Thursday
Mar172011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Vested interests
Mar 17, 2011 Climate: other Energy Rob Schneider emails to say that BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine has today been discussing public reactions to nuclear power experts - namely to distrust their advice because of their vested interests.
And quite right too.
So why does the BBC treat this same argument as risible when it is raised about the advice given by global warming scientists?
Reader Comments (33)
It does seem astonishing that the Japanese interviewed regarding their perception of the present threat don't trust their government. Many, maybe most, of the same people here in the US who have bought the green pitch and the CAGW story and trust the government on that subject, don't trust the government on the nuclear issues. It might be because there is an identifiable corporate connection with nuclear and not with green things.
in other words, it is the corporations which cannot be trusted.
Pure hypocrisy.
Bishop Hill said:
This is because the BBC *is* a vested interest in global warmism. Their pension investments and political leanings demand it.
Indeed, Gareth is precisely correct.
Because it's very easy to perceive nuclear power as something sinister and dangerous and because tackling CAGW is easily perceived as good and wholesome and doing the right thing in spite of ourselves. Now, it's not like that when you start to look at it further, but a lot of people don't.
Because CAGW is so ingrained in the BBC as an article of faith, that it would be painful for them to question it. They think they are being unbiased.
Vine took the side of alarmism. No conflict there. He let the anti-nuke guest trample all over what the informed gent was saying, poor sod never got to finish a sentence.
Here's one rule; in a breaking story you never get the full picture. We won't know the whole story for months or years. All the experts are guessing, or at least making judgements on limited info.
Here's an observation; You cannot trust a translation from a Japanese statement. Subleties intended to shade the story just do not translate. The Japanese understand that understatement and circumlocution are used to varnish the truth. Now the same caveat applies to official statements of any kind where there is embarrasment, so in this case it is double.
Another observaiton; The anti-nuke person still does not believe the official WHO story on Chernobyl. Plainly she would never accept a story which did not contain a disaster. She kept going on about the worst-case scenario being unlikely, as if that was an unsatisfactory state of affairs, rather than an entirely logical position, if it's a scenario it must be possible, if it's unlikely that's good.
Another thing about Vine. Once a couple of years back he had an item on warming, the thrust of which was, 'should people be allowed to make jokes like 'bring on global warming' when the weather is cold?'
Should people be ALLOWED to make jokes?
If you think Jeremy Vine is biased, you should have heard Kaye Adams yesterday morning on Radio Scotland. The only time she said anything remotely factual was when she admitted that she didn't know the first thing about nuclear energy.
But it is not just the broadcast media - e.g. the top story on the Caledonian Mercury yesterday -
http://patkane.caledonianmercury.com/2011/03/16/how-the-horrors-in-japan-connect-with-concerns-closer-to-home/00259
BH
Very disappointed with this. You essentially endorse the anti-nuclear position with that throwaway 'And quite right too'.
Well, no, it isn't quite right is it?
Unless you have some other suggestion as to how the UK (and much of the rest of the world) is going to keep the lights on when coal is effectively being phased out by draconian emissions reduction policy?
[BBD: You misunderstand me. We should be suspicious of them because of their vested interest. That doesn't make them wrong. Nuclear is part of the answer IMO]
There's a rather interesting article over at Boing Boing which is tangentially related to this.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/15/an-expert-in-one-fie.html
A few days ago and analysis of why we should all just keep calm and carry on about the nuclear situation was posted on a variety of sites on the Internet. It was quite a levelheaded piece about what could and couldn't happen. Anyway, the piece has been amended and commented on by various experts in the nuclear field; some positively some negatively.
Boing Boing made the point that if you want to find out what is happening you really have to talk to an expert, which is, as far as it goes far enough. However, they then had a very strange Coda the goes like this:
“*Tangentially, this is also why meteorologists or mechanical engineers aren't the best people to explain the science of climate change. That would be a climatologist."
This is a very strange and revealing comment. Comment which is very very common in climate science and its advocates. It presupposes that climate science is some kind of special science, divorced from all disciplines, dependent on no other disciplines, using no other disciplines. It ignores the physics, statistics, mathematics, chemistry, meteorology and all the other myriad things that contribute to this discipline.
It presupposes the idea (all too common if you listen to Gavin Schmidt for any period of time) that climate scientists have nothing to learn from anyone. Only they are capable of understanding the planet. Everyone else is an idiot.
It's why they're so dismissive of people like Freeman Dyson (physics) or Steve McIntyre (statistics). They genuinely terrified.
If your analysis, as complicated and well researched as it may be, is built on a misunderstanding of mathematics or physics, and, let's say, the world's greatest mathematician or physicist points out you've got your sums wrong. You're wrong. That's it! The end.
And let's face it, the gravy train is far too rich to allow that to happen.
This post gives an interesting view of Japan:
Some Perspective On The Japan Earthquake
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake
It was posted on March 13, 2011, and the situation may have escalated since then ... (and even more by the time you read this) ... but what is of interest is that everyone is involved.
