Monday
Jan312011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Monckton's injunction
Jan 31, 2011 BBC Climate: Sceptics Apparently Lord Monckton has tried and failed to have a right of reply appended to tonight's BBC4 documentary about him.
Jan 31, 2011 BBC Climate: Sceptics
Reader Comments (100)
The ambush of Lord Monkton at the end of the programme says more about the BBC’s standards of honesty than Monckton’s. It does, however, show what lengths our national broadcaster will go to in order to defend its position and suggests that the BBC might have realised that its position is weak: if you have to resort to dirty tricks to defend your position, you know you are on dodgy ground. So let us take heart, there is no need for anything other than optimism. My complaint to the BBC is on its way.
Points to add:
While the porgramme makes a lot of Mockton's lack of scientific credentials, and suggests he's just cherry-picking his arguments, that's little different from Gore - to whom the establishment awarded a Nobel Prize (!!) and an Oscar.
And a key question (for this and Nurse's programme), "is this all they can come up with?" No proper and honest review of the sceptics' scientific arguments.
The scientific argument seems to be limited to: "the Climate Scientists know best. No one else is qualified to challenge them. We should just believe them'. The work of McIntyre & co, Climategate and Bishop's book show why we should not.
It would be great to see an in-depth documentary on the subject of The Hockey Stick Illusion. This would do well to highlight the failings of climate science. But who's going to make it, and who broadcast it?
It was propaganda, plain and simple.
Oh and got to love the way within the first 2 minutes the word denier was trotted out, class by the BBC.
Someone needs to break this film down and point out to the BBC every where it was wrong and didn't they give us assurances that science (including Climate change) would be reviewed at the BBC?
Are you mad?
Did you not see Delingpole cut to shreds and utterly discredited by Nobel Laurate Nurse, FRS recently - http://tinyurl.com/49mqa9x?
Did you not see Monkton CRUCIFED by the evidence in the programme e.g. his pathetic selection of a single incorrect paper presented at the IAU? This was not a stich-up by the BEEB. Watch the programme and witness Monkton's humiliation.
And, did you not see the American High School teacher provide youin his 4-way grid of options with the least harmful way forward. I mean, it was intended for children. Surely you could understand that?
Are you not aware that the Pentagon considers Climate Refugees - those fleeing from MMCC - to be the greatest threat to American Homeland Security in the future. Al Quaida and their lunatic bomb makers are NOTHING in comparison?
You will, of course, delete this comment because it is pointing out your limitations but these and so many other points have to be said.
What strikes me is that either side of the issue could make a propagandistic doc and be convincing, so any doc coming to a conclusion either way is by definition propaganda.
If the science was settled via the scientific method, we wouldn't be disputing it.
Sadly I can't see either side commissioning an unbiased doc, and if someone did, I guarantee the sceptics would hail it as a victory for science, while the alarmists would hail it as a sceptic propaganda coup.
Tom Reid
Can I suggest that you moderate your tone a bit. If you are interested in a rational discussion that is.
I don't tend to delete comments - this is not really done very much by people on this side of the debate.
I haven't seen the Monckton programme yet so I can't comment. I can't say I saw anything very exciting in the Delingpole programme, apart from someone being taken aback by an analogy they hadn't thought of before. A little thought suggets that the analogy was a poor one. I found other aspects of the programme - for example Paul Nurse's attitude to Phil Jones - much more interesting.
So, feel free to comment, but please moderate your tone. There is enough hysteria already.
This program was as bad as feared - see woodentop's summary. The main message of the bit I saw (couldnt face all of it) was that skeptics are mostly mad right-wing Americans.
It will be interesting to see your opinion of it Bish if you can force yourself to watch it.
Thanks for not deleting the comment and allowing me to make my point.
It would be good to see some of the data, the facts and the evidence for and against AGW being discussed here. So far, the posts appear to be a series of irrational comments, unsupported by data or a good understanding of scientific principles and processes (including probability) that are being bandied around by a group of people who (for the most part) merely agree with each other without advancing knowledge.
What evidence is there that AGW ISN'T occuring? What evidence is there that the changes in climate (not weather) that we're witnessing now are not anthropogenic in origin?
Remember, by your standard, this has to be peer-reviewed and not just pipe dreams.
