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Oct162010
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Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Lobbywatch and the Fox
Oct 16, 2010 Climate: other Media Interesting suggestion here that the SMC may have been "got at" by the Lobbywatch organisation.
(H/T Messenger)
Oct 16, 2010 Climate: other Media
Reader Comments (49)
After reading that Lobbywatch site who is watching Lobbywatch !!!!!!
''Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive'' .
Difficult to follow the twists and turns in this story, this latest only adds to the confusion. Clearly cartoon worthy but where do you start!
The same names keep cropping up over and over again - Fox, Ward, Hoskins, Monbiot, Oxburgh. Is it not time someone, with the necessay knowledge and diligence, produced one of those charts revealing these seemingly interlinked networks? I think it would be quite revealing.
OT Delete if required.
And anyone know if this is still on the cards
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100021983/delingpole-to-be-appointed-independents-environment-correspondent/
Fiona moves in a bizarro world of Dave Spart meets Citizen Smith while working for the People's Front for Judea
maybe it would have read better if started "Interesting suggestion here by lobbywatch that..." or I should have waited for the coffee to kick in, I read the article wondering why lobbywatch would want to "get at" SMC :-)
It all reads very nefarious eh, lots of smoke, no sign of fire yet.
@oldtimer
'Is it not time someone, with the necessary knowledge and diligence, produced one of those charts revealing these seemingly interlinked networks? I think it would be quite revealing'
A splendid idea I was thinking just the same. How many of these publicly funded idiots are there? I was at the guardian's climategate debate and there was a fair sprinkling of nutters present..but every time you look there is another organisation sprung up to (presumably) lobby for public money to take other publicly funded peeps out to lunch and whinge about how hard life is now that public opinion is no longer universally in favour of the Catastrophists. And that maybe one day they will actually have to do something for a living.
Rumour has it that Mr Cameron and his government are ditching their green credentials as fast as decently possible. In round 2 they should make a close examination and purge of these parasites.
The social network you describe would make a fine starting point.
I wonder if the BBC's Richard Black & Roger Harrabin really appreciated this from Fiona Fox:
BBC Newswatch(23/04/10) - talking aboutthe BBC science /environment team
Fiona Fox: "On Climate change there has been a real change.. People like Richard Black and Roger Harrabin, fighting internally to say we DON’T have to have a sceptic every time we have a climate story.”
At the Guardian Climategate debate: ( I was there, so first hand)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/audio/2010/jul/15/guardian-climategate-hacked-emails-debate
Fiona Fox (Director Science and the Media -advises governments!!) asked a question, pretty much attacking the Guardian journalists, for being irresponsble for reporting about climategate. She was quite scarey, sounded VERY angry, (listen to the audio)
Fred Pearce's reply was perfect, comparing to how reporting MP’s expenses was referred as attacking democarcy initially, but long term better for democracy (cf climate science)
Fiona Fox, sounded to me, like a very strident ‘activist’,
JohnH. Re Delingpole and the Indie Environment job. Sadly, it ain't going to happen.
Latimer Alder. Mr Cameron's government may be ditching its green credentials, but their 'dear leader' is as green as ever. (see you on Tuesday evening ?)
@toad
Tuesday? - sorry you've lost me there. Sadly I am away in His Grace's dominion on that day bringing succour to the kilted heathens.
I think Mr Cameron is a politician to his fingertips....and may turn out to be a very good one as well. And what played well with middle England when times were good under the brownian fools paradise will gradually be ditched. being canny, he doesn't do it explicitly..it will just fall by the wayside in his pronouncements.
Meanwhile, the Renewables Advisory Board and Office for Renewable Energy Deployment have been ditched as 'no longer a priority'. And rumour has is that the barking 'Feed in Tariff' is up for major changes in the PSR. Huhne may be as green as the come, but is a relatively small player in the big picture of public spending. Be prepared to see a very different shade of government in a year from now.
Oldtime,
Someone with such diligence and knowledge might care to send the details to Channel 4's Who Knows Who minisite to see if they will include it.
