Bishop Hill Bob's reputation in Oz
Nov 2, 2010 Climate: Sceptics Climate: Ward The Grantham Institute should take a close look at their Director of Communications, Bob Ward. In the last few weeks in Australia he has been complicit in so many untruths that it should have a flow-on consequence for them in their dealings with the media.
So says Graham Young, an Australian journalist writing in an article entitled Why you should be careful dealing with Bob Ward, Director of Communications for the Grantham Institute.
I know what he means. The whole piece is well worth a read, with Ward seemingly claiming on TV that he has written a "systematic analysis" of sceptic papers, then failing to respond to requests to supply this analysis to Young, and then changing his story, claiming that he had only written an analysis of a paper by Bob Carter.
Amazingly Ward then upped the ante by writing a letter to the Australian saying that Young had falsely accused him of refusing to supply the paper. As Young notes, this was an extraordinary step, as the correspondence between them was to hand, so that Ward's story was readily shown to be untrue.
Simply astonishing.
Reader Comments (14)
One assumes you have alerted the management/directors/trustees or whatever term of responsible governance of the Grantham Research Institute of these events?
@ Anoneumouse: I suggest that his bosses are well aware of what he does and that they think he is doing a very good job.
@Bishop: it is not astonishing at all. It is part of Bob Ward's (very transparent) tactics never to admit error, especially in the context of attacking a skeptic. Among other things, he is a professional demolisher of the reputations of anyone who might weaken the public perception of CAGW as "settled". That is why, when debating you, he tried to shift the discussion towards your book while attacking it: the logic is, Montford's credibility is based on his book, so I will diminish his credibility by attacking his book and putting him on the defensive.
In this matter of Bob Carter's paper, by never conceding anything he will have reached his goal of damaging Bob Carter's credibility as the author of "the worst ever paper", at least with some people, at least a little. If he concedes anything, the effect would be diminished - and what would be the point of that?
Classic rhetorical reversal. Words mean what the user wants them to.
The usual AGW position: 'Unless you are a fully qualified climate scientist you have no right to speak on this subject. BE QUIET'
The Robyn Williams position: "The point about our interview with Ward was whether he’s right about errors in the sceptics’ publications. What you call Ward is secondary. YOU could say (as Fred Pearce, a journo, did with IPCC and glaciers) that a ‘fact’ is false. You could be right, even if you’re a cleaner."
How revealing.
Love the use of 'fact' as well. How PostModern.
Bob Ward the AGW sceptics best friend. But there are signs that this attack-dog is getting a little long in the tooth and has forgotten that was you become more important than the massage , than as PR man you longer doing your job. It’s going to fun watching him thrown to the dogs once his masters get tired of him. Keep up the good work Bob
How about a guest post here from Bob Carter?
With input from Graham Young, that would give Bob Ward every opportunity to impress people with his spin doctor's integrity.
I think that people are making a huge fuss over a small typo, from "doubters papers" to "doubter's paper".
Not saying that I like Ward, but this just seems asperger's syndrome kind of a thing to me.
Bob Ward - may you live forever.
Luis
No, the producers of the show argued that Ward had been through many papers.
You can listen to or read Ward's interview at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/3023812.htm
"a huge fuss over a small typo"
But even given the opportunity, he didn't say it was a typo. Either that, or he doesn't realise that the position of the apostrophe makes a difference!
I very much doubt if this little story has had any effect on the way most of the readers of this blog think about Bob Ward.
Whilst the fact that the Guardian and the BBC have this minion on speed-dial as an "expert" to supply a warmist insta-quote at the drop of a hat annoys me considerably, it is always nice when he appears in the flesh. A lot of gentle hippies must be quite put off when viewing his dismissive, unpleasant, self-righteous and sneering demeanour. Sometimes I suspect he does quite a bit more harm to his masters than good. Like Pachauri, it is probably best he remain in post.
I never cease to be amazed how blatantly stupid many AGW alarmists are - but they seem to get away with it so often, particularly in the MSM.
It is clear that Robyn Williams allowed himself to be fooled by Bob Ward. That is the weak point and should be pressed hard.
He is Director of Communications, so speaking on behalf of the institute. As their mission statement states, they are moving beyond the science to an agenda based political institute. So it is important that Bob is out there speaking for all the researchers working at LSE and Imperial.
"Drawing on Imperial’s high-quality expertise across areas such as earth sciences, ecology, engineering, medicine, physics and economics, we focus on critical issues such as:
How do we improve our ability to predict the pace and scale of climate change?
How will climate change impact on humans and ecosystems?
What can we do to mitigate the effects of climate change?
What should we be doing to adapt to climate change?"