘alarmist claims’ by scientists and environmentalists, is instant and overwhelming….and has everyone looking over their shoulders…from politicians, to scientists, to the media itself all worried about being attacked by the Sceptics.

Terrible thing isn’t it that lack of deference to assumed authority…but isn’t that what the 60’s was all about?  How the tables have turned  now ‘they’ are the Establishment.

 
Then paradoxically it was claimed that it was a strong lobby, powerful voices from politics, who silenced the scientists et al…such as the Tories….em…like who?…Tim Yeo?

Apparently the Science is being misrepresented and used for political purposes by the Sceptics, and that is putting off people from engaging with climate change.

Ironically Lynas said that he would ‘love it if we could just talk about the science…it would be very useful for society.’

The Sceptics would also love to talk about the science but shutting them out of that debate has been the aim of the likes of Harrabin, Joe Smith and Steve Jones….this very interview was part of the plot to malign Sceptics and silence them.

 

Then apparently you can’t be too alarmist….it’s such an important subject with such serious consequences that you have to grab people’s attention….however that doesn’t include the Science of it all…just the dramatic and dire consequences must be publicised so that all those drastic new green policies can be implemented.

 
So all in all a pretty dire interview, bias all round from presenter to guests, and a definite narrative trying to smear and vilify Sceptics.

 

However if you’ve read that previous post you will have seen that it is the Sceptics who have been at the receiving end of extreme abuse and threats…even climate scientist Phil Jones runs scared of the pro climate lobby:

“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”

 

The BBC has often been the cheerleader for the abusers giving the nod and a wink to them by its own denigration and dismissal of the sceptics.

Richard Black was a prime suspect in this…here is a classic example where he questions the sanity of sceptics…smearing them either as being conspiracy theorists or abused in childhood:

[One view is that] climate scepticism has psychological roots; that it stems from a deep-seated inability or unwillingness to accept the overwhelming evidence that humanity has built with coal and lubricated with oil its own handcart whose destination board reads “climate hell”.  As one climate advocate said…
“I’ve been debating the science with them for years, but recently I realised we shouldn’t be talking about the science but about something unpleasant that happened in their childhood”.

 

And then there is Professor Steve Jones…fanatical climate change advocate who wants to silence the sceptics…..just why was a man so clearly biased allowed to review the BBC’s science output and advise the BBC on impartiality?  Just who was it at the BBC that recommended Jones for the job?  Harrabin?

 

Why then are Sceptics so sceptical you might ask?

Not such a puzzle…..Harrabin’s mate, Dr Joe Smith, can provide the answer perhaps…..

Perhaps it shouldn’t puzzle us that that the promise of rapid environmental and social change is greeted with a ‘gloom of inattention’.
Much of the current discussion about climate change falls between the overstated rhetoric of jeopardy, which is now having a diminishing public impact, and more sober and open-ended discussions of risk and uncertainty, which are largely unreported because they do not readily fit into media conventions.

Most of environmentalism has done little new work in over a decade, and its tendency towards hyperbole, and its reliance on a narrow stock of fear-based narratives appears to have left portions of the public apathetic and fateful, and others hostile.

 

And a bubble of alarmist environmental hype…..

Lord Stern suggests that ‘The quantity and quality of coverage of climate change has undoubtedly declined’.
Joe Smith: Climate contrarian voices are having a very good run of it I’d agree with that too. But should we be surprised? The last quarter of 2009 saw an inflated bubble of (monotonous) climate-worrying stories. Even in June of that year you could more or less book a ticket to watch the media bubble bursting in the days that followed COP15 that December. It didn’t require an intriguing Climategate or a disappointing Copenhagen conference: editorial and public boredom would have dished the news value of climate change with no further effort from anyone.

 

In 2009 Joe Smith said they needed a new angle, a new narrative…..don’t scare the punters…

What have been the achievements of the environmental community over the last 20 years?….The generation of fear, concern and anxiety….now we need a different set of emotions to get a working majority to engage people and change policies….creativity,, innovation, imagination, even passion.

 

Ironically he didn’t follow his own advice about not being alarmist…here in 2012 he signed a letter to the Guardian, natch, saying we had 50 months to save the Earth (that’ll be 35 now then)

‘On current trends, there are around just 50 months left before we cross a critical climate threshold. After that, it will no longer be ‘likely’ that we will stay on the right side of a 2 degree temperature rise.
Now we call on the government and opposition to say what they will do in the same time frame to grab the opportunity of action and prevent catastrophic climate change.’

 

Perhaps it was the Marxist angle that makes climate change so unattractive:

‘Climate change must break out of its left-wing ghetto. Communicators need to drop the language and narratives of environmentalism that have only ever appealed to a minority of people.’

 

Richard Black tells us that it is the revelations of scientific bad behaviour that has driven scepticism about the science…..talking about the CRU emails….

‘Here was a crime with international ramifications – the theft and release of more than 6,000 e-mails and other documents that lit a fire under mainstream climate science, perhaps contributing to the torpor in the UN climate process and raising the level of doubt in public minds…… the tsunami of doubt that “ClimateGate” spewed into the court of public opinion on climate change……in the folklore of the sceptical blogosphere, it’s achieved cult status; no doubt about that.

