Bishop Hill The Tyndall invoices
Nov 21, 2011 BBC Climate: CRU As we know, the Harrabin/Smith-organised Real World seminars were sponsored by, among others, the Tyndall Centre at UEA.
I have always felt the funding arrangements were perhaps less important than the identities of the people who attended and the fact that the BBC Trust misrepresented them (perhaps unwittingly). However, the funding arrangements seem to have caught the public attention and this prompted me to look more closely at the invoices sent to the Tyndall Centre.
Guess who the invoices were addressed to? It is a familiar name for anyone who has read the Climategate emails.
Here are two of the three (Click for full size)
;)
;)
Professor Hulme, was of course, one of the scientists who was involved in what appeared to be a plot to undermine the peer review process.
Reader Comments (102)
Well done, Bish. You seem to have lifted a rock...
It's déjà vu, all over again.
Hulme is cleverly trying to make this Lysenkoism convolved with back radiation, enhanced surface reflection, 33K instead of ~9K present GHG warming AND CO2 brings the World out of ice ages, 2000 years before the first warming starts as Antarctic polar ice melts and restarts the deep ocean current, alive.
Tell you what: neutrinos make this pseudo-science work by amplifying TSI before CO2 appears.
Mike Hume is always being interviewed by BBC news about global warming.
Has he purchased airtime?
déjà vu
UEA =CRU+ BBC / E=MC2 -60 nanoseconds
Hold on.
Mike Hulme academic gives Harrabins group £15,000. harrabin's group 'facilitates contact between the BBc and scientists.'
Then the BBC interview Hulme about climate change, lots of times.
This is another stinky herring.
Did the BBC editors who invited Hulme onto their prigs know he had given this money? How many times has Harrabin interviewed Hulme?
Geesh. This just gets more and more corrupt.
Mike Hulme was also an advocate of preventing sceptic papers being published, by influencing or boycotting journals.
April 2003, Tom Wigley:
July 2003, Mike Mann:
Ah, Mr. Teflon-man appears again! It was Hulme who evidently had "forgotten" all about his involvement in circulating the pre-Kyoto "Statement of European Climate Scientists on Actions to Protect Global Climate" chain E-mail with the subject-line: "ATTENTION, Invitation to influence Kyoto".
It was also Hulme whose own emails had been deemed to be exempt from examination by the Muir Russell "enquiry" (well, at least to the extent that the enquiry actually examined any of the emails!)
And it was also Hulme who has given the world such memorable phrases as:
and
and
And my all-time favourite "Hulmisms" ...
As we coast into COP17 on 28th November, BBC R4's "The Infinite Monkey Cage" will be looking a "balance" with Brian Cox and a special guest appearance from Paul Nurse on that same day.
According to the trailer at the end of this weeks episode
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017cb0w/The_Infinite_Monkey_Cage_Series_5_Whats_the_North_Ever_Done_for_Us/
"...is it only fair to give everyone a platform however wrong they are?"
(at 27:30 onwards)
I expect the fact that these two events are happening at the same time is the purest coincidence, and we won't be hearing phrases involving the words "denier", "consensus", "robust" etc. etc. etc.
Phillip and others: There's no doubt in my mind that Hulme was bad news - very bad news - in the 2003-4 timescale, when the invoices were addressed to him and he was also muttering about 'almost on a par with holocaust denial' when a couple of geographers took a different view of rainfall in the Sahel (for goodness sake - how totally inappropriate was that - and harmful in the extreme as it became common currency.)
The question raised for me by Hulme's recent rather public disagreement with Myles Allen on Newsnight on the anniversary of Climategate (and thus my birthday, 17 Nov 11) is whether he has since seen the light in any meaningful sense. I admit to be completely uncertain about that. But I guess time will tell, including how forthcoming he and others are about the undue influence on the BBC exercised in those days (not excluding the present of course).
You asked for examples of your 'motivated reasoning' - this is a great example.
It can't possibly be that Hulme was head of the Centre and so all invoices needed to cross his desk. That would be far too simple. No, it has to be part of some conspiracy, and just so that we get the point, you make up some previous conspiracy Hulme was supposedly part of, to do something dastardly like 'undermine peer review' which as far as I can tell from last weeks post, was, is and remains 'useless'.
Thus, last week we were dissing peer review as corrupt, and this week we are striving to maintain it's integrity - all as a function of who we are supposed to be cheering or jeering. Give me a break.
(and all of this is completely apart from the nonsense implication that scientists can't have an opinion about the quality of a journal based on the quality of papers it publishes. They are free to read, review for, submit to any journal (or not) they choose.).
