Tuesday
Dec272011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Buerk wants climate debate
Dec 27, 2011 BBC Climate: other BBC newsreader Michael Buerk has called for a meaningful debate into climate change, strongly criticising the BBC's treatment of dissenting views as heresy.
What gets up my nose is being infantilized by governments, by the BBC, by the Guardian that there is no argument, that all scientists who aren’t cranks and charlatans are agreed on all this, that the consequences are uniformly negative, the issues beyond doubt and the steps to be taken beyond dispute.
Barry Woods (to whom a tip of the hat is due) has further thoughts.
Reader Comments (60)
From my unthreaded comment:
Head above the parapet moment. Two points. Michael is either well briefed or is a follower of sites like this. And, he is certain of his facts. He likely knows "lapdog" Bob Ward FGS will be snapping at his heels with a piece in the Guardian shortly.
Hopefully more people will be prepared to poke their heads above the parapet. However, Michael Buerk is after normal retirement age and over the last few years he has been prepared to be more outspoken and less PC. Unfortunately, I don't see any of the younger folk emulating Michael Buerk and speaking the truth.
"Heads above the parapet". Great minds and all that.
Jiminy Cricket Dec 27, 2011 at 8:30 AM
The two things are not mutually exclusive.
Michael is either well briefed or is a follower of sites like this.
The two things are not mutually exclusive.
Dec 27, 2011 at 8:43 AM | Martin A
Not necessarily. There are very few sources of this sort of info unless you know of more :)
I put this on his site. Let's see if it is approved!
'The IPCC myth about high feedback CO2-AGW is based on fraud.
1. High CO2 'climate sensitivity' was the logical inference when it was thought CO2 rose with T at the end of ice ages but when in 1997 that was disproved, insiders switched to calibrating models against modern warming via the fake 'hockey stick' and systematically lowering past temperatures.
Few realise it but there was also a search for missing ice age amplification – Hansen claims it is the difference between the albedo of wet and dry ice, an explanation lacking in credibility.
In 2007 it was shown that at the end of the last ice age, warming of Southern Ocean deeps started 2000 years before CO2 rose. The same biofeedback process explains recent Arctic warming now reversing. Contrary to Gore propaganda and the indoctrination of our children, CO2-AGW/GW plays no part in ending ice ages, is much smaller than claimed and the science justifying it is plain wrong.
2. Aarhenius' 'back radiation’ can do no thermodynamic work. Such mistakes happen in science but are usually corrected. Unfortunately, climate science prevents publication of contrary opinion, a major part of the fraud.
3. Cooling by polluted low level clouds supposed to hide (2) is only true for thin clouds: as they get thicker it switches to heating, another GW/AGW. Sagan got this physics wrong.
4. The claim of 33K present total GHG warming is wrong because it includes 'lapse rate' warming. It’s really ~10K, easily proved.
So, CO2 climate sensitivity is exaggerated by a factor of at least 6.7. When you correct the physics, extra CO2 probably slightly cools now there is IR band saturation. Hence no IPCC climate model can predict climate.
It's time this new Lysenkoism was consigned to the dustbin of history. The previous attempt by international Marxism to create fake science, 'accelerated evolution', was in the 1980s.'
What, you've never heard of black ice?
Are you sure this is the BBC reporter Michael Buerk ? The spelling's the same, but he is criticizing amongst others the BBC and it would be normal to point out that he works for the BBC. Also with all the BBC resources at his disposal it's unusual to use a rival outlet. And I figure that if he was the newsreader the Daily Mail would have made something of this commentary by now.
"I would like a real argument over climate change policy, if only to rid myself of the nagging feeling that sometimes it’s a really good excuse for banging up taxes and public-sector job creation."
Well said Sir.
Hengist, just like Roger Harrabin only uses the BBC?
Ps. Philip, we should have metaphor warning on our comments:-)
"Are you sure this is the BBC reporter Michael Buerk ?"
If you listen to the embedded sound-track at the link you will have confirmed for you that it is indeed the Michael Buerk known for his BBC newsreading and more recently as host of the 'Moral Maze' programme, from which I think the voice-over was a recent discussion introduction.
"What, you've never heard of black ice?"
Dec 27, 2011 at 9:01 AM | steveta_uk
Can we call it "black ice" in these days of rampant political correctness?...
@Hengist
Follow the first link - you'll get to hear him. Sounds like the BBC newsreader to me.
Yes Hengist - no doubt about it. It's Michael Buerk for sure. Sorry about that.
Have listened to it now. Yes it certainly does sound like Michael Buerk. Shocked that he could put forward such a partisan premise.
The transcript still reveals a man socially intimidated. Like many articles likes this it opens with "I'm not a denier, but". His first comments state in relation to CO2 that "we shouldn't put so much bad stuff in the air". CO2 isn't "bad stuff" Michael and it is in the air and it comprises only 0.4% of the air - most it naturally occurring.