Please re-direct to other blogs, if appropriate
Tom
I have just been having a long chat here about the model predictions that us sceptics need to falsify to disprove the A bit of AGW. I describe the model predictions as "not looking too clever" at the moment, although suitably caveated, I think.
@Justin Ert If you're going to make wild speculations at least get the "facts" on which you make your wild speculations right. The Heartland sceptics' conference was in Chicago, where I did not win a prize. That was the Bastiat prize months later in New York, long after Rupert Murray had done his filming.
Please reexamine your paragraph "Did JD really say that he was approached at the Heartland after he scooped his prize? Talk about a big ego getting the better of judgement. What a perfect time to gain someone's confidence.' "in that light and hang your head in shame.
As for this idea that you would all have seen through this blatant con trick, I ask you to re-read my post on how it came to be. I think Murray's line that "“Look, there’s something you need to realise. I’m an independent filmmaker, I have no big budget for this, so I’m dependent on my work being original and interesting. The very last thing the BBC wants to commission is another hatchet job on sceptics. How boring and predictable would that be?” sounds more than plausible. Especially in the context of 2010. Why shouldn't one have faith in one's national broadcaster to tell the other side of the story? Why should one assume that somebody who approaches you in apparent good faith over several months is going to be a snake in the grass? None of you were there, so none of you know. Monckton and his wife were taken in, as were most of us who were filmed by Murray.
I think what I see in a lot of these comments show here is 20/20 hindsight. And I'm really puzzled to see some of you here suggesting I'm a liability. Given that I'm going out, pretty much every day, fighting the corner of a cause most of you believe in, I find this wretched of you in the extreme. I'm taking the flak for YOUR cause. You are not. And while you may not like my style or my libertarian politics I'm articulating the case for scepticism more eloquently and to a larger audience than almost any one of you. We all have our part to play in this: we need the scientists like Richard Lindzen; we need the methodical scrutineers like the Bishop and North et al; and, yes, we need polemicists who bring the debate to an audience who might otherwise not be exposed to it.
Finally I would like to thank Bishop Hill, who gets it even if some of you don't and for whose support and commonsense I'm extremely grateful. One of the things he has recognised is that what is going on here is a [classic Alinskyite] tactic of isolating targets - eg me, Monckton - in order to split the opposition. Every time one of you reaches for the smelling salts when you hear mine or Monckton's name you are not showing how independent minded you are. You are falling into the enemy's trap.
The original plan for the program was to include several AGW skeptics, and several skeptics were filmed. I was one of those. James Delingpole also talks about how they changed the plan to concentrate on Monckton, in his column yesterday. The original plan is the reason for the title: "Meet the Climate Sceptics", which is a really inaccurate title for the final program.
Tom Reid
And are you not aware that Greg Craven is a self-confessed hysteric, who broke down during a presentation to the American ACU, repeatedly screaming "F**k your science!" - and then published a lengthy, incoherent open letter of apology which included the assertion that many climate scientists were building secret survival bunkers?
Ending:-
Most people, including many on the AGW side of the fence , feel that, sadly Greg has some borderline mental health issues and it seems bizarre that the BBC chose to highlight him in their hit piece on Monckton (also a bizarre character it has to be said).
Finally:-
Are you really unaware that the proprietor of this site has written one of the best researched and argued books on the subject - which has been discussed and dissected here for months?
You just happened to drop in for a spot of trolling when the subject was a completely unscientific propaganda programme, which couldn't be refuted scientifically because it didin't attempt to address any of the issues.
Next time you get your trolling orders from the CAAC site - try doing a bit of research first.
JD: "Why shouldn't one have faith in one's national broadcaster to tell the other side of the story?"
Er, well, let's just think a minute here, ..
But otherwise I agree with you. You are a major asset to the rational side of the debate. And if you didn't conduct yourself in the way that you do, then you wouldn't have your Telegraph soapbox.
Hi James, it's tough when you realise you've been had, but there's no point crying over spilt milk.
"As for this idea that you would all have seen through this blatant con trick, I ask you to re-read my post on how it came to be. I think Murray's line ......sounds more than plausible."
Until you spend 5 minutes on Google looking at his past work and interviews expressing his opinion.