Anything to stir the pot, eh?
Many thanks mrsean2k for the tip-off. The trailer says:
“Next week we’re going to be looking at balance and asking “is it only fair to give everyone a platform however wrong they are?” So we’ll be joined by the president of the Royal Society, Paul Nurse, and the week after that we’ll be dealing with all the complaints from people who say we were very one-sided in our handling of the idea that the moon is a hollow space ship. There really is a book about that by the way. They’ve gathered all the scientific evidence, and then on the second page they start to make things up”.
Should be fun.
Slightly off topic but did anyone here watch David Shukman bleating on the 6 pm news about the 'extraordinary increase' of CO2 in the atmosphere? You might get another chance at 10 pm if you can force yourselves. I look forward to the scathing, but polite comments that I read on this blog; I am sure His Grace will have something to say on the matter!
Did Shukman say "extraordinary' ? This is surely over the top. We're we expecting it?
The BBC is certainly ratcheting up the scaremongering in the run-up to Durban. Whereas, previously, most of Richard Black et al's pieces of warmist nonsense invited comment from readers I have noticed that most of the recent articles do not. I am sure that this is purely a statistical blip and nothing to do with the derision that many of the BBC's most recent propaganda stories have attracted.
I wonder where the collective imaginations of the BBC's Environment Dept will go in the post-Durban era in order to try and keep the dream alive?
Keep up the good work your grace.
look at Fig 3 - the increase in CO2. WMO's own graph.
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/images/co2_big.jpg
any justification for Shukman calling this years increase 'extraordinary?'
er...no.
Don't you think that with all these revelations the Jones report is looking a little sick?
Frank
In answer to your points.
1. The point was made in the Mail on Sunday that Harrabin should have disclosed his funding from UEA. I think this is reasonable criticism, although as I point out in the header post, I make less of this than some of the other issues surrounding CMEP. In the circumstances, the information that the invoices were addressed to one of the Climategate correspondents is important. I think in academia, individual members of staff usually sign off their own invoices. Perhaps some of the regulars here can confirm/correct me here.
2. The attempt to get rid of von Storch was clearly a conspiracy, although it's fair to say we don't know for certain what role the conspirators played in the final outcome because the SciTech committee and the Russell inquiry failed to investigate. So I'm not sure why you say I "made it up". Read the emails yourself.
3. I get very tired of people attacking me based on what they say is implied in what I say. I have not said or implied that scientists cannot have an opinion on a journal. I agree with Richard Horton that there is a line that can be crossed regarding what scientists say to journals about other people's papers. As I have already noted, we don't know whether that line was crossed because none of the inquiries ascertained what was said to the journals.
Does the Jones report look sick? Does it matter? It's done its job.
Does the Russell enquiry look sick?
Does the Oxburgh enquiry look sick?
Does the Penn State enquiry look sick?
Bishop,
A couple of years back Harrabin jetted around the world doing a series on places that were being affected by rising sea levels.
I recall it because it was full of ignorant, unscientific twaddle.
But you might look into where the funding came from. Those kind of trips run into the tens of thousands.
Roger Harrabin was also the one who altered a BBC article after pressure from Jo Abbess
Expect a denial that he's ever been a climate journalist soon.
On Harrabin's side, I give him credit for a revelatory question to Phil Jones, which revealed to me that there have been three episodes of warming at the same rate in the last century and a half.
===================
I have read the emails and all of the commentary on the Soon and Baliunas paper at CR, and you are completely wrong.
There was no 'conspiracy' to get rid of von Storch. Why would there be since he wasn't involved in inappropriately slipping S&B under the radar into the journal? (That was de Freitas). And the idea that von Storch would resign under pressure from anyone else is laughable. Read his own description of the issue:
That you insist that there is still some mystery here is clearly a triumph of hope over experience.
And finally, people wouldn't attack you based on implications of what you say if you didn't spend all your time dog-whistling. The whole "I'm just mentioning climategate and hinting that Hulme was a nefarious conspirator but I'm not implying anything about the current topic, oh no." shtick is a completely transparent smear - and your commenters predictably lap it up. That there was no conspiracy and people have an absolute right to say what they want about a journal or a paper to anyone they care to is apparently not worth mentioning. This is very low.
[Frank. I think you need to reread the emails. In particular 1051190249. Also, I'm not hinting that Hulme is a nefarious conspirator (at least regarding the BBC). I am suggesting that Harrabin should have recused himself from reporting on Climategate because he had had funding from Tyndall]
@ kim - yes, but I have always wondered why that interview was only ever released as a transcript. The BBC is a broadcast media not print, and given that Jones had effectively gone to ground for three months, and the interview was a bit of a scoop, I find it odd that Harrabin/the BBC did not release the video/audio tape for wider circulation.
