Wednesday
Nov232011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Why Tyndall sponsored CMEP
Nov 23, 2011 BBC Climate: Sceptics Email 2496 explains why the Tyndall Centre funded the Harrabin/Smith seminars - the Real World seminars of the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme
Mike Hulme:
Did anyone hear Stott vs. Houghton on Today, radio 4 this morning? Woeful stuff really. This is one reason why Tyndall is sponsoring the Cambridge Media/Environment Programme to starve this type of reporting at source.
Reader Comments (24)
It just gets worse and worse. the BBC needs to suspend Harabin and his boss, Fransworth, and hold an enquiry. This is corrupt, pay for influence journalism. This is not what we expect from the BBC. the DG must act. This is so serious that it cannot be ignored or spun away. This is becoming one of the biggest scandals to hit the BBC.
"The Cause" is obviously supported by the BBC. We have know for years, now the proof is there and the charter is just ignored! Back to a select committee?
http://twitter.com/#!/BBCRBlack
Strange comment from Richard Black on twitter:
<quote>
BBCRBlack Richard Black
.@PerryStalsis1 Your tweets are defamatory. I have taken no money from UEA, was not involved in BBC climate seminars. Expect you to desist
</quote>
Here is Richard Black happily pronouncing away disinformation-wise in a BBC seminar http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/3/blackening-the-name-of-the-bbc.html
And the emails reveal a close relationship between, Richard Black, Phil, Mike, et al. e.g. 2780.txt.
Odd.
According to Richard Black's twitter feed - he was at a briefing with Acton and Jones today. Has there been any reporting of this in the media? Were there any journalists who were not part of the 'team' present?
Who was briefing who I wonder.
ZT I think that PerryStalsis is confusing Black with Harribin
Hulme:
"Did anyone hear Stott vs. Houghton on Today, radio 4 this morning? Woeful stuff really....."
Didn't hear it personally but it rather sounds like Stott gave Houghton a 'kicking'!
Well we can now pretty sure that Mike Hulme attended the Harrabin, CMEP, climate change the challenge to broadcasting.. seminar..
We could justvask him who went, not saying now, looks far worse than holding out on foi?
The Houghton /Stott confrontation is mentioned in a 25 Feb 2002 article by Alex Kirby, BBC online envioronment correspondent at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/1833902.stm
which gives an audio link “Prof Philip Stott and the IPCC's Sir John Houghton debate the "certainties" of climate change” but the link doesn’t work. Kirby in the article quotes Stott as saying:
"The problem with a chaotic coupled non-linear system as complex as climate is that you can no more predict successfully the outcome of doing something as of not doing something. Kyoto will not halt climate change. Full stop."
Can you imagine the present BBC enviro journalists letting a quote like that past them?
@ZT
In fairness to Richard Black, as far as we know Black hasn't taken money, Stalsis should apologise and withdraw the remarks
geoffchambers:
Prof Philip Stott is the regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's "Home Planet". I'm not sure how he manages to stay on the programme, but he obviously has to be very careful what he says. I recall that on several programmes he has appeared with UEA people like Hulme and Watson.
I agree we don't know if Black has taken money - PerryStalsis - but we certainly know that Black has been involved in BBC climate seminars, in fact the film of such an event shows Black pursuing the Bob Ward/Phil Jones approach statistical analysis.
'This is corrupt, pay for influence journalism. This is not what we expect from the BBC.'
Personally, it is EXACTLY what I expect from the BBC - rotten to the core!
I miss Philip Stott's blog 'Clamour of the Times' which disappeared over a year ago, but some of the articles are still preserved on Climate Realists site.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=5&page=1
Did I see someone list him as a chairman at a seminar in Parliament at the end of the month with Laframboise Plimer and Matt Ridley?
Just found it, a link from Phillip Bratby in unthreaded, and 24 free tickets still available!
http://repealtheact.eventbrite.com/
Some analytically minded chap (Andrew?) needs to pull all these BBC related bits, released emails and current revelations, together for a proper complaint submission to the BBC Trust, if not elsewhere. Another book perhaps?
There really has to be a way to get the BBC to treat climate science in an objective way - for the sake of everybody.
Harrabin was on the Tyndall Advisory Board at the start of Tyndall
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=988
Schellnhuber" <REDACTED>
date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 15:12:40 +0000
from: Mike Hulme <REDACTED>
subject: Advisory Board members
Dear RMT member,
We have been strongly 'encouraged' by our Advisory Board to broaden
membership slightly to include someone from the media, another NGO member,
and an 'economist' or investor, also to think carefully about membership of
our External Review Panel and our Annual Assessment Panel. I am therefore
proposing the following:
1. We invite three more members to our AB:
Roger Harrabin (media; Radio BBC) - reserve Paul Brown (The Guardian)
Bill Hare (NGO; Greenpeace) - reserves Mike Harley (English Nature);
Derek Norman (NWREDACTED Sustainability Group)
???? (one suggestion Thomas Johansson, energy economist, UNDP/Sweden) -
others please.
Beebgate
Nov 23, 2011 at 9:19 PM | Unregistered Commenter MikeT
Some analytically minded chap (Andrew?) needs to pull all these BBC related bits, released emails and current revelations, together for a proper complaint submission to the BBC Trust, if not elsewhere. Another book perhaps?
There really has to be a way to get the BBC to treat climate science in an objective way - for the sake of everybody.
Totally agree. At the moment all we sceptics are doing is talking amongst ourselves, while Roger Black, Susan Watts and Revkin carry on as before. Harrabin is quiet but he has been lying low for a number of weeks now, probably because of the £15k payment from outwith the BBC. There is clear evidence in the emails of noble cause corruption, incompetence and dishonesty within CRU and the IPCC scientists. Surely it must be possible for a few leading sceptics (e.g. Whitehouse / Peiser / Montford?) to request a friendly and informal meeting with the head of BBC News to explain the reality of what Climategate is all about, and the shortcomings (and in some cases complicity) of Harrabin and Black?
Dennis A,
The ever amazing Web Archive confirms that Roger Harrabin did make it to the Advisory Board.
Heh, Iapogus, Andy Revkin is getting hammered on his ClimateGate thread at DotEarth. wmar seems practically in tears begging him to consider, in the bowels of Christ, that he might be wrong.
================
BBC journalists and editors have been corrupted by corrupt climate scientists, and willingly so.
There is no way the corporation can turn on this, no escape, they have been cornered.
No one will believe a word that the Beeb will have to say on climate change, not one word.
All PerryStalsis has to do is tweet Black that she's sorry, but she was confusing him with Harrabin!
Pharos
"I miss Philip Stott's blog 'Clamour of the Times'"
Me too. I wonder if that was the price for staying on the BBC (paranoia, I know)? Most of it seems to appear elsewhere though - I thought this was apposite to the current situation:
Link
Black works for the BBC, and the BBC's reporting on climate change through Harrabin's efforts, was surely strongly influenced by the UEA.
Apparently Black has been receiving private briefings from Acton and Jones (according to his twitter feed) following Climategate-2.0.
Effectively Black and Harrabin have adopted the same position as Bob Ward - they are PR people for the UEA and the cause of 'proving' AGW, nothing more. The key difference being that, unlike Ward, Black and Harrabin did not disclose their involvement with the UEA.
Surely this violates every standard that the BBC once held?