All the same, I do take your 20/20 hindsight remark on-board. Props for putting yourself out there. There must be a steep learning curve to handling the Machiavellian alarmist sales campaign, I don't envy you one bit.
To take one small but interesting example from this juvenile film, they showed Monckton reciting elements from the periodic table to the tune of "I am the very model of a modern major-general" and then proceeded to play the original in the background, implying this suggested Monckton was a dilettante.
Actually what he was doing was reciting the parody by Tom Lehrer.
Question: were the narrator and all the filmmakers so ignorant that they did not know of the Lehrer original? Or were they deliberately misrepresenting what Monckton was doing? Answer: almost certainly the latter.
There was also juvenile stress on members of Monckton's audience being "elderly". Apparently they seek refuge from the knowledge that their generation's life's work has been in vain and will have to be undone. This was stated as a fact.
The climategate emails had been "hacked". No reference to the possibility that they had been leaked. Academics allowed to claim that critics of AGW should be ignored unless they published peer reviewed articles, with no reference to the systematic blocking revealed in the climategate emails.
We had an Australian academic using the argument from ignorance, saying we couldn't think what else it could be other than CO2. And we were treated to an Oregon schoolteacher preaching the precautionary principle on a whiteboard without once mentioning costs.
And the topic of "forcing" was introduced as if it was new to the filmmaker, with him expressing astonishment that the whole argument came down to this. Which of course it doesn't.
The floods in Pakistan, China etc were signs of "climate change". And look at Australia, the film said, look what a dustbowl it is. Er ....
Such shoddiness would have disgraced an amateur. Yet the BBC paid (our) good money for it.
JD: "Why shouldn't one have faith in one's national broadcaster to tell the other side of the story?"
Because the establishment is big business and AGW is the policy of big business. That's who the BBC represents.
International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)
BP, Conoco Philips, Shell, E.ON, EDF , Gazprom, Barclays, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs.
@ James Delingpole.
My bad, and my apologies. Not quite hanging my head in shame, but enough for me to accept my assumption was incorrect. However, I believe your excuse was poor. Your critical faculties did desert you along with any editorial control when Murray disappeared with the rushes. It wasn't a live debate, it was a story that you were in, but not written by you.
I would like to respond further by saying that I greatly value your input on the debate - which is why I read your blog every day, and look to you to shout a cause that I genuinely agree with. I felt let down by the two programmes and sounded off. Perhaps I was too accusatory, but nevertheless, it was all disappointing, and for some part I think it could have been avoided.
Justin
I have a hunch that since most of us have watched so much television, we can readily spot and not be fooled by a programme so intent on sneer and smear. The blatant objectives of the Nurse and the Murray programmes were clearly to tag on to and besmirch Delingpole and Monckton. Yet their pickings were meagre indeed, and in each case they did leak some decent insights into the more rational perspective on the climate cacophony. A cacophony which has been amplified in large part by the IPCC's shocking dereliction of its apparent duty to report objectively on climate dynamics in favour of putting CO2 on a pedestal and orchestrating a PR campaign against it. (They were saving the planet, you see, and therefore whatever they did was justified.)
Amidst the whirl of innuendo, sneaky sound effects and visuals, and the neglect of some substantial arguments and facts by the programme makers, Delingpole and Monckton emerged as outstanding men - engaging, sharp, open, friendly, courageous, lucid, and very well informed. I suspect that will be the main impression gained by many who watch these programmes, hardened by years of TV dross and cynicism to see through the shallow journalism which these two programmes epitomise. Two more blots on the BBC's copybook in my opinion.
I am surprised. When I read Tom Reid's original post I thought he was a sceptic taking the piss. The OTT reference to crucifixtion of Monckon and Delingpole and reference to US homeland security's fear of climate refugees and the reminder of the court jester, Craven.
But then I read the Bishop's response and Tom's follow up supporting Trenberth's call for reversal of the null hypothesis, I realised that it was not a piss take. What does it mean when an alarmist's utterences and a piss take of an alarmist's utterances are indistinguishable?
Monckton and Dellingpole, right wing skeptic loonies to be cast adrift?
Interesting tactic, to divide and conquer. Interesting number of early comments alluding to weakness in the arguments these gentlemen support!