Oldtimer,
I got your name right this time!
Latimer Alder. Hope you're right about the Government, we'll have to beg to differ about its leader. You were at the Monbiot 'do' so thought you might be at whatever it is I'm going to on Tuesday.
I trust you've read the 'Lean' column in the print edition of the DT. Further to his 'jolly' with the president of the Maldives he regales us with intimate details of his visit to the loo at the Holiday Inn. He received a 'jet of water for "cleansing", followed by a 'blast of air for "drying". I'm sure all who are concerned about 'global warming' and 'climate change' need to know that !
The febrile world of the political class! This LobbyWatch group is apparently an idea from George Monbiot:
'While individuals and organisations tracked in the LobbyWatch directory often connect closely to leading figures in the political, scientific and corporate establishments, just as important is the extent to which the ideas and rhetoric that they promote has infected the political and cultural mainstream. It was in this context that British journalist and author George Monbiot came up with the idea of lobbywatch.org as a means of more widely exposing the complex web of pro-corporate lobbying our research was uncovering, and its disturbing reach.' (http://www.lobbywatch.org/lm_intro.html).
My immediate reaction to this is that some political activists want deeply to see themselves in an heroic light. When suitable dragons don't exist, they can proceed to invent them. Thus a handful of largely self-funded sceptics worldwide becomes part of a sinister conspiracy funded by big oil. There are two advantages to this: first, no need to spend much time on the data and the ideas since these distractions are merely there to obscure the real motivations of the conspirators; second, the activist becomes the hero, selflessly resisting the tyranny of the powerful. Now, in the case the of the climate business, this is of course the complete reverse of the truth: by orders of magnitude, more money is spent by with and for those hooked on CO2-alarmism, and this has produced a plethora of lobbyists, organisations, and initiatives aimed at young children, teachers, youth groups, the media, politicians of all persuasions, and also the elderly. They enjoy the vigorous backing of the UN, carbon-traders, the leaderships at least of some scientific societies and university research groups, many NGOs, and of major political initiatives such as the IPCC. I have made a primitive attempt to begin a listing of websites most relevant to schools on my blog (http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/p/climate-sites-aimed-at.html), which I am most flattered to see has been included on the Bishop's broad list.
The strong interest of the left in climate matters is part of the transition they made from being for 'progress', for 'industrialisation', for 'higher standards of living', for 'helping the world's poor' etc etc, into being against all of these things. They seem no longer concerned with the poor old proletariat and the oppressed. Rare species, computer models of climate, reducing energy use, de-industrialisation, crippling the developing countries, and of course, that window-dressing par excellence, saving the planet, are all far more important for them. Now why is that? My own crude hunch is that they were hugely impressed by the political/media impact of the computer models and doomsaying of the Club of Rome and 'Limits to Growth' in the 1970s. The subsequent refutation by the real world of those models and dooms is of course merely 'facts and figures', serving only to obscure and distract from the real destiny of Gaia according to the preachings and the prophecies of the new faith.
Peeks into the more squalid reality behind these 'heroic roles' were given by climategate, by the manoeuvres of the IPCC, by the hijacking of Wikipedia and the BBC (to name but two), by the coining and widespread use of the term 'climate change denier', and by the antics of various personalities involved in the PR thought necessary by some to keep the wagon rolling. The babbles and rages may yet increase as we may now wish to watch groups who wish to watch lobbyists who wish to watch politicians, and with some in every node keen to denigrate and despise 'the other side'. What a mess has been created thanks to the impact of speculative computer models. They may have taken the place of the prophets of doom of earlier ages, who only had private revelations to get their shows on the road with.
Lobbywatch....."It was in this context that British journalist and author George Monbiot came up with the idea of lobbywatch.org"
As Josh quoted, "'Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive'' .
Wow, I got dizzy trying to work out who was suposed to be doing what to whom.
I assume the gist was SMC are turncoats because they’re crap at what they are supposed to be doing (fighting sceptics) and have been seen in the company of sceptics (Spiked)? That must rule out most of the AGW brigade... if not all.
