Monday
Sep272010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Turnbull
Sep 27, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: IPCC Andrew Turnbull, the former cabinet secretary who wrote the foreword to my GWPF report, has an article in the FT looking at where we go from here:
The UK government should demand the changes recommended are implemented immediately for the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment. Only if confidence is restored in the science will there be the trust with the public which policymakers need. Climate science needs to be less dogmatic, welcoming rather than suppressing diverse views, and candid about uncertainties. It needs also to recognise the strong natural variations upon which man-made emissions are superimposed.
Reader Comments (23)
An excellent summary by Lord Turnbull, but one wonders how much influence these pieces have. Still, every little helps. We have to keep chipping away. Slowly slowly catchee monkey.
Lord Turnbull has an excellent reputation with both major political parties as one time head of the civil service. He has no particular axe to grind and has come to his conclusions about the IPCC, purely because he possesses a fine analytical mind. No person reaches the position he held without such a talent.
I think his views need to be brought to the attention of senior politicians in both government and opposition. Unfortunately we now have a fanatical warmist as leader of HM Opposition, and a man with similar ideas as the goverment's Energy and Climate Change Secretary.
It would be beneficial to put this same governmental investigative energy into the energy policy and laws which resulted from this climate research.
My suggestion, and I have practised what I am about to preach, is to write to your MP. My approach was to copy the excellent foreword he wrote to our host`s paper. Lord Turnbull carries weight because he was Secretary of State for Energy and the Environment before he became Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service.
My MP has been receptive to my extensive correspondence with him about Climategate and its ramifications. More than that, he encourages me to do so. The volume of letters received by MPs and Ministers does count. It serves notice that what they say and do on a particular issue is under scrutiny.
It is especially important now that the HoC Science and Technology Committee appears to be reviewing the results of the UEA enquiries and summoning the authors to appear before them. Given that the UEA seems to have cocked a snoot at the S & T Committee and not undertaken the review of the science that was asked for, this should prove a fruitful area for correspondence. Do the MPs really want to be made to look stupid?
There is an interesting interview with Lord Broers, Past President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, tucked away in Mark Tully's Something Understood "The New Age of the Engineer" which was broadcast early on Sunday morning. It contains such gems as "we must have a consistent strategy for energy"; "it is no good dreaming that we would like zero carbon emissions"; "It is all very well to dream, but they may be unrealistic dreams"; "there is a lack of people who understand science and engineering";"Offshore wind will cost 2 to 3 times nuclear say"; "Nuclear will cost 2 to three times gas".
The whole Something Understood programme may be found on BBC I player at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tx33z/Something_Understood_The_New_Age_of_the_Engineer/
Lord Broer's bit starts at about 16 minutes 40 secs.
oldtimer
I am am in fairly constant touch with my MP and I always get a response. He passes my letters on to the relevant minister and ensures I get a response (even if it is a garbage response from the bureaucrats signed by the minister). When I write direct to a minister, I often get no response.
Phillip Bratby
That is good to hear because you are exceptionally well informed and, I am sure, you write well argued letters like the well argued points you make here.
When writing to ministers, I usually do so making him (her) a cc with the principal addressee being my MP. I too have had the occasional brush off from ministers not responding to my letters - not even an acknowledgment - which is very rude. Jack Straw was the last offender when he was Home Secretary.
"Slowly slowly catchee monkey."
Monkey not run out of money for propaganda, yet. Your money.
Well it does depend on who your MP is, anyone live in Brighton?
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/let-mod-tackle-climate-says-lucas-2089975.html
Lord Turnbull wrote,
He also mentions, previously, how the aim of all enquiries had been to "restore confidence". And that seems to be his real agenda: "you must trust us again, so that we can take decisions that affect your lives without questioning them so much".
To me it seems that this is Lord Turnbull's (a real-life Sir Humphrey) concern in all this story. He may well understand what is really going on with climate science and policies (I wonder if any actiive senior civil servant does?) - but he seems more worried about the effect it's having on the effectiveness of government to implement policies generally.
I am also worried that he sees the current mess as a PR problem for the climatologistes, rather than a real-world who-let-these-people-have-sharp-knives-and-matches problem.
JohnH
It must be fun to have Ms Lucas as your MP. Bair-baiting would pale in comparison. However, if you live surrounded by hundreds of greens, it must be pretty awful. I am surrounded by sheep and cattle, which seem to have more intelligence than the Greens and do far less harm to the environment.
I am nowhere near Brighton, but much closer to Bishop as I am north of the border.
Brighton is off my list of beach resorts until Lucas is voted out, maybe one of my chickens is in with a shout ;) .
Turnbull is a good man.
"more Widgery than Saville" - worthy of the kind of inspired oratory that has been missing from Westminster for far too long. I would love to know what Churchill would have said about 'climate change'.
The IAC Report listed 20 excellent and essential recommendations for use in producing AR5.
If the recommendations were made to fix known problems in AR4,
then the reasoning at http://www.accessipcc.com/IACReport/ derives the 20 related AR4 problems and groups them into the 7 major AR4 problem areas below:
AR4 was poorly managed.
AR4 panelists were poorly selected.
AR4 disregarded alternative views.
AR4 handled uncertainty poorly.
AR4 Lead Authors disregarded critical review.
AR4 used unpublished and non-peer-reviewed literature inappropriately.
AR4 Summary for Policy Makers was tainted by political interference.
These seem to destroy the credibility of AR4 and might halt some of the actions based upon AR4.
