Bishop Hill Was there a recording of Phil Jones?
Feb 15, 2010 BBC Climate: CRU Climate: Jones There are a few little stories floating around at the moment which I'll post here.
Cool Dude in the comments reports a rumour that Roger Harrabin recorded an interview with Phil Jones but decided not to run with it since Jones came over so badly.
Sources have told me there was a recorded interview and it was decided at high level not to use it because Jones didn't come across very well.
I hope someone from the BBC will comment here because if true this will smack strongly of the BBC playing at a PR service to the environmental movement rather than news reporting on behalf of the licence fee payer. The BBC Trust is soon going to begin a review of the corporation's perceived lack of neutrality on the climate change issue, so a suppression of Jones' interview after the announcement of this review would look very bad and moreover positively reckless.
Perhaps Roger Harrabin could head off this kind of criticism by posting the raw footage on the BBC website.
Reader Comments (39)
Do you think anyone from the BBC monitors this blog? Why not request (FOI) from the BBC a copy of the recorded interview (if they will confirm it exists)?
Logic would suggest, that given that Roger Harrabin's Q and A was done "with co-operation of the UEA's Press Office" and the Climategate review makes the whole issue "sub judice",that UEA press office probably insisted that any interview was checked by them and that the whole thing was likely to be written. This is consistant with Roger Harrabin's comments on Saturday's Today programme, that the interview has been conducted over the last few days.
Listening to the radio 4 broadcast, it does mention that it was an online interview over several days, which I guess could be multi formats but then listening to the language in the broadcast, would lead me to believe that the main interview was voice recorded with perhaps email conformation backup.
Do you think anyone from the BBC monitors this blog? Why not request (FOI) from the BBC a copy of the recorded interview (if they will confirm it exists)?
Because they'll use the "...for journalist purposes" exemption.
The BBC FOI get-out-of-jail-free card
TBH I don't think this sort of thing is helpful.
I can understand various players feeling aggrieved for one reason and another and wanting opponents to capitulate publicly, particularly if they've been the target of various "denier" and "flat earth" smears themselves.
But when someone concedes as much ground as this, going after them to beat them over the head on presentational or side issues isn't likely to encourage anyone else to stick their head over the trench.
Certainly you'll miss a lot of doubtless deserved satisfaction, and some characters will escape censure, but that might be the inevitable price for turning things round.
[BH adds: Sean. I take your point, but my interest is more in Roger Harrabin here - I have followed his output quite closely for a number of years].
I listened to the Radio 4 broadcast, and it did seem odd - Jones' words were 'voiced up' (i.e. read) by 'a producer'. But those words did sound spoken rather that written. It was almost like the days of actors overdubbing IRA members' statements. Actually, that seems quite suitable!
I am a bit confused here, but I collected this web address somewhere, which is a transcription of a Harrabin interview with Jones
The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin put questions to Professor Jones, including several gathered from climate sceptics. The questions were put to Professor Jones with the co-operation of UEA's press office
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm?ad=1
There is a better version here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8511670.stm
And there's an annotated version here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-science-is-settled-issues/#more-16418
Most people in this situation can cut themselves a deal by offering to roll over and give up secrets -- Jones can't because all his secrets are already in the public domain, thanks to Climategate.
I don't envy the man, and as another poster noted, gloating would be unnecessary and unhelpful.
The battle isn't over.
I suspect you have already read this article:-
New research into greenhouse effect challenges theory of man-made global warming.
A former NASA contractor whose theory demonstrating that the greenhouse effect is constant and self-regulating and that increases in human CO2 emissions are not the source of global warming is fighting an uphill battle to publish his controversial work.
Developed by prominent atmospheric physicist Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi, the new theory is enormously significant because it demolishes the prevailing doctrine of anthropogenic greenhouse warming (AGW), which blames humans for pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and triggering runaway global warming that could eventually lead to catastrophic climate change.