Two connected and green funded organisations Lobbywatch and Spinwatch who haven’t got enough people to populate one web site have set themselves up to ‘monitors the role of public relations and spin in contemporary society’ and ‘helps track deceptive PR’ but can’t see that they are up to exactly the same tactics.
And they accuse us of playing the conspiracy card! What a bunch of losers.
Reading Lobbywatch is a bit like listening to a game of Mornington Crescent. The aim is clear, to get to Frank Furedi in as few moves as possible. Apart from that the rules are far too complicated to explain to the uninitiated. Not that that stops the audience from applauding good moves.
TinyCO2, robustly put. And good to see you commenting over here. Your posts on other blogs are always very entertaining and have generally been perfect grist to the cartoon mill.
Do email if you can, Josh at cartoonsbyjosh.com
@dreadnought
Frank Furedi?? You are showing your age! Wasn't he the Precinct Captain in Hill Street Blues?
Curious article on Lobbywatch.
On the one hand they quote approvingly:
So why, asks Laurie Taylor, Times Higher columnist and visiting professor of politics and sociology at Birkbeck College, London, do all these former Trotskyists agree in detail on what appears to be in essence a right-wing platform and how can they call themselves academics if they appear to deny independent thought? You might have expected them to travel in a variety of directions after the collapse of their revolutionary dream in the Nineties, but many peddle similar lines.
Thus they all agree.
On the other hand we know Fiona and her sister (and fellow LM associate) Claire disagree about AGW
Thus they exhibit differences of opinion.
[Another difference is that the LM crowd endorse GM food while the SMC and Fiona do not.]
Curious how "they all think the same" proves there is some secret co-ordination and the fact there is difference suggests that Fiona can't be trusted. Wheels within wheels!
They do seem a touch paranoid.
Thanks Josh, high praise indeed!
I can’t e-mail today (wrong computer) but I will ASAP. In the interim, please use any or all jokes you find worthy. I’m a total fan of yours, both as a sceptic, a comedian and as an artist. I think good cartooning (is that a word?) is possibly the most difficult art form and should replace all that conceptual rubbish at the Tate Modern. Now there's a subject that can get me almost as riled as climate change ;-)
Dear Bish
It would seem strange at first glance that Andy Rowell, (he of the burning forests) would complain about Fiona Fox. But if you look carefully at the "Bias" section of his letter, he hardly has anything specific to offer. So, what gives? A large portion of the letter refers only to GM food crops and such - which has been the same area of focus for both Andy Russell and Fiona Fox's SMC.
One is a well-funded operation, drawing money from Monsanto and similar agri/pharma and other biological research organization, to put a positive sheen on their work. The other, a single investigative journalist who has followed the GM foods campaigning by private companies, digging out dirt and reporting on them.
It is to expected, that they be at loggerheads.
Sorry, forgot to add background material
Josh
''Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive'' .
Difficult to follow the twists and turns in this story, this latest only adds to the confusion. Clearly cartoon worthy but where do you start!
Actually, it's been done already
Reading that lobby watch stuff had me agreeing with George Mobiot.
Maybe there is hope for his journalistic career, if he were to bring some of these issues up to date and do an insider exposee of the great global warming scam, rather than help promote it
Fiona Fox and her buddies are doing a great job as active communists, destroying the economies of the western world, for the betterment of their Russian and Chinese comrades.
Sadly they do not seem to have noticed that the Russians and Chinese have realised that communism does not work, so they will just carry on with their secret and very successful mission.
Just read all the links to stuff about Fiona Fox, George Monbiot, Science Media Centre, Claire Fox, Institute for Ideas etc.
What a confusing situation for the Warmist crowd.
1. Former Marxists disguise their extreme belief systems and secretly infiltrate positions of power of influence and authority in modern day society in order to promote belief in catastrophic man-made global warming.