For those who suggest this weakness, please list your examples, in so doing you should at least present a reasoned rebuttal to the concerns of the skeptical side of debate. So far there has been little counter argument in support of the case for Anthropogenic Global Warming outside the declaration of a mythical consensus!
The point about the age spectrum of the sceptics is interesting. You get the same message from reading the strangely partisan “talk” exchanges on Wikipedia. Quite often it is suggested that a source, while possibly reliable, is a really old guy (it’s usually a guy). It has to be said that your average FRS is also quite old – and that’s the Institution leading the charge on this issue. And when last I saw statistics, the average age of FRSEs was around 70. I see a bit of wishful thinking going on here. It is questionable whether “the young” can be driven, against common sense, to make the crucial link between their environmental concerns and the particularities of the AGW hypothesis because you don’t have to read much on this topic to start feeling very uneasy.
A science programme that spends time in motive imputation, and character belittlement by association, and not in examination of the rival arguments is a programme mislabelled.
Just to add a footnote to James' excellent clarification of Feb 1, 2011, at 9:18 AM:
This Heartland Conference took place in May 2010 - way even before Climategate.
Here's a list of those giving presentations, and yup, both James and Lord Monckton are amongst them:
http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-news.org/ClimateConference4
If you take a look, you'll see that the poor little tyke making this fillum for the BBC had a whole host of actual scientists who he could have interviewed. Perhaps he thought their arguments were too ... scientific? or they were not .... British enough?
I couldn't possibly say - but it is clear to me that in May 2010 none of us thought the BBC would allow such blatant propaganda to be broadcast.
Could it be Murray started making the program with good honest intentions and eventually got deeper into the BBC’s web and ended up as prey too.
James Dellingpole
You are indeed taking the flak and for that I'm both grateful and admiring.
However, as Frosty points out, a five minute google of Murray's work and a brief visit to the biased BBC site http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/ would have told you (although I think in your heart of hearts you already knew) that the notion of the BBC being "impartial" or even vaguely interested in broadcasting an unbiased (let alone a contrary) view of matters on which it's corporate mind is closed is vastly mistaken. As I write above, I admire your efforts concerning CAGW but you were caught out badly on this one (as was, I think, Monckton). However, even so it's hardly fatal and only strengthens the growing contempt for the BBC and the "scientists" and commentators it connives with to corrupt science.
E Smith
I'll listen to Chomsky on linguistics but, on anything else, his opinion has as much authority as Bono's on development economics.
Umbongo
Chonsky has the authority of having been friends with the top men in American journalism. They may have have been attracted to his super intelligence and knowledge of the reality of US foreign policy.
Viv Evans: "May 2010 - way even before Climategate."
November 2009?
Expecting a drive-by shooting, I ended up thinking that the programme was surprisingly balanced. Monckton was allowed to present the standard sceptic position. That in itself was refreshing. He was also portrayed as a highly intelligent and likeable man. And that was refreshing too.
What shocked me was Murray's statement, towards the end, that he would himself forego his own personal freedom in the face of the climate crisis.
That was the subject that really needed addressing.
Anyway, my two cents on it all are here.
Umbongo, I tend to agree with you about Chomsky. This spoof commentary on the Lord of the Rings says it all - http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/04/22fellowship.html
Can I add my voice to those speaking up for Dellers?
Tom Reid ---
I disagree that it is the position of those who dispute the anthropogenic aspect of climate change to prove anything. It is the climate science community that has proposed a hypothesis (based, as far as I can tell, on the output of computer models) that in spite of millennia of climate change during which the earth has been both warmer and cooler than it is now this particular period of warming is man-made.Can I pick you up on one point from your second posting?
On that basis, it is their responsibility to find and publish empirical evidence to support that hypothesis. It is not up to me or the other contributors to this blog or the members of the wider science community to seek for evidence to dispute what is, in the absence of that empirical evidence, not even a hypothesis but merely an assertion.
Until we have the evidence all we bloggers and commenters can do is either on one side defer to the climate scientists unquestioningly (which I am not prepared to do) or to challenge what little science they allow to leak out of their ivory towers where it seems to us to fly in the face of the world as we understand it.
Like Frank I thought the programme was ok and that the sceptic side came across well.