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m2d9-New-research-into-greenhouse-effect-challenges-theory-of-manmade-global-warming
Nice work. Stick it to them. I am blogging about the same issue and I'd love to have a recording of this claim on my site.
http://www.harrykey.com/blogs/climategate-uturn-no-warming-since-1995/
http://www.harrykey.com/blogs/climategate-uturn-no-warming-since-1995/
"Perhaps Roger Harrabin could head off this kind of criticism by posting the raw footage on the BBC website."
My lord, surely you jest.
Martyn,
Does Miskolczi explain his strange use of the Virial theorem?
Reading it, I had the strong impression that the 'interview' had been conducted by email, with Harrabin sending Jones a list of questions, and Jones supplying the answers. Why? Because Jones' response to some questions is (something like) "See my response to question D". He wouldn't say something like that if he didn't have the questions in front of him to read. If it had been a face-to-face oral interview, he'd have said something like, "What I said earlier".
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/158214/The-great-climate-change-retreat
I have to agree with Sean and Rick above. There's no need to humiliate the man; whilst it's great to see the debate finally opening up and issues that we have been banging on about for years finally being covered in the media, we absolutely mustn't turn this into a witch-hunt.
If Jones now seems to be acknowledging the uncertainties in climate science, including the existence of the MWP and the unreliability of the temperature record (which is all that we have been asking for these last few years), then that is to be welcomed, not gloated over. So Jones doesn't come across well in an audio interview - well why should he, he's a scientist not a media personality. For heaven's sake let's not descend into the personal attacks and insults that the warmists have been throwing around for years. Climategate is about far more than AGW; its lessons go to the root of how and why scientific research is conducted, how it is funded and its relationship to Public Policy.
If Scientists have been elevated to the status of Secular Gods in our society, and then discovered to be only human - isn't that because the shocking level of science illiteracy of the general populace (especially among the journalistic profession) has put them there, as much as any hubris on the part of scientists ?
It seems to me that a return to the true open spirit of scientific enquiry and an end to the pathetic abuse and name-calling by both sides is what's really needed here.
When Harrabin first mentioned the interview on the Today programme last week, he said it was by email.
I would agree with the comments not wishing a recording made public, even though I disagree with the methods and claims jones made over the years I am empathic to how it must feel to be him right now. I don't think it'll bring anything to the debate by hearing it.
@MarkM: "There's no need to humiliate the man ..."
True enough. The fact that Jones couldn't even marshall the crumb of good faith required to respond to legitimate FOI requests does stick in the throat somewhat but there's no sense in stooping to the same level.
BH - I see, sorry, I didn't get the distinction.
Pa Annoyed
I have no idea whether there is an explanation for the use of the Virial theorem. I was attempting to highlight that Miskolczi reasearch paper was eventually published but faced a great deal of resistance being rejected by a number of leading journals, possibly because it challenged AGW.
Anon, I'm sure that this has been said before, but a lot of the information requested, isn't Prof. Jones to give, it belongs to centres world wide.
josh,
That is a falsehood circulated by UEA and alarmists.
If it were true they would have been able to produce the legal agreements that explained their obligations to the data providers.
If it were true then they broke these agreements whenever the felt like it provided the person asking was a fellow alarmist.
I do agree that the interview posted by Harrabin seems to have been conducted by email. However, sources have told me there was a recorded interview but Jones didn't sound good and a senior editor (John Williams?) ruled it shouldn't be used.
Per comment by Martyn (abv), an active link for Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi's pending paper demonstrating that "(Earth's) greenhouse effect is constant and self-regulating", i.e. that cumulative atmospheric CO2 of any origin (industrial emissions, cyclical ocean warming, etc.) cannot result in global temperature increase, would be of value. Note that Dr. Miskolczi's thesis is amply corroberated by Gerlish and Tscheuschner's paper in the "International Journal of Physics" published by Germany's Institut fur Mathematische Physik in March 2009.
@josh
'I'm sure that this has been said before, but a lot of the information requested, isn't Prof. Jones to give, it belongs to centres world wide'
Let me see if I understand this correctly?
Jones is entitled to use the data in any way he likes..to base papers on it, to manipulate it how he wants. But when it comes to the magical 'peer-review' process he is forbidden from showing it to anyone else? Or he can for the purposes of the peer-review?