My thoughts on all this are that Harrabin got too close to his contacts in CRU and Hadley, and went native as it were. Roger Black has done likewise and David Shuckman's sycophancy for the Caitlin~WWF team was just embarrassing (e.g. he got one of them to jump into an open lead and then stated that the lack of ice was due to global warming).
As BH remarked last week, there are very few decent journalists out there, and most have been quite happy not to ask any questions regarding the integrity of the leading climate scientists and the IPCC. The Hockey Stick Illusion and Donna's Delinquent Teenager should be compulsory reading for the new BBC Science Editor candidates, and whoever runs the BBC's College of Journalism. The entire Channel 4 News team also, which I have refused to watch since their cosy interviews with Ed Milliband in the run up to COP15. Jon Snow stating that the Cumbria flood was a direct result of AGW was the last straw for me. </rant>
According to Mike Hulme's 'openness and transparency' page (http://mikehulme.org/category/bio-and-cv/, Hulme receives money from many and varied sources. Of course, precise details are not provided, nor are details of the distributions of money which Hulme has overseen, such as to Harrabin and Smith.
In the interests of openness and transparency, I would have thought that the UK taxpayer would be entitled to know what services Hulme provided, and what he received for these services. Additionally, I would have thought that a reporting of the ways in which he spent taxpayer money would also be in order. Such openness and transparency would remove any possible suggestion that Hulme's research has been influenced by his donors or that he has influenced bodies such as the BBC in distributing funds to activism organizations, such as that run by Harrabin and Smith.
Frank
Your quote from von Storch is one he put out when he hadn't read the Climategate emails. As such therefore, it is meaningless. Need anymore straws to clutch?
ZT
Not much in Mike Hulmes name at CRU:-
"Recent CRU Grants"
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/research/grants.htm
Maybe he is UEA?
Also so far no grants starting this year, is this a sign of the times?
rubs hands...so Frank is the latest exemplar of Cedric Katesby, Zeds and Hengist...welcome ye of little independednt brain. I hope that troll central gives you good briefings.
Mel' says it all about Mike Hulme really, another lowly activist 'riding the wave' and never a scientist whatsoever.
Geoff Chambers wrote -
"The only other person known to have been invited, named in the submission, is Andrew Simms, an environmental activist who warns Guardian readers of the coming end of the world on the first of every month (“x Months and Counting...”)."
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/21/mail-pulls-the-harrabin-story.html
Simms was co-editor with Joe Smith on Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?
Centre - Environmental Living & Training
Conservation via Education
Here are a few quotes taken from Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth
There is plenty of evidence to show that the rich could lower their levels of consumerism, freeing up ‘environmental space’ for the poor in which to develop, without the rich undermining their own subjective well-being. Most people in wealthy countries are already far beyond the point where there is any relationship between their earnings and their life satisfaction. (Andrew Simms and Joe Smith – editors Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth ?)
http://www.celtnet.org/page27.php
@Frank,
You're clearly hurting mate. It'll pass; time is the best of all healers!
Green Sand - Hulme is a 'professor' in the Environmental Sciences Department at the UEA. He mentions 30M pounds worth of grants trousered (I believe that this the term in use at the UEA). His 'openness and transparency' comments are far from open or transparent, but do indicate that he is also hauling in a healthy second salary through his various advocacy activities. Such is the selfless life of a dedicated activist.
It would be interesting to know whose money Hulme invested in Roger Harrabin's activism.
Frank writes:
"(and all of this is completely apart from the nonsense implication that scientists can't have an opinion about the quality of a journal based on the quality of papers it publishes. They are free to read, review for, submit to any journal (or not) they choose.)."
Within a discipline, the pecking order of journals is well known. If you publish an article in a second tier journal you do so at some risk to your professional reputation. But these matters have nothing to do with the criticisms of journals made by Climategaters. Climategaters consulted one another in the work of targeting one or another journal because the journal was not following the Climategaters' preferred line on global warming. All these matters are as clear as the nose on your face and you embarrass yourself to suggest otherwise.
Does the Brit-in-the-street view Hulme in the same way that the American-in-the-street views Gore? If not, why not?
At the core of a social mania it is probably not unusual to find a small dedicated group taking every advantage to fuel the fire of their chosen faith, to suppress contra-ideas, and seeking to win others to the cause.