The main reason was that, once again, the CAGW position was transparently thin on actual scientific evidence. If computer models and appeals to authority are the best that Murray can come up with then there really is not much of an argument to be had.
And I add my thanks to James Delingpole and Christopher Monckton for mopping the rather slimey treatment meted out to them recently. I have great respect for them both.
Sam, this is a wonderful new spin on the Emperor's new clothes. So now we have to prove that the Emperor has no clothes!
One has to ask why should we bother? Let's just wait for the weather.
@Alan Kennedy
> The point about the age spectrum of the sceptics is interesting.
Of course those of us who are younger are also working for a living and typically do not have the time, and sometimes not the income, to attend conferences outside of our professional lives.
@Tom Reid:
You wrote: "Did you not see Monkton CRUCIFED by the evidence in the programme e.g. his pathetic selection of a single incorrect paper presented at the IAU? This was not a stich-up by the BEEB. Watch the programme and witness Monkton's humiliation.
Tom, I watched the programme very carefully. CM was not 'crucified' by the evidence. You will note, if you are fair-minded, that what was actually put to CM was that he had 'claimed' this particular paper had been rebutted by the 'entire' IAU. In fact it was only by ONE scientist.
When this was pointed out to CM by John Abraham (approx 50 mins in), he did a very honourable thing: he apologised for getting his facts wrong. However, it was never shown by Murray that the actual paper was right or wrong. So the evidence really seems still to be out for refereeing. Wouldn't you agree.
I know, let's do a cartoon on that, should be fun ;-)
The emperor, that is, not Tom Reid. Actually when I read his post I thought he was being funny/sarcastic.
E Smith
Having "friends" in high places gives you access to high places. It gives you no academic or other authority whatsoever. You'll be telling me next that Harrabin's access to all those wonderful academics at East Anglia Tech makes him an authority on the science of climate. Actually in Harrabin's case it does make him an authority on what passes as "climate science" but I would no more pay attention to Harrabin's scientific opinion on climate change - or indeed science - than I would Chomsky's on anything outside linguistics and what colour socks he chooses to wear when meeting his "high placed" freinds.
Re Tom Reid
Don't forget new boss of the Royal Society. Did you see that bit where Nurse asked the NASA guy how much CO2 man produced compared to nature? Did you hear the NASA man say 7x as much? Did you hear Nurse ask the question again to be sure?
Of course what you didn't see or hear is Nurse turn to camera and point out that what the NASA man had just said was wrong. But easy mistake to make if you're not a climate scientist and trust the wrong people for advice.
But as for the Monckton show, I thought it was a very crude hatchet job on him and the way it attempted to characterise sceptics. As to how it happened, well, remember the 'scandal' with the police officers infiltrating the climate terrorist groups? Lots of outrage about the abuse of trust from the Guardianistas who I doubt will recognise the same tactics as having been used against Monckton to set him up.
I do have one criticism regarding the science shown in that show though. Acid in a soft drinks bottle? Please don't try that at home.
Whatever you think of Murray, he was pretty open about his prior beliefs and made it quite clear that this was his personal attempt at understanding the reasons why people are sceptical of CAGW, which was a marked contrast to last week's Horizon. In particular, I appreciated his early recognition that sensitivity was the key issue and also his candid statement at the end that combating CAGW will require a temporary suspension of democracy.
Nevertheless, his entire rationale was founded upon Trenberth's recent argument that we change the null hypothesis and put the onus of proof on the deniers; a very subtle “trick” that obviates discussion as to why CAGW theory has failed to make any unambiguous predictions that can be verified/falsified by real-world observations. This not only avoids the most critical step in the Scientific Method but replaces it with the rationales of ‘post-normal science’. As a consequence, I did not agree with either his reasoning or his conclusions and, moreover, thought his feigned friendliness towards Monckton was rather repulsive.
Having said that, he didn't try to hide what he was and where he was going and, on that basis alone, I think he presented the average man-in-the-street with enough evidence to appreciate that this issues is driven primarily by politics, rather than science.
Josh
I think you have nailed the debate very succinctly, Josh. You are as good with words as with the sketch pad.
I agree with Josh; Tom Reid read as parody is excellent. That it is unconscious parody makes it even better. You go, Tom. Keep it up.