 

Possibly scepticism might just be the result of climate sceptics coming to realise that the climate scientists just don’t have a clue what is going on……the BBC’s Roger Bolton on Feedback said this:

Roger Bolton: Hello. BBC journalists are required to be impartial, as is the presenter of Feedback. But should one be impartial where the facts are clear?

Well that’s one question but another might be ‘are the facts clear?’ Is the science really settled?
Harrabin and Joe Smith of the CMEP have worked out  a devious scheme to sideline sceptics…don’t talk about the science…talk about risk or how to stop the world warming…..

Climate change should not be responded to as a body of ‘facts’ to be acted upon (with the IPCC acting as prime arbiter). Instead it should be considered as a substantial and urgent collective risk management problem. Projecting climate change as a risk problem rather than a communication-of-fact problem helpfully deflates ‘debates’ about whether climate change is or is not a scientific fact.

My point is: lets not get stuck on the science. Climate change is a vast and widening body of investigation and debate: science is now barely the half of it, and in terms of political outcomes it is not the thing that counts.….a line that is designed to work for people who have ideological wax blocking their ears: ‘don’t get het up about communicating science – talk about clean American energy and jobs in a new efficient, competitive economy’.

 

But that’s the whole problem…..the facts are far from clear and becoming less clear as more is known…..the newspaper cutting illustrated at the top of the page shows that there was warming in the Arctic in the 1920’s, we also know that there was ‘Global cooling’ in the 1970’s….and then we have these types of claims….such as we’ll never see snow again….

This from 2012:

Met Office: Arctic sea-ice loss linked to colder, drier UK winters

Decreasing amounts of ice in the far north is contributing to colder winters and drought, chief scientist Julia Slingo tells MPs
She added that more cold winters mean less water, and could exacerbate future droughts. “The replenishment of aquifers generally happens in winter and spring … a wet summer does not replenish aquifers. So we are concerned if we have a sequence of cold winters that could be much more damaging,” she told the committee.
Last month the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, warned farmers that drought might become “the new normal” for the UK, because of climate change.

“Two very dry winters – this may be the new norm,” the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs.

 

Laughably Harrabin doubts the Met. Office when they don’t toe the Green line:

“The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office.”

 

And then there’s this:

 

 

The ice is growing.

 

 

 

And today from WUWT we have this from the Green scientist’s Bible, ‘Nature’:

The journal Nature embraces ‘the pause’ and ocean cycles as the cause, Trenberth still betting his heat will show up

Read the article and you will see they smash the CO2 link to climate change…..but they can’t agree….one scientist claims one thing…others the complete, dare I say Polar, opposite:

‘There are two potential holes in his assessment. First, the historical ocean-temperature data are notoriously imprecise, leading many researchers to dispute Cane’s assertion that the equatorial Pacific shifted towards a more La Niña-like state during the past century. Second, many researchers have found the opposite pattern in simulations with full climate models, which factor in the suite of atmospheric and oceanic interactions beyond the equatorial Pacific.’

 

Here is that feedback programme with Roger Bolton…where the presenter is happy to label sceptics as ‘Deniers’…Bishop Hill was not impressed:

 

Worst BBC programme of all time?

BBC Radio 4’s Feedback programme looked at the space given to global warming sceptics in the period covering the release of the Fifth Assessment Report.
The programme was shameless, stupid and dishonest.

 

What was so dishonest about the programme?…well for a start the so-called ‘callers’ were in fact people with vested interests in maintaining the green hoax…not mentioned by the BBC……merely calling them….‘some Feedback listeners’.

Source: BBC Radio 4: FeedbackURL: N/A
Date: 18/10/2013Event: Steve Jones about “passionate climate deniers” – “no point in talking to them”Attribution: BBC Radio 4Also see: Sep 27, 2013: BBC Radio 4: Bob Carter: the IPCC’s 95% probability is “hocus-pocus science”
People:
Dr. Anjana Ahuja: Science writer and author
Roger Bolton: Presenter, BBC Radio 4: Feedback
Professor Bob Carter: Palaeontologist, stratigrapher and marine geologist
Roger Harrabin: BBC’s Environment Analyst
Professor Steve Jones: Emeritus Professor of Genetics, University College London
Simon Sharp [?]: Feedback listener
Peter Verney [?]: Feedback listener

Roger Bolton: Hello. BBC journalists are required to be impartial, as is the presenter of Feedback. But should one be impartial where the facts are clear? The World at One gave airtime to a climate change sceptic, a geologist. Right or wrong decision? Many Feedback listeners think: the latter.
Male listener: This person was not a climate scientist, and he was clearly not qualified to speak on the subject.

Roger Bolton: The author of a BBC Trust report into accuracy and balance in science reporting, Professor Steve Jones, is also critical of the World at One’s decision. But should voices which challenge the consensus be silenced? Isn’t that censorship?
Steve Jones: The problem with passionate climate change deniers out there is that whatever the evidence, they will not accept that they are wrong. So, under those circumstances, there’s no real point in talking to them.

