Bishop Hill Scientists and bureaucrats
Dec 20, 2010 Bureaucrats Climate: Ward Speculation alert.
As one tries to understand the behind-the-scenes manoevres that are driving the climate change campaign, I find myself looking at the actions of bureaucrats far mor often than I do the actions of politicians.The BBC's coverage of today's announcements on science spending is a case in point.
In response to the announcement of deep cuts in capital budgets for science, our old friend Bob Ward pops up:
Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change said that the Chancellor's announcement was misleading:
"Government spending on research will in fact be about 14% lower in real terms," he said.
"Today's announcement confirms that the government is planning to slash capital expenditure for research. It looks like we could be returning to the dark days of the 1980s and early 1990s when researchers were forced to work in laboratories and facilities that were starved of investment."
Other people have questioned Ward's role at the Grantham Institute - it is unusual in the extreme for a university to employ someone to denigrate anyone who might question a particular point of view, as Pielke Jnr has pointed out. Yet here we have a different aspect to Ward's role - attacking the government cuts with a degree of vigour that even the official opposition don't seem to have managed yet.
How then to make sense of this dual role - climate rottweiler and public spending doberman? One feasible explanation is that he is employed to denigrate climate sceptics, but is a "concerned citizen" as regards the public spending round. But then again, perhaps this is all just part of a single role - one in which Ward is simply paid to defend the considerable vested interests of the scientific bureaucracy.
Reader Comments (26)
Cerberus be thy name.
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Is it particularly surprising that in the UK someone affiliated with a university might bemoan budget cuts that might impair the flow of grant and subsidy money to that school's departments?
In the US we'd expect it.
Bad, Bad LeWard Bob.
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If Ward told me the sun was up I would still go outside to check, his value to any organisation is in his role has attack dog, his far too bad at spinning to be employed for just that . The day his masters decide to sacrifice his arse to save their own will be a good day, and I think you be surprised to see who will cheer him on his way.
"How then to make sense of this dual role - climate rottweiler and public spending doberman? "
I don't see the two roles as being at all incompatible, particularly if one makes reasonable assumptions about where he's coming from. Clearly he would be opposed to increases in the wrong kind of public spending, and hold that although decreases in public spending were to be deprecated as a rule, any hint of a decrease in particular areas (concerning those areas he's paid to do PR in) was particularly lamentable.
Looking at it another way, the scientific bureaucracy has been doing their bit for CAGW and now they're in for a bit of quid pro quo.
I think he's simply employed to defend a position. A position in which the Grantham Institute has invested capital time and money, and was probably hoping for an authoritive position on the world stage. Cutting funding threatens that position therefor needs to be attacked. Thats my take on it.
".....when researchers were forced to work in laboratories and facilities that were starved of investment."
So they all got PC's, stopped doing real science, and let overheating computer models set the political agenda. The Met Office got a sooper dooper new Cray supercomputer in summer 1987, and were so confident in it, that they missed the gale of 15/16 October 1987
I think Bob Ward's prime motivation here is preserving Bob Ward's paycheck.
Climate scepticism reaches University Challenge - in one set of tonights questions, the answers were the Manhattan Declaration, Bjorn Lomborg and Nigel Lawson. But sadly no mention of HSI.
In the shops for Christmas, clockwork Bob Ward attack dogs. Wind-em up, and off they go. Logic not included.
When politicians no longer have any use for "tools", they discard them without hesitation or remorse. Obviously, "climate change" has not been a popular topic for politicos of late, especially since Climategate and the poor economy. Pouring more taxpayers dollars into the bottomless pit of climate predictions doesn't create any jobs except for a few environmental wackos, the latter being perceived by the public as associated with a Met Office that is worse than a groundhog in predicting winter events. So the public is beginning to be very suspect about costs versus climate change shenanigans, and the politicos recognize this and are intending to cut their losses.
bob is saying Conservative govts are anti-science, which may be true given cameron/huhne's belief in CAGW (industries), but the same could be said of Labour.
the following manipulated study was amusing. they only claim to have interviewed 616 people and all the questions were politicised, but none moreso than the following "climate" question. several MSM outlets carried this rubbish - CBS radio, Toronto Star, Globe & Mail among them.
who, viewer or scientist, doesn't believe the climate changes? in fact, judging from the mann's hockey stick, only the CAGW crowd believe it hasn't changed. how ironic.
17 Dec: NYT Blog: Brian Stelter: Study: Some Viewers Were Misinformed by TV News
The study was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a project that is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland...
“Almost daily” viewers of Fox News, the authors said....were 30 points more likely to believe that “most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring...
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/study-some-viewers-were-misinformed-by-tv-news/
worldpublicopinion.org is connected to PIPA, funded by, amongst others -
PIPA: Sponsors
Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Tides Foundation ...
Ben and Jerry's Foundation
University of Maryland Foundation ETCETC
http://www.pipa.org/sponsors.htm
many CAGW believers do not believe in the CAGW Industry responses being touted. it's a pity the two can't be separated.