@BishopHill
Please note that matthu is repeating an unfounded assertion, when he notes : "Roger Harrabin was also the one who altered a BBC article after pressure from Jo Abbess" at Nov 21, 2011 at 10:10 PM
Both Roger Harrabin and myself do not agree with this interpretation of what took place. It took a few days of dialogue, but the Daily Mail agreed to publish our views on the matter, in response to an unfavourable and unresearched piece from Peter Sissons, an article for which Sissons did not seek an interview or opinion from either of us :-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350206/BBC-propaganda-machine-climate-change-says-Peter-Sissons.html
"I don't recognise Peter Sissons’ portrayal of the BBC’s reporting on climate change (Mail) and I’d like to scotch the myth that I changed an online report on the World Meteorological Organisation at the behest of a green campaigner. I amended my copy not because of the campaigner, but because the WMO suggested a better way of reflecting the science. The amendments didn’t alter the message that global temperature had stalled, albeit at an elevated level. The campaigner assumed the changes were provoked by her, but she was wrong."
ROGER HARRABIN, BBC environment analyst
"As the ‘green activist’ in the piece, I don’t agree that I ‘berated’ Roger Harrabin. I was a bit upset but it was a respectful email exchange. The minor changes he made were not proof of journalistic malpractice but to better reflect the evidence from the World Meteorological Organisation." JO ABBESS
I think your readers should reflect a while on how easily you publish inaccuracies without challenge. I would ask that you allow the targets of your and your commentators' unwarranted accusations the opportunity to correct the record.
It is time that you started to apply your energy and intelligence to the true science of global warming and climate change, instead of busying your mind with the pseudo-narrative of denial.
Climate change denial has a long history, some of it connected to thought control experiments, conducted by the same people that brought you the Cold War and "safe" cigarettes.
It's for your own psychological good to disbelieve some scare stories, and to accept without question cynical tall tales.
If you were a true sceptic, you would question everything, and make sure you are relying on good sources. So far, your output suggests to me you are ready to believe nonsense at the drop of a hat, which is why I usually do not bother to attempt to engage with you. Stop disbelieving and start reading.
> Does the Brit-in-the-street view Hulme in the same way that the American-in-the-street views Gore? If not, why not?
Because Hulme is way smarter than Gore, and in fact, has fallen out badly with hard-core Warmists as he moves his position to a more integral approach. He basically says now that we can't address 'climate change' from a purely science/policy angle.
He also dumped on the IPCC:
He was interviewed on the BBC a while back, and infuriated watching Alarmists with his equivocal answers, such that one of them said of his performance:
and
He is one of the most interesting of the characters in this saga -- a Marxist who admits the legitimacy of other positions. Not similar to Al Gore at all.
Jo abbess
"I would ask that you allow the targets of your and your commentators' unwarranted accusations the opportunity to correct the record."
"If you were a true sceptic, you would question everything, and make sure you are relying on good sources. So far, your output suggests to me you are ready to believe nonsense at the drop of a hat, which is why I usually do not bother to attempt to engage with you."
You can lead an ass to water but rarely do you get the satisfaction of observing it drowned.
Jo Abbess commands
'Stop disbelieving', you Fool.
'Make off with his head'.
==============
@MsA
'Climate change denial has a long history, some of it connected to thought control experiments, conducted by the same people that brought you the Cold War and "safe" cigarettes'
Don't worry lass. When History takes stock of 'Climate change denial' you'll have your own chapter.
has anyone ever posted this, with pictures? never know it such stuff is even relevant...
July 2008: Memex 1.1
John Naughton’s online diary
Real World
If you’d dropped a bomb on the Cavonius Centre at Gonville & Caius College in Cambridge any time in the last two days then you’d have wiped out most of the senior creative people in the BBC (plus a few academics). They were gathered for the annual media seminar organised by my colleague Joe Smith in collaboration with Roger Harrabin and others from the BBC and IBT, who now has the grand title of BBC Environmental Analyst. The purpose of the event is to get the BBC folks away from their highly-pressured environment and expose them to a spectrum of thinkers from academia and the arts world. I chaired one of the ongoing panels (with the magnificently opaque theme of ‘Things’). My fellow-panellists were a fascinating mix: Edmund de Waal, who is a distinguished potter and Professor of Ceramics at Westminster University; Dilys Williams, the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, at the London College of Fashion (both shown below); Heather Ackroyd, an amazingly inventive artist; and Tony Lake, who until a few weeks ago was Chief Constable of Lincolnshire...ETC
http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2008/07/04/5287
Good luck with your revisionism Ms Abbot but take it up with the El Register first.
Just one wee quote as an aide memoire.
