Bishop Hill Carbonundrums
Feb 5, 2011 Climate: other Media More scratching of heads among the chattering classes as they try to work out why nobody believes their global warming propaganda - next week they are all jetting off to Norway for a chat about what to do:
We cordially invite you to the seminar Carbonundrums: From Science to Headlines as well as to the ensuing debate New Realities, New Narratives in Climate Reporting, on Tuesday 8th of February 2011 at Litteraturhuset. We will address important questions such as: How is the press reporting on climate change? What can we learn from Climategate? How should we communicate scientific uncertainty? What determines how people perceive climate change?
Panellists include Fiona Fox, Bob Ward, Roger Harrabin, Fred Pearce, Naomi Oreskes and Rasmus Benestad. That's one very large carbon footprint!
The whole thing will be webcast here.
(H/T Billy)
Reader Comments (58)
I have no idea what Bob Ward could contribute to the art and skill of communication, as his error-filled posts on the Guardian's CiF are so fiercely protected by the moderators and by Monbiot's sycophants that Ward must think every word he writes is accepted by all readers, without question. The rest of the bunch are, as my 3-yr-old grandaughter would say "Scary people!".
I know it's quite common at this time of the year in Oslo, but the fresh global warming white carpet being rolled out to greet our warmist chums has cheered me up no end.
:D
Funny how there are only around 50% of seats taken and some of those are by other participants.
Would be interesting to see a list of all attendees with their affilliations.
I've been watching most of it so far. Gist seems to be the drop off in climate coverage and what to do about it. The Bob's bit was mostly bemoaning the failure of the UK media to report the 'facts' as he sees them, criticising the IPCC and Ofcom for not supporting some of his complaints. He seemed very put out that the GWS wasn't considered 'news' by Ofcom for it's factual rules but would no doubt be happy Ofcom couldn't sanction the BBC for Horizon in the same way. Not that Ofcom can really do much about the BBC anyway. The Bob did say he would be meeting with the Secretary of State to tighten up the rules though, and probably spent half his time attacking Delingpole.
Q&A got a little more interesting, Fiona Fox, Science and Media Centre tried to differentiate between 'good' churnalism (like what she and the Bob peddle) and 'bad' churnalism, which is presumably everyone else. Fruit break(?) over, and on with the show, and whether Fred will mention the Schmidt affair, or less likely, the current Steig affair.
To be honest, I don't really understand why they are here in Oslo. Nothing new has been brought to the table so far and I don't expect anything will. It just seems like an excuse for a bit of self promotion and mutual backslapping. More wasted money and another boost to CO2 output!
Re Fruit Breaks: Norway got rid of biscuits and cakes during coffee/tea breaks long ago, now you see plates of fruit chunks instead.
Fiona thinks the climategate discussion was too polite and wants the audience to spice it up a bit.
Voila, up steps the Bob to have a go at McIntyre, accusing him of attacking scientists personally (the poor scientists who shun the spotlight and are unused to the attention) and making fraud accusations.
Why they're there? Well, could be like when businesses hold meetings to discuss effective time management and the amount of time spent in meetings. Thanks for the explanation of fruit breaks and some businesses do the same here, partly for health reasons. Not sure that's true, but probably safer than seafood suprises that have been left out all morning.
More likely explanation for why they're there is to plan this year's marketing campaign for climate science. Plus job preservation given if people aren't interested in climate change, there's less need for climate reporters, or giving money to the likes of SMC or similar businesses. They have clients who want their stories in front of the public which needs the journalists.
As for the last section, the Bob doesn't do irony. He happily attacks his opponents, then complains if people do the same to him or his clients. It would be great if the debate could be de-personalised, but then it needs both sides to commit to doing that. Fred mentioned it, but Rasmus happily used the denier meme. Fred's bit would be familiar to people who've seen his Climategate summary before, although I was waiting when he opened on the peer review subject to see if he'd bring in the Steig thing.
Rasmus' section had some odd bits, ie his request for transparency on the sceptic side. They still seem to think there's some shadowy conspiracy funding and organising us, but if so, I've never seen them or my money. He also asked why, given the interest of transparency we still haven't revealed the hacker/leaker of CRU. Simple, we don't know and he should be asking the Norfolk police that question, or why Gavin destroyed evidence from the RC 'hack'. He did seem to make some comments about increased openess and better dialogue though, so not sure if he's pushing RC to change their style. Funniest moment though was his suggestion for Dialogue vs Conflict, and a code of ethics. Wonder if Steig would sign that?
Not being able to watch the webcasts, I've been looking out for podcasts relating to the "Carbonundrums" seminar and came across this recent article in New Scientist by Bob Ward, which follows his participation in that event:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/thesword/2011/02/has-the-impact-of-climategate.html
It's interesting that he is suggesting an actual fall in UK scepticism - he manages this by comparing a survey in December 2009 with the Guardian poll of January 2011.
"Indeed a YouGov survey carried out in December 2009, just a couple of weeks after self-proclaimed sceptic bloggers started to spread the e-mails across the internet, found that only 21 per cent of the public agreed "the planet is warming and human activity is mainly responsible". The Guardian/ICM poll last month suggests that opinions have rebounded back since then and the majority of the public are now in accord with the scientific consensus."
If that is so, it seems somewhat at odds with other messages from the AGW proponent camp in recent days, e.g, the BBC's recent programme "In Denial - Climate on the Couch" which paints a rather different picture of public attitudes in the UK.