Or
2. Former Marxists disguise their extreme belief systems and secretly infiltrate positions of power of influence and authority in modern day society in order to oppose belief in catastrophic man-made global warming.
Oh, the confusion!
A neat summary, Stuck-record!
If only they would just battle away with each other, as per their long history of factionalism, and leave the rest of the world alone to get on with things...But that is an idle daydream since their factionalism has not always been enough to disable them - sometimes one faction can gain ascendancy and real power, and then all hell breaks loose. We saw that most dramatically, and most miserably, in Russia, Germany, and China in the 20th century. But there are many other examples, on smaller scales, but also bloody, vicious, and destructive. Red buttons widely deployed. Real progress delayed.
The Introduction at LobbyWatch is interesting. They started as anti-GM, then embraced other anti-tech and anti-capitalist causes (see list below).
The anti-GM, anti-pesticide crowd is an offshoot of natural (organic) farming, a religious anti-science movement. Precautionary Principle is legislated paranoid to stifle technological progress.
Why anyone would defend the corrupt and ineffective UN is unbelievable. AGW activists believe every loony left and green cause. That's enough for me to question the validity of AGW alarmism.
= from intro =
While these groups often serve as platforms for promoting GM, they are also used by Bate to launch attacks on:
the Kyoto treaty
the UN, World Health Organisation, aid agencies and NGOs
the weakening of drug patents
restrictions on smoking
the environmental movement
the precautionary principle
organic farming
restrictions on pesticide use, on-farm antibiotics and other aspects of intensive farming
restrictions on industrial chemicals.
So the People's Front of Judea are upset with the Popular Front of Judea while fearing that the Judean's People's Front are launching an insurgency within the Roman bureaucracy? Is that it?
This explains it all
@John Lish: Splitters!
Don Pablo, brilliant - the Escher is such a good analogy. My best effort so far was this http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/hound-fox-weasel_scr.jpg - definitely not as clever as Escher.
TinyCO2 - ditto - esp the stuff on Monbiot's CiF which gets so animated (so you got banned?)
With Fiona Fox controlling the views of the MSM, including the BBC, aswell as the Royal Society, she probably believes she has the power to control the weather too.
Would the once proud and respected Royal Society and/or BBC, care to disagree, or is this not permitted by Fiona Fox? She has a proven record of destroying careers with a single phone call after all
I read it, but I have absolutely no idea what the hell it was all about.
I read it, but I have absolutely no idea what the hell it was all about.
Oct 16, 2010 at 5:15 PM | Robinson
You passed the test then LOL
Hi Josh. i recommend that you start in a very large milliners shop.
These anti-capitalists (Fox, Monbiot, et al) all behave like ferrets in a sack. They love splitting hairs by splitting heads.
I think I've got the gist of things.
(1) many who wrote for Living Marxism, supported the IRA, etc, have now infiltrated the PR end of science (Richard Lindzen wrote an excellent paper on backdoor infiltration). This appears to be the background and character of Fiona Fox, now director of SMC. There really appears to be a whole Social Network of intrepid female infiltrators inspired by Frank Furardi.
(2) none of them have science degrees
(3) Lobbywatch makes it look as if LM alumnus Fiona infiltrated leftist SMC in order to promote rightwing climate scepticism
(4) but strangely, LM alumnus Fiona Fox and her chum Bob Ward now vociferously support climate alarmism and oppose LM alumnus Martin Durkin. Has Fifi changed sides mid-term, in order to continue her infiltration work?
(5) THE LACK OF SCIENCE is the real casualty. With a bit of basic information and scientific clarity there would be decent debate and no need for hysterics.
Now I know what's caused the climate wars. Spin. Suck the science out, the debate stops, and Spin appears, Diabolo himself, served by both Monbiot and the Fox sisters (reference intended). Ha, this strengthens my belief that we still need a climate sceptics' wiki.
@John Lish
No John, you've got it all muddled up.