'This week, campaigner Jo Abbess is boasting about how she browbeat the BBC into modifying a story about Global Warming.'
Doesn't ring a bell then the next sentence may assist.
'The BBC has defended the changes to its story'
Reminds me of that lovely phrase of one of the Profumo ladies back in the sixties
'Well they would say that, wouldn't they' Forgive me my inexact recall but credit me with an accurate sentiment.
For the rest of the article just copy and paste the following link into your bruiser of choice
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/08/bbc_blog_bully/
Fascinating link (and pictures), thanks pat. I hadn't noted John Lloyd's role as co-chair until now, for example. I'd like not to have to diss the guy. Then there's this:
Openness and vigour sounds good. One just wishes one knew of sceptics apart from Richard North who had been invited. It sounds as if Climategate and the initial inquiries of Tony Newbery and the Bish in early 2010 put paid to the jaunt in any case.
again, not sure of the relevance:
Posted by Mark Galloway: Real World Brainstorms
2006
A one day event was held in London on January 26 2006, focusing on climate change and
its impact on development. The brainstorm brought together 28 BBC executives and
independent producers, this time including several from BBC News, and 28 policy
experts. It was chaired by Fergal Keane and looked ahead to the next 10 years, to explore
the challenges facing television in covering this issue. Several delegates attended from
developing countries, including Ethiopia, China and Bangladesh
http://www.ibt.org.uk/all_documents/dialogue/Real%20World%20Brainstorm%20update%2030Jul08.pdf
Frank
What part of Tom Wigley's "We must get rid of von Storch too" do you think refutes a conspiracy to get rid of him?
Jo Abbess
Split hairs much?
my final hopefully relevant link. i never feel FCO is considered properly when matters BBC are discussed. this is a couple of months after Simms attended the Seminar:
pdf: March 2006: UN: Growth is Failing the Poor: The Unbalanced Distribution
of the Benefi ts and Costs of Global Economic Growth
David Woodward and Andrew Simms
David Woodward is Head of the New Global Economy Programme at nef (the new economics
foundation), and a former economic adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the World
Health Organisation and Save the Children (UK). He is the author of Debt, Adjustment and
Poverty in Developing Countries (1992) and The Next Crisis? Direct and Equity Investment in
Developing Countries (2001), and co-editor of Global Public Goods for Health (2002).
Andrew Simms is Policy Director at nef (the new economics foundation). Previously, at
Christian Aid, he was one of the original organizers of the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign. He
is the author of Ecological Debt: the health of the planet and the wealth of nations (2005) and sits
on the board of The Energy and Resources Institute Europe and Greenpeace UK. He is a regular
contributor to the annual World Disasters Report of the International Red Cross and has written
extensively on climate change, energy issues and globalization....
http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2006/wp20_2006.pdf
Jo Abbess,
Your attempted your plea to your peers...
http://portal.campaigncc.org/node/2089
...and nobody stood up for your "noble cause corruption". Time to check the direction of thought control ;)
Lay off matthu.
re Jo Abbess
I was just about to google the name when I remembered her as the person who put dragged Harrabin by the nose to the Truth, put the fear of gods in his heart and forced him to modify one of his BBC articles to her satisfaction.
It is a privilege to be in the same religion as Harrabin.
Funny how she writes eerily similar to our resident troll ZDB. Contrary to rumours, I never thought ZDB was female.
An there is this:
"So far, your output suggests to me you are ready to believe nonsense at the drop of a hat, which is why I usually do not bother to attempt to engage with you."
Jo Abbess, here you are rarely mentioned and never missed.
From Intrepid's link:
"Jo follows in the footsteps of leaders like those in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so many others that "shape" the information allowed to citizens in order to keep them on the path of "emerging truth"."
(...a bit harsh on the Mullahs, but one gets the picture.)
Jo
My comments threads are open if anyone wants to correct anything I've written.
Regarding the allegation that you persuaded Roger Harrabin to change an article, I'm in "Don't know" mode. I know that you wrote to Roger to try to get him to change it and that he wrote back saying "watch this space" or words to that effect. Roger has claimed that the change was instigated by the WMO. I FOI'd the BBC for this correspondence, but they took advantage of their exemption. A further FOI request revealed that there had been some correspondence between WMO and Harrabin in the relevant timeframe.
It's possible then that this is a story that has undeservedly developed "legs", but obviously we can't be sure without seeing the emails.
At the root of the problem IMHO is the BBC's culture of secrecy. Instead of stealth editing the article, Harrabin should have appended the correspondecence from the WMO. Then we would have learned something.