=================
The more I read this blog, the more I come back to this quotation and realize that it is the essence of the debate. And the absurdity of the position taken by the warmists.
I must thank Tim Reid for bringing it to my attention.
OOPS! Tom.
Wearing my old glasses again. Sorry!
The programme was a propaganda piece by a journo who was deceitful but not clever.
Murray's pathetic approach: " I weally weally wanted to belief the skeptics but in the end I owe it to my children, the dog next door and all the people in the world to accept the truth spoken by Trenberk, Santa and any other thick Ozzie scientist I could get to quote"
Monckton is not the man, I would prefer Professor Bob Carter or any other scientists who are depoliticised and don't allow themselves to be set up with people who think that homosexuals should be put to death?
Professor Carter's video on utube is superb and if that got a viewing the game would be up. The blogs managed to deal with the newspapers by disseminating information. Maybe television needs to be sidelined using U tube or other online video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI
The above video has has 330 000 hits since 2007 it is one of the most factual arguments against alarmism.
An interesting thing about the 'skeptic' blogs - is that you see discussion aimed at uncovering the truth. E.g. the Delingpole/Justin discussion here. And anyone interested in determining the truth: Bishop Hill, Monckton, Delingpole, Ert, McIntyre, etc., deserves respect.
This general thread makes me wonder about the logic of the "Attack on Science" and the "Smear the Skeptics" defenses used by the CAGW enthusiasts now. Science progresses through 'attacks' on inadequate knowledge. An 'attack on science', is therefore part of the scientific process. Testing, refuting, refining, attacking, are the scientific process. In fact 'an attack on science' is actually, science.
An attack on someone, for being old, for speaking a certain way, for holding a certain view, for owning firearms, etc. is not science. Ill mannered propaganda, not science.
I suspect that the president of the Royal Society knows this - and therefore his participation in the smear campaigns is particularly inexcusable. The documentary film maker activists, and the CRU 'researchers', likely have no background in science or its basis - and so know no better.
For them, smearing people, redefining the peer-reviewed literature, hiding declines, lying about station data, preventing access to data, etc. are justifiable means to an end, and end which is activism, not science.
I tend to agree with those that say JD is a double-edged sword, but at least he is our double-edged sword.
On the subject of the Biased Broadcasting Corporation.
I though this was an interesting article.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/02/01/bbcs-baghdad-al-stitches-propoganda-against-sceptics-opposite-picture-of-german-focus-piece/
I love that and its two-fold allusion.
First, I had a quick google to try and remind myself who first said "He may be a son of a bitch but at least he's our son of a bitch. A fascinating fifteen minutes later and I'm convinced that nobody knows who but the origin may be a certain Thaddeus Stevens, US Congressman 1848-68. Except it was 'damned rascal', not 'son of a bitch' or 'bastard'. Since then, variants have been used by or attributed to a plethora of US hard men. What could be more fitting for our James? :)
The other allusion is that the two-edged sword is often used in contemporary English to mean someone with strong positives and negatives. But in the New Testament (which is bound to be the origin of the phrase, thanks to Wycliffe and the King James guys) it is used of the word of truth itself. Dangerous stuff.
As I see it, you couldn't pay the son of a bitch a bigger compliment!
Re Alan Kennedy
I blame memory and the ignorance and impatience of youth. There was a cracking comment along those lines on the Grauniad concerning wind vs nuclear, commenter said something along the lines of windmills being exciting new technology invented by youngsters and we're just grumpy oldsters sulking about it displacing our 'old' tech like nuclear. But I didn't save a copy.
But I suspect a memory effect. We have 'worst weather in living memory', which depends on how long that memory is. If a climate cycle is 30 years, youngsters won't have a long memory to make comparisons. Veteran sceptics will have lived through more climate cycles and experienced more climate change. The recent Queensland floods would have been exceptional to anyone who had no memories of the more severe 1974 floods. Same with the current cyclone Yasi, but as the BBC reports-
"Many fear this could be worse than Cyclone Tracy, which hit Darwin on Christmas Eve in 1974 and killed 71 people. That was a category four storm - Yasi is a category five."
So perhaps normal for a natural El Nina related weather cycle, not any direct evidence of any climate change or disruption.
Sam, a cartoon for you....
at www.cartoonsbyjosh.com