The People's Warm Front (PWF) split off from the Revolutionary Warm Front (RWF), whose rump went on to form the Warm Popular Front (WPF) by merging with the Warmist Liberation Front (WLF). The WPF often gets mistaken with the People's Union of Warm Frontists (PUWF) - who are an altogether different group and are largely behind the Warm Wedge Movement (WWM). The Popular Cold Front (PCF) unanimously voted to disband some years ago, due to falling membership and general lack of interest (GLOI).
This Lobbywatch:
It reminds me of the novel by Umberto Eco 'Foucault's Pendulum'. These people need to get out more and find out that many people in the world don't agree with them on anything.
above link mentions the 'Royal Institution (RI)' not the 'Royal Society'
anybody know how the RI relates to the RS?
website welcome reads -
"This is the Royal Institution, where science meets the world.
At the RI you can explore two centuries of great scientific breakthroughs, and discover the newest big ideas about our universe and everything in it.
We're a museum, an events space, a place to eat and drink, and much more."
'much more'!! naughty,naughty, sounds fun.
do agree with other posters on being confused on the message, seems some enviromentalists are beginning to wake up to the idea that their movement/cause may have been hijacked from within by trusted groups to further other agenda's.
John Shade: "the hijacking of .. the BBC"
There's nothing new about the Left's 'hijacking' of the BBC. Guy Burgess was working there back in 1936.
SMC is a subsidiary of the RI, which financially is in a spot of bother after some rather expensive building refurbishments. So it should be looking at cost cutting areas, especially if those could help with it's pension deficit. 3 lucky members of the RI's staff get a final salary pension, contribution zero it seems themselves but taking £10k+ a month from the RI. The RI in typical UK accounting fashion doesn't name names for either it's high earners, or it's future pensioners.
As far as I know, there's no real relationship between the RI and RS, other than funding woes meaning more need for government intervention, commercial sponsorship and thus potential conflicts of interest. Oh, and Bob. He used to spin for the RS, now spinning at the RI.
A detailed explanation of the relationship(s) between various groups...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE
@Lucy Skywalker
Certainly the LM/RCP/Spiked! circle is a rum bunch; I think it's fair for Monbiot, Hari, Zac Goldsmith or anyone else to look askance at it. That said, I don't know how accurate is the idea that LM is pursuing some co-ordinated master strategy or deep game of entryism, false flags and revolutionary defeatism. For one thing, it's not always easy to tell the difference between entryism and cronyism.
Monbiot's dismay at the response to his big piece on LM
seems pretty amusing. Did GM consider that Maddox - a big wheel in scientific publishing and a left-winger of an older, more pro-industrial stripe - might well have been more sympathetic to LM's stance on science and industry than his own? And it's not as if the old Science Pope himself would never countenance a bit of institutional chicanery for the cause. Speaking of Monbiot's views, anyone who wanted to carp about double standards could certainly point to his affinity for the New Internationalist (say who?) - another group of offbeat leftists with an interesting history and set of relationships.
Monbiot was/is an anti-capitalist who has called for world governance, was a founder member of Respect (a hodge-podge of former Marxists-Trotskyists-Socialists-Nutters-Numpties), a former Plaid Cymru and now a LibDem supporter.
Monbiot's journey and transformation is so typical of the generation of middle-class and university-educated activists in search of a bandwagon in order to prove they were not like mummy and daddy.
It is interesting to note how people like Andy Rowell, who provided submitted the complaint on SMC to LobbyWatch, and George Monbiot are well connected and who are completely immersed in conspiracy theories.
Eco-paranoia would be a good description of these regular denouncements by Monbiot, Rowell, etc, of so called far-right oil-funded organisations opposed to environmentalism but also of people who once shared their ideals but who have strayed from the path of eco-righteousness. It reminds me of how Eastern European communist parties used to behave.
Mark Twain summed it up best, "In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."
Atomic
re-
3 lucky members of the RI's staff get a final salary pension, contribution zero it seems themselves but taking £10k+ a month from the RI. The RI in typical UK accounting fashion doesn't name names for either it's high earners, or it's future pensioners.
have got this right? and where from if correct.
thanks.