Bishop Hill Climate science in the media
Mar 23, 2010 Climate: other Media If anyone is going to a seminar called Climate Science in the Media I'd be interested to have a report on the proceedings. Details of the meeting, which are shown below, were apparently distributed by email only:
We would like to invite you and your scientists to our Climate Science in the Media workshop on Wednesday 31 March 2010 at the Royal Institution from 12.30pm to 5pm with drinks afterwards. The event is supported by the Natural Environment Research Council.
Climate science has never been as prominent in the news as over the past three months. It is paramount that the evidence is communicated correctly, and that scientists and journalists recognise the benefits of working effectively together. This will be an opportunity to discuss the challenges posed by the ongoing coverage of climate change in the media, and to hear from national news journalists as well as other scientists with experience of media. People speaking at the event so far include:
- Alok Jha (Guardian)
- Tom Clarke (Channel 4)
- Richard Black (BBC Online)
- Fred Pearce (Freelance)
- Mary Hockaday (BBC Multimedia Newsroom)
- Peter Stott (Met Office)
- Brian Hoskins (Imperial)
- Mark Maslin (UCL)
- Bob Ward (Grantham, LSE)
- Bob Watson (CSA, Defra) - TBC
- Alan Thorpe (NERC)
This event is specifically geared towards scientists working in the field of climate change, so please encourage your climate science colleagues to attend. Press officers working with such scientists are also welcome, but if you register please try to bring some of your scientists with you.
If you wish to attend please send your name, job title, institutional e-mail address and phone number to introduction@sciencemediacentre.org. We can't reserve places without names and I would ask only for the names and addresses of confirmed attendees.
Reader Comments (14)
Good grief. If I'm not mistaken from that list of speakers, just another example of the concerted alarmist fightback campaign in action.
Anyone connected with Shell should be regarded as someone who possibly agrees with, and accepts AGM.
When did anyone last see any attack on Shell from any environmetalist body?
Hardly ever.
Why is this?
Could it be that after the debacle of the Brent Spar, when environmentalists forced Shell into an humiliating about-face, (search "Brent Spar" in Wikipedia), the once proud oil major has quietly bent over to avoid upsetting the environmentalist movement?
Or if you prefer it straight, rather than diluted -
http://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting
sounds like a real fun outing.
The seminar is organised by the Science Media Centre. Some familiar names on its board:
Kenny Campbell
Editor, Metro
Dr Philip Campbell
Editor-in-Chief, Nature
Clive Cookson
Science Editor, Financial Times
Dr Peter Cotgreave
Director of Public Affairs, Royal Society
Carolan Davidge
Director of Press & PR, Cancer Research UK
Mike Granatt CB FIPR
Partner, Luther Pendragon and former Director General of Goverment Information and Communication Service
Philip Greenish
Chief Executive, Royal Academy of Engineering
Professor Robin Lovell-Badge FRS
Head of Developmental Genetics, MRC National Institute for Medical Research
Tom Miller
Director of Communications, Imperial College London and STEMPRA committee member
Rebecca Morelle
Science and Nature reporter, BBC News Online
Vivienne Parry
Writer, broadcaster and journalist
Simon Pearson
Night Editor, The Times
Dr Simon Singh
Science writer and broadcaster
Ceri Thomas
Editor, Today, BBC Radio 4
Bob Ward
Policy and Communications Director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science
small world innit...
Cumbrian Lad - that's very interesting. Luther Pendragon eh? Remember them?
It's OK everyone, no-one will take them seriously, they're funded by ExxonMobil! (and BP, and Shell.....)
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/pages/about/funding.htm
Oh yes Bishop, the Arthurian-Celtic sounding publicity agents that the Lord Russell has working for him. So the ex Government communciations agency chief shares tea and biccies with the editor of the R4 Today programme, and Mr Ward of the GRI, whilst Phillip Campbell of Nature (who had to step down from the Noble Lords investigative team) hands round the hob-nobs.
Very cosy.
I'm sure everyone has already spotted this but, Mike Granatt was one of the unexplained attendees of Muir Russells prelaunch meeting. Minutes below;
http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/Note%20of%20Actions%204%20Feb.pdf
Sorry, everyone did. Its in the post immediately before mine. ;-)
Sorry chaps I feel like a record with the needle stuck. I have been banging on about why big oil is up to its neck in funding alarmists, and every day there is new evidence of how pervasive it is. The RealClimate/desmogblog smear, that "denialists" are shills for oil companies, can be applied entirely accurately to the alarmist gang.
One more time: it is a deliberate strategy to create a climate of fear in which governments use taxpayers' money to fund the oil companies' investment in alternative energy sources, allowing them to corner the market in whichever technology turns out to be effective and replace the income from petrochemicals before they run out.
They appear to be saying that any scientist involved with Climate Change can apply to attend, surely there are some AGW skeptics who would be able to go along and fly the flag? I probably couldn't because I've recently been made redundant, so can't give an institutional e-mail address.
" It is paramount that the evidence is communicated correctly, and that scientists and journalists recognise the benefits of working effectively together."
As thry already haver 99% of journalists and editors in their pocket, has it not occurred to them that the the "evidence" is being communicated correctly, but anyone with an O-Level in a science can see that they don't actually have any scientific (empirical) evidence that CO2 is the cause of half the warming.Their problem isn't communication it's credibility.
Attendence is compulsary, otherwise you will be labelled a non-believer.
NERC is government funded to the tune of £400 million (1 1/2 times Britain's Space asgency budget which all goes to ESA) for which they deliver about 20 papers a year on why global warming is catastrophic & why bees appreciated a nice view ... oh & perhaps a little propagandising.
Alan Thorpe of NERC once, through the pages of the Guardian et al, challenged sceptics to a public debate on warming & went into purdah when his bluff was called.
Perhaps this time we can ecpect some honest science rather than eco-fascist propagandising paid for by the taxpayer?