But if anyone else comes along afterwards and wants to try to reproduce the work using the same data, then Jones has somehow miraculously become forbidden from passing it on.
How extraordinarily convenient for him. A bit like marking your own A level paper, throwing it away and swearing blind that you got a straight A*. With no supporting evidence other than your own ego.
Or as said in another context 'He would say that wouldn't he?'
Martyn,
Yes, but there are hundreds of sceptical papers published in the peer-reviewed journals. Misckolczi's paper came out several years ago. Why bring up this one, now, under this particular post?
I have a habit of heavily criticising AGWers for citing papers simply because they are peer-reviewed and support their position, without knowing what's in them, or having any idea how the science works. It's incredibly risky in debate, because every now and then they come across somebody like me who does know, and knows the flaws in them, and they get chopped off at the knees. It makes a good impression on the bystanders.
I can use the argument that AGWers are just citing favourable authority, and sceptics are checking facts and evidence, and for someone of a scientific bent that contrast is very convincing. But a real sceptic has to be sceptical of assertions from both sides. The argument loses all merit if I only let things pass when they agree with my own AGW-sceptical beliefs.
So in that spirit, I hope you'll understand when I say that the Miskolczi paper was seized upon eagerly by sceptics when it first came out, and the ClimateAudit forums very quickly identified some major gaps in the argument. Somebody there supposedly wrote to Miskolczi to enquire, but no reply was reported.
As a result, a lot of the more heavyweight sceptics dismiss it, and people like Steve McIntyre can get quite irritated when it keeps coming up. I'm very much in favour of people raising awareness of sceptical arguments, but I'm saying this here and now in the hopes that a few more people might pick up on it. Unless Miskolczi's clarified his use of the Virial theorem recently, it's not going to overthrow the AGW Establishment. But I won't argue any more, if you want to carry on.
Hope that's helpful.
He's in the Guardian again. Incredible
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/phil-jones-lost-weather-data
Pa Annoyed
I suppose misunderstanding on the net could be a bit of a problem for some.
I guess you will know that Dr. Miskolczi first published his work in 2004. He published further statistical proof in the same Journal in 2007. Presumably you will also know that in the 5 years since he first published his results, not one peer review has come back disproving his theory, or his Constant and I guess you have already viewed Miskolczi’s answers to some criticism:-
http://www.miskolczi.webs.com/Answers_to_some_criticism.htm
So I have nothing left to say except I’m going for a beer.
Martyn,
Yes, I've seen that, but it doesn't answer the question. (Which to be fair wasn't well-phrased in the linked response and I think he misunderstood.)
Enjoy your beer.
Professor Jones agreed the interview with me on the strict condition that it was not broadcast.
I pressed to do TV and radio but was refused. The university say he is not well enough to do a broadcast interview. The BBC kept the deal. For the BBC news website interview I sought questions from several prominent climate sceptics. Roger Harrabin.
John thanks for your earlier post, I did notice it but Mr. Angry wanted to make a point so it was up to him to acknowledge your reference to Gerlish and Tscheuschner, but thanks anyway.
Thanks for clearing that up Mr Harrabin; "on the strict condition that it was not broadcast" means it was RECORDED, but on the strict condition that it was not broadcast?
I suggest that we thank Roger Harrabin for telling us exactly what happened, and move one topic.
Jones is clearly not fit enough to take much further part in this discussion at this time. Allow him R&R time until he is well again.
But there are plenty of his colleagues (eg Mann) who are in robust good spirits. Perhaps Mr Harrabin could vigorously approach him..or any others of The Team... with the same questions.
Thats if you believe the line about Jones not being well. Not sure that we should. Too convenient and the players on that side do not have a track record of honesty or playing by the rules. Lets not allow ourselves the luxury of gullibility. BBC bosses DECIDED not to run the interview. How come?
It's worth noting in passing that once again it's thanks only to the blogosphere that we have teased out the truth: that there was a recorded interview.
Neutrality seems to be a real issue for news agencies. No more third party reporting, just sponsored, plugging, open opinionated anchors working for networks that run off of a manual of "how to behave". guitar speed exercises