Hengist - you forgot to mention the "tired old talking points that have been debunked many times already". No doubt others will!
steveta_uk: yup black ice is sort of dark but I'm talking about regional climate change with an enormous increase of energy input, far more than the plan area of ice.
I suspect most of the increase of N. Atlantic ocean heat content since the late 1980s, accounting for a high proportion of global OHC, now falling, has been from reduction of cloud albedo, an area multiplication compared with the ice pack of 1000s:1: http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure-101.png
To give him his due, Hansen has looked for alternatives to his failed high feedback CO2-AGW hypothesis, but not very hard as any true scientist should have done. His latest moves, an increase of aerosol cooling by 25% and faster heat transport to the ocean deeps is pathetic. These are last days of CAGW Pompeii and those who made fat careers our of scientific fraud will go down in the annals of scientific history as charlatans when they could, with honesty, have had an honourable retirement.
@ Gekko - agree that CO2 is not bad stuff, and that most is naturally occuring, but CO2 only comprises 0.04% of air.
Geccko, it is actually less than 0.04 %.
Michael Buerk's had already leapt right over the parapet guns blazing, supporting Sissons earlier in the year. His withering attack on BBC cultural groupthink and bias was published in this Mail article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1372559/Left-wing-shallow-oh-politically-correct--verdict-BBC-Michael-Buerk.html
Hengist,
Is calling for a more open debate a partisan premise?
You really are mixed up, aren't you? Or is it a sign of advanced doublethink?
@John in France
Buerk's calling not for a more open debate but a framed debate. Here's the comment Im leaving on 5th column:
One statement in particular indicates that Buerk's polemic is biased towards misinforming the public "I would like to hear a clash of informed opinion about what would actually be better if it got warmer as well as worse." The trouble with that is whilst it would get better for a small few , the aggregate effect on humanity would be negative. There is no informed opinion that disputes that ergo Mr Buerk's desire to hear such a clash of opinions is on the face of it misleading.
Now prove me wrong . Please direct me to the informed opinion that agw will have a net aggregate positive effect on humanity.
Please direct me to the informed opinion that agw will have a net aggregate positive effect on humanity.
Dec 27, 2011 at 12:35 PM | Hengist McStone
History, Hengist.
Buerk says: "I would like to hear a clash of informed opinion about what would actually be better if it got warmer as well as worse."
This statement says nothing about whether it would be better for the few or for the many so how is this statement partisan?
What I find so sad about this and other recent outspoken media retirees is that they found it impossible to speak out while still in employ and that in a society that claims to encourage free speech and the democatic process. Here is proof, if you needed it, that democracy is dead in the UK and in Europe in particular.
Now prove me wrong . Please direct me to the informed opinion that agw will have a net aggregate positive effect on humanity.
Dec 27, 2011 at 12:35 PM | Hengist McStone
I wouldn't want to waste my time with such a ridiculously stupi request but GO GOOGLE WARM PERIODS. HUBERT LAMB.
Hengist
Please direct me to the informed opinion that agw will have a net aggregate negative effect on humanity.
Better still, forget the "informed opinion" and just direct me to the evidence,
As HMG says, history is against you: warmer is better.
should we feel sorry for Hengist McTroll? It must be hard for him to have all these thoughts running through his brain but so few people to tell him what to think.
@Stephen Richards
If I've understood right, he's not a media retiree yet and maybe his pension is still in the balance. If he's speaking out now, it may be because exasperation is boiling over, coupled to the fact that the BBC has been under such pressure these last few weeks.
You may remember we had a similar discussion to this back in February following Buerk's (in)famous "climate change deniers and pedophiles" remark when presenting the Moral Maze. A number of us eventually concluded it was meant to be ironic. Inept irony to be sure, but this latest turn-up rather confirms that in my opinion, also the impression I've always had that he had just emerged from a discussion with the panel members whilst waiting to go on air and the remark just slipped out.
Only he can enlighten us on that.
The first comment from"mydogsgotnonose" above should be made into a blog-post of its own.
Cudos.
Buerk's blast looks as if he's actually sullied his eyes by reading at least WUWT, and probably this blog as well.
Sadly though his blast will have been tut-tutted about by the BBC Watermelons and put aside as the ravings of an old man who doesn't know better.
Interestingly, signs are increasing that the AGW religionists are also becoming more and more openly ageist.
Have listened to it now. Yes it certainly does sound like Michael Buerk. Shocked that he could put forward such a partisan premise.
Dec 27, 2011 at 9:37 AM | Unregistered CommenterHengist McStone
He clearly did not read the BBC memo sent to him by Roger Harrabin about 'how to communicate climate science.'.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1032.txt&search=Harrabin
It certainly was Michael Buerk, and I hope that his remark that he believes that man has some effect is just covering his @rse in an otherwise outspoken rant.
Viv, you ain't seen nothing yet compared to the ageism that will arise naturally once the youngest generation figures out the fraud for which their elders fell and with which they've been burdened. They'll also probably dangle participles.
==============
So I was wondering who might be the informed opinion Mister Buerk could call upon and so far all you've come up with is someone who died in 1997.