Dr Crinum,
There are signs that politicians are thinking of hedging their bets and looking to the day when they have to crawl out from under the wreckage of CAGW, but they are only signs. There are other signs that suggest Cameron, Huhne, Clegg and the senior Labour crowd are fully signed up as true believers They truly believe that windmills can make a significant contribution to the grid, that ridiculous emissions targets can be met and there will be lots of green jobs in the new green economy. All quite barking mad and completely oblivious to reality.
So, looking at the UK at least, we have to ask who these politicos are who will decide that they have no use for these "tools" and discard them. There doesn't seem to be anyone senior in the mainstream parties about to have a change of heart. Besides, were they to decide that CAGW was bunk and no more money was going to be wasted, it would involve them in some conflict of interest and it would involve going up against the EU, which underwrites much of the legislation to tackle climate change.
Things are looking much more hopeful in the US.
I am reminded of a certain episode of "Yes, Minister" where Sir Humphrey is talking to a few of the people at his old university. I think the episode was about giving an old bureaucrat a fancy title of some kind but they needed the minister's help to do so. That kind of political and bureaucratic interference in the world of higher education and science seems to be the norm, not just in your country but in mine as well (Sweden).
Our PM, Fredrik Reinfeldt, was persuaded by the AGW crowd through the means of the then forthcoming UN meeting in Copenhagen a few years into his first term as the leader of the new government, it seems, but lately he has been very quiet about the matter. I wonder why.
According to a video i have just watched, Bob Ward is the "Policy and Communications Director" of the grantham institute.
I can,t see how that would qualify him to make such a statement but i might be missing something.
He's also a man of many hats, so this could be rent-a-quote work via the Science Media Centre, the unbiased apolitical go-to people for all your science reporting needs. Must be tough choice deciding which affiliation to speak under, SMC or VC funded think tank founded by a guy who loves making money out of bubbles and stood to make a lot if the government was gullible enough to implement the Stern recommendations.
But on our side of the pond, those anti-terror masters at Homeland Security have created a "Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force.” Apparently, groping old ladies is getting boring and they've decided to try to grope polar bears. Or maybe they plan to use Algore to bore the terrorists into a coma.
"How then to make sense of this dual role - climate rottweiler and public spending doberman? One feasible explanation is that he is employed to denigrate climate sceptics, but is a "concerned citizen" as regards the public spending round."
Ward is there purely to represent the views of his master, $100 billion hedge fund owner Jeremy Grantham .
Lord Stern is also an employee of Grantham and was when he wrote his famous report.
Jeremy Grantham wrote this in his recent newsletter
"Global warming will be the most important investment issue for the foreseeable future. But how to make money around this issue in the next few years is not yet clear to me. In a fast-moving fi eld rife with treacherous politics, there will be many failures. Marketing a “climate” fund would be much easier than outperforming with it."
http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/JGLetter_SummerEssays_2Q10.pdf
All roads lead to carbon trading.
With Jeremy Grantham being a very wealthy philanthropist, surely he would be willing to pick up any deficit in government funding that he thinks is vital to the future of the planet.
Folks, the answer is simple, and more mundane than you think.
Bob Ward works for a group with no managerial control, or indeed structure.
He does what he wants, when he wants, and answers to no one. He uses his 'official' position to indulge personal grudges and whims. He is a 'rent a quote' for his journalist friends.
He did the same at Risk Management Systems and at the Royal Society. The bosses of those organisations clearly had no idea about all that he got up to, or what he was associating their name with.
His type come and go. When his journalistic 'friends' move on so will the number of times he is consulted.
besides, does it really matter what he says. Seems to me he spends all his time fire-fighting climate comments he doesn't like. So what.
I first head him several years ago when he was on the Today Program debating with David Whitehouse about his (Wards) demands to Exxon. Whitehouse called his approach ugly and demolished him.
The tragedy of Ward is that he thinks he is doing something lasting.
Andrew, a new smear campaign against global warming skeptics seems to have started here:
http://globalwarmingsuperheroes.com/
The domain was registered in the UK at:
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Fasthosts Internet Limited, domains@fasthosts.co.uk
+44.8708883600
+44.8708883760 (fax)
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Note the registration date: Record created on 14-Oct-2010
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Any way for UK readers to find out who is behind this?
You can try contacting the owners of globalwarmingsuperheroes.com here:
https://rr-n1-tor.opensrs.net/wp_mailer/
Just paste in globalwarmingsuperheroes.com, fill in the captcha, and you'll get a form to contact the globalwarmingsuperheroes.com admin.
o/t: is it just my comments are being premoderated in the grundian, or everybodys? it says it in red letters above the comment text box.?
Dec 20, 2010 at 11:21 PM | Unregistered Commenter Carl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW7mhtp5a5E
Mark
If you post sceptic comments you are pretty swiftly premoderated. I don't think it's everyone, unless this is a new development.
Perhaps he knows something we don't. Exactly where the cuts will be made....climate studies maybe?
[Snip- venting]