 

So just who were those ‘Feedback listeners’?

Peter Verney, “Darfur’s Manmade Disaster,” Middle East Report Online, 22 July 2004.
Simon Sharp   ‘I am the Director of Green Route Energy and have been working in the renewable energy sector for over 10 years.  We take great pride in giving honest, jargon free advice on the various products and services on the market.

 

Hardly what you might call impartial callers….highly dishonest of the BBC to present them as such.

 

The whole point of the CMEP seminars and other work was to ‘improve the communication of climate change’….not to help you understand…but to get you to believe….to change the public’s behaviour…here we are explicitly told why:

Nick Pidgeon, Professor of Environmental Psychology at Cardiff University, told us that ‘communication is vital for the narrative. If the emerging evidence  about the impacts of climate change – extreme weather events, floods, heat waves etc – are not communicated and not connected to climate change, then it won’t be possible to change behaviour or the public will not see it as a priority to adapt.
If the communication isn’t there, the lifestyle changes won’t happen.

 

Far from being ‘silent’ the BBC has been working hard to push that narrative…happily linking the floods to climate change…..

 
Battered Britain: Storms, Tides and Floods
After weeks of devastating weather across the UK, Sophie Raworth presents a special programme in which BBC News correspondents report on the scale of the damage, what caused it, and how those affected by it are coping.

 

Well..it wasn’t weeks of devastating weather…. a few days of powerful storms followed up by many days of rain….much of the damage was actually done by high tides.

 

 

‘The oldest man living does not remember such great floods and so much water. Everything beyond Bridgwater is like a sea.’ 1809

 

 

Here the BBC dishonestly concentrates on the Somerset Levels…a clue in the name there…just why do they flood?  The BBC didn’t bother to reveal that they always flood, and have done for thousands of years.

Muchelney on Somerset Levels still cut off by floods

From Wikipedia……
The Somerset Levels, or the Somerset Levels and Moors as they are less commonly but more correctly known, is a sparsely populated coastal plain and wetland area of central Somerset, South West England, running south from the Mendip Hills to the Blackdown Hills.

One explanation for the county of Somerset’s name is that, in prehistory, because of winter flooding people restricted their use of the Levels to the summer, leading to a derivation from Sumorsaete, meaning land of the summer people.

 

We have had the new narrative from Harrabin about why we get more floods now apparently….we get the same rainfall but it comes in shorter more intense bursts….

‘The issue is the way it falls in sudden bursts not the amount of rain.‘

 

The BBC’s own ‘sceptic’ Paul Hudson asks…..

Is the perceived rise in flooding real?

‘Could it be that this is more a function of urbanisation and flood plain development, than any significant increase in high intensity rainfall events?

And the media could have played their part in making us think that flooding is on the increase.

 

100 years ago we would have no idea if there had been flash floods in some parts of the country, but 24 news has changed all that and within hours pictures of floods from around the world are beamed into our living rooms.

 

This all adds to the perception that the frequency of serious floods are on the increase when it could be that its simply the awareness of flooding that has changed – coupled with the extensive flood plain development that we have witnessed in the last few decades.’

 

 

As this official plot shows there doesn’t seem to have been much change in rainfall patterns at all…and the earliest date must be around 1720…there is a distinct 50 year pattern:

 

 

 

The BBC continues to make dramatic headline linking floods and climate change:

Lack of research linking climate change and floods is a ‘scandal’

 

But hang on the BBC’s Matt McGrath says this:

Scientists expect rising emissions of carbon dioxide to weaken the temperature contrast between the Poles and the Equator leading to potentially weaker storms.

 

But aren’t the floods caused by global warming, caused by CO2,  and which forced extreme cold air down from the Pole to meet very warm air from the South…the contrast generating the Polar Vortex in the US and the ‘extreme’ storms here? Now we’re told global warming will bring us weaker storms.

Very complicated all this.  Just can’t keep up with all the great ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CLIMATE CHANGE BIAS…

A Biased BBC reader notes;

“I watched Wild Winter: Surviving Avalanches on BBC4 last night (Tuesday). A fantastic documentary, except for the following. At the 39 minute mark we have cine material showing the snowy Cairngorms in the 1960’s, and then scenes of the next two snowless decades. This is followed by news footage of the last three years of sever snow. The narrator adds a token global warming comment and then goes on to explain how weather is affected by many things. BUT, right in the middle of this a bizarre scene has been crudely inserted where a ‘climate scientist’ tells us he knows what the weather is going to be in 2080, and it’s going to be hot! Cue scene with orange glow. I have watched it again and again, and if you mute this brief segment, the narrator’s voice effortless segues, making perfect sense. I have shown this to a colleague who doesn’t share my bias, and he agrees that this clip appears to have been edited in afterwards in order to remain ‘on message’.  The programme is on iplayer now on BBC4, fast forward to 39 minutes and watch BBC warble gloaming propaganda at its finest.”