Seems Mister Buerk is alluding to 'a clash of informed opinions' that only occurs in his imagination .
You cannot have a debate "into" anything only "about" or "on" it.
"someone who died in 1997"
So unreliable, dead people.
At least Michael Buerk's piece answers why he juxtaposed climate change deniers and paedophiles back in February. As many here suspected, he clearly had his tongue firmly in his cheek...
John Silver 3:32 pm. Thank you for your comment. The appalling propaganda based on this pseudo-science knows apparently no bounds. Here is a reported example from the Royal Society: http://i43.tinypic.com/140gm76.jpg
First of all, the atmosphere of Mars has 95.32% CO2. Secondly, if you were to take out CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere, the temperature would change by very little [I estimate 0.45K maximum].
The source is an associate professor of Mech. Eng. at Stanford. It is clear that the RS is quite willing to claim blatantly false science. In this context remember that its President, Nobel Prize Winner Sir Paul Nurse in February this year agreed on an Horizon programme that man's CO2 emissions were 7 times natural. This is an error of 23,300% if you accept the real level is 3%. If on the other hand, you accept Murray Salby's claim that the real level is 1/5 of that, Nurse's claim is 116,500% too high.
The problem is that people like Nurse are narrow specialists, essentially technicians unable to be true scientists which is to work from first principles. The UK scientific hierarchy is stuffed full with Marxist apparatchiks of poor quality. Even the Chief Scientist, Beddingtion, is no scientist. No wonder they can't sniff out the IPCC fraud.
PS the heating of Venus is by lapse rate, not GHG warming - surface pressure = 90 Bar.
"if you were to take out CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere, the temperature would change by very little"
Although all terrestrial life would cease!
Agreed. We'd have to burn all the coal fast!
Buerk wants the MSM to ask whether AGW is a good thing. Fair enough but whether AGW is a good thing depends on individual values, if you are a Canadian wheat farmer and your yields are set to rise then you might argue AGW is good, but there might be negatives elsewhere. So before we have that debate we need to agree on what are our shared values. That's something mankind has never managed to agree on. So the AGW might be good canard is really just a filibuster to stop us talking about how to solve the problem. He's coming up with lots of talking points but I don't see him arguing that the MSM should spend more time on climate. The headline on this post is wrong Buerk doesn't want a climate debate. He is proposing a proxy.
Buerk packs loads of sensible points into his 3 min 20 sec statement.
What's the chances of the unspeakable BBC responding in a sensible way.
I'd say, somewhere between slim and none - and I think slim's already left town!
Ahhh Hengist I see your definition of shared values is by default the correct/moral one...
Shall I bow, sacrifice or pray? Please indicate the preferred method of worship.
Buerk points to Antarctica getting cooler. On 25 December, the US South Pole station set a new all-time
record for maximum temperature, of -12.3C. The previous record (apart
from a nearly identical temperature on 24 December) was -17.2C in 1978
I know weather isn't climate
If after 30 years of recording you get a result that is 5 degrees hotter than all previous, you have a recording error, not a heat wave. If the world was warming that fast the end really would be nigh.
Hengist says:
Hengist, Look up 'a-d-a-p-t-a-t-i-o-n'. You'll find it in the big funny bookie thing that isn't a story...
Hengist
I see where you're coming from — at least I think I do — but I disagree with you fundamentally and for the following reason.
Forget the 'A' bit of AGW for a minute and just concentrate on the warming bit. Yes, if you are a Canadian wheat farmer a warmer climate will probably benefit you and yes, there might be dis-benefits elsewhere. So what has that to do with "shared values"? There will be pluses and minuses whether the temperature goes up or down. The only reason why you don't talk of pluses and minuses in the present state of the climate is because it is the present state of the climate but you talk as if it were the right and proper or ideal state of the climate and you don't know that.
So everybody (one can argue) is either better off or worse off than they would be if the climate were different. And when the climate changes, as it does, some people will benefit and others will suffer.
To say that "AGW might be good" is just a filibuster to stop us talking about how to solve the problem is not only wrong but essentially meaningless. For a start, what problem? Who is going to suffer? Where is your evidence — and I mean evidence — that there will be no benefits? Do you know which groups are going to suffer and which will benefit in a given set of circumstances? And what can we do about it? Do you know whether there is anything we can do about it other than some marginal tinkering at the edges?
When you can give a reasoned answer to half these questions come back and tell us. I would have thought that a Nobel Prize might await you.
(A real one; not the toy one that the IPCC got.)
Judging by the ongoing balther from Richard Black this message is definitely not getting through to the BBC crusaders.
The only change I have seen there is from blatant, as in the daily climate change doomsday reports by David Shukman of the pre-Climategate era, to more subtle and subliminal, as their daily extreme weather story coverage now.
I watch and read it BBC coverage now only for entertainment value, to see how they are spinning things, and don't consider ANY of their content credible without further verification. Like Monty Python's Pravda.
And I really must laugh when, for example, they report derisively on Syria's "state media" - as though they were any more credible or different.