Instead of directly listing the problems of AR4, the IAC Report states "the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has served society well".
Is this cowardice or hypocracy of the first order or have I missed something?
KPMG connection again... in australia...
27 Sept: BusinessGreen:Gillard debuts Australian climate change committee
Gillard revealed she will chair the 10-member committee herself, with climate change minister Greg Combet and Greens senator Christine Milne serving as co-deputy chairs.
Other members include treasurer Wayne Swan, Greens leader Bob Brown and independent Tony Windsor.
They will be joined by four experts from outside parliament: former government climate advisor Ross Garnaut, climate scientist Will Steffen, KPMG partner Patricia Faulkner and the chairman of the New South Wales electricity regulator Rod Sims.
Gillard has also offered the Liberal-led coalition leader Tony Abbott the chance to nominate two MPs to join the committee, provided that he publicly backs plans to put a price on carbon emissions...
But Gillard insisted the committee will start from the assumption that a carbon price in Australia is necessary.
"Parliamentary members of the committee will be drawn from those who are committed to tackling climate change and who acknowledge that effectively reducing carbon pollution by 2020 will require a carbon price," she said.
The committee is expected to meet monthly until the end of 2011, will aim to reach decisions by consensus, and will report directly to the Cabinet, she added.
Gillard also said that the committee's deliberations would be "broadly limited" to the issue of carbon pricing....
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2270432/gillard-debuts-australian
so our new PM took just weeks to smack the voters:
16 Aug: Channel Nine: PM says no carbon tax under her govt
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said there will not be a tax on carbon while she leads the federal government.
Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan last week said if Labor won the August 21 poll, there would not be a carbon tax during its next three years in power.
Ms Gillard seemed to go a step further on Monday.
"There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead," she told Network Ten...
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7945914
Way off topic but I found this interesting - I hope Andrew doesn't mind me dropping it here.
The link below leads to the BBC's reporting of the recent attack by those wags at 4chan against ACS:Law.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11418962
The attack is part of online activism from 4chan members against aggressive tactics by law firm ACS:Law against file sharers. As part of a co-ordinated attack, including a distributed denial of service attack on their website, the activists managed to gain access to a large number of files on the ACS:Law server, including e-mails and confidential data. These have been uploaded on to a number of file-sharing sites for all to see. It includes a possible breach of the data protection act by ACS:Law by storing unencrypted personal information about BSkyB subscribers who may have been involved in file sharing.
Contrast the BBC's handling of this news event with that of climategate:
1. The release of the e-mails is, at no point, referred to as illegal or a hack by the BBC reporter; five times in the article, and once in the headline, the release of e-mails are referred to as a "leak";
2. The article focuses on the breach of data protection act by ACS:Law rather than the hack - even though in this case, a group has admitted to the hack.
Given this, I don't think the BBC can be credible in claiming their coverage of climategate was neutral. (FWIW, I think their coverage of the ACS:Law case is about right).
Note that Andrew Crossley defends himself by referring to a "criminal attack" on his systems, and refused to comment on the content, in a way reminiscent of the response by many in the climate science community to climategate...
JohnH, other Brighton residents
Perhaps you could ask her to confirm her belief in all that emanates from the IPCC and Hockey Team, and that she would resign if her fundamental beliefs proved groundless? After all, she got eected because of her beliefs, to stay on would be unethical wouldn't it? DOH! She is now an MP, and ethical considerations don't count.
I don't think that UN science is the key to public trust in science -- regardless of what steps the IPCC may take to clean up their mess. The UK govt may have reason to conduct a quality investigation into malfeasance and such, but I don't think that public will give "science" a clean bill of health (or trust) as a result thereof.
Although the Northern Hemisphere readers here generally ignore posts from the Southern Hemisphere on the state of play there (example: see the post above from Pat), the advent of the Gillard Govt minority "Rainbow Coalition" will have a considerable impact on the world economy
This is because the minor Greens party has a very direct policy of closing down the Aus coal export industry, and the Greens now have direct Cabinet input and a high degree of control, specifically on the issue of carbon pricing
This puts the guaranteed baseload power supply of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan into direct unreliability, together with China's steel and aluminium industries. NH citizens will be directly and adversely affected by this
The drill in Whitehall is that ALL constituents' letters passed on to Ministers by MPs are passed down the line to the relevant division and draft replies MUST be provided quickly for the Minister to send to the MP. No "MP's case" is dealt with just by some junior functionary, any draft reply will be checked if not prepared by a middle-ranking oficial. Also, the Minister's Private Office staff will vet the draft reply and send it back for re-drafting if it does not look good enough. And most Ministers are themselves fairly careful in checking the replies they sign to the MPs. The MP or his/her staff then send the Minister's reply on to the constituent. This is all part of the courtesy of Ministers being responsible to Parliament.
But letters sent by the public direct to Ministers do not get this sort of treatment. Usually they get an eventual reply from some official down the line ...."The Minister has asked me to reply to...." Neither the Minister nor his/her Private Office see the replies.
Moral - it is usually pretty pointless to write direct to Ministers. Always write to your MP, his staff will send your letter immediately to the relevant Minister. It does not matter what party your MP is in - all constituents' letter are processed this way. You may get a reply from a relatively junior Minister - but it has been given higher priority and care within the machine than letters sent direct.
John Anderson:
Thanks for that clarification. I shall give up writing directly to Ministers.
ianl8888:
I certainly don't ignore posts from down under. Whether your government is full of more stupidity than ours is of great concern. We are all in this mess together and must help each other out.