Everyone has a task! In fact, everyone has a vested interest!
Though even vested interests do not always have sufficient information.
I'd be very careful indeed to take the opinions coming from Japanese people interviewed by Al Beeb at face value.
What they've done to Dellers is going on here as well - heavy selection by the reporters as to who is being asked and what is going to be transmitted back.
Last evening, the Beeb man (Willcox, iirc) asked people waiting in Narita airport fro their flights out. Those who were going away because of radiation got a nice little 'chat'.
One bloke went back to England because his school was closed, damaged by the earthquake. No other reason, not because of radiation. No little chat, end of interview ...
So I don't buy this irrational alarmism, which sadly is affecting everyone.
Ask yourselves this: would Al Beeb sent their reporters into 'present danger' if the risk is really so high? H&E would surely have told them to get them back a.s.a.p., no?
Viv I think you mean H & S, don't you? H & E was a magazine we used to "read" at the back of the school bus 40-odd years ago.
@ David S:
Your'e so right, I did mean Health& Safety - this is the second time on this blog that I got the abbreviation wrong, and I'm not even a bloke who could use your 'excuse' ...
:-(
Absolutely true BH.
However there seems to be rather a lot of schadenfreude flying toward the Japanese nuclear industry and politicians. Perhaps because their questionable practices have been known internationally for some time.
Vine gets up my nose. He is an adult; he's worked on Newsnight (OK, maybe not such a great qualification!); and he seems to have had a decent education. Yet he revels in ignorance.
As a result, I sent him the following email yesterday. He (obviously) didn't respond, but I was pleased to hear his program's meme change ever so slightly today. (Moi? Oh, non!)
He's still an arse though.
Bish, I think you are missing something here. The vested interests of nuclear power experts cannot be compared to the vested interests of "climate scientists". Nuclear power is real and will always need experts. In my experience, nuclear power experts are honest and of high integrity, basically because of the nature of the work. AGW is just a hypothesis and "climate scientists" have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth, by any means. As we have seen, many of them are dishonest and lack integrity.
There is an awful lot of BS spouted on the telly and in the media about the events at Fukushima Daiichi, and most of it is clearly alarmist. I'm watching BS on Channel 4 news right now.
The BBC now introduces Shukman as a science correspondent, whereas I'm sure he was previously an environment correspondent. He has no qualifications in either field, as far as I know, and it shows. The ignorance is appalling.
@PhilipBratby
Beeb 2 or 3 nights ago reported the Japanese saying it was a nuclear accident, not a nuclear disaster then went on using the word disaster. They could of course been alluding to the tsunami but if they were, it was not apparent to me.
Nuclear disasters can happen not just by accident. A disaster like the one in Japan can also happen because of a terrorist attack or a missile strike in time of war or for any other reason that's not foreseeable at the moment.
Nuclear experts talk of new super-duper nth generation reactors with auto-shutdowns and triple cooling systems and on and on they go about how safe it is, well, guess what? It is not. It may look all perfectly safe on paper at the moment, but who knows what surprise awaits the plant in 40 years' time.
And Bish is correct in drawing an analogy between the vested interests of climate scientists and nuclear experts. Integrity is in the eye of the beholder.
sHx
Fair enough, but how are we going to keep the lights on if the powers that be are determined to reduce the amount of coal we burn?
The proposed electrification of transport alone will be a significant driver of demand. All serious analysis shows energy demand rising even without this factored in.
A substantial and sustained investment in increasing baseload generation capacity is necessary, and only nuclear (warts and all) is able to meet the technical requirements.
So, what do we do?
BBD,
You say no to nukes and you stand your ground. With renewables proving dud and with fresh nuclear fear sweeping the population (with justification, IMHO), politicians will have no choice but to reverse some of the CO2 emission laws, regulations and targets they set earlier.
Politicians are not stupid. Their job is to manage competing interests. If they think people will meekly accept rolling power blackouts, then they won't mind introducing rolling blackouts, especially if the option proves politically more profitable than not doing so. If they identify a fresh anti-nuclear sentiment among the voting public, then they'll respond to that, too.
The anti-nuclear sentiment is bound to grow more in the coming months and years, especially when the true effects of the Japanese nuclear disaster becomes known. And, yes, when you ask everybody within 30 KM radius of the plant (50 KM for Americans) to leave their homes, then there is a disaster afoot.
Coal-power is cheaper and safer than nuclear power, and this much neglected aspect of the energy policy will be debated a lot more often from now on. The lesser of two evils is coal, especially if you think the C of the CAGW is hot air. If that is your position, then you stick to it.
It is also a good time to think who you're gonna vote for at the next elections.
That's all you can do. Don't twist your nose at it; that's precisely how the green movement came this far.
In my view, it is very, very silly to defend anything because of political ideology. The nuclear industry is as corrupt as anything. It is also as from libertarian / free market as one can imagine. I saw its unpleasant spectre looming over AGW from the very beginning. Nuclear will be the biggest winner in carbon trading Britain thanks to New Labour.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5149676.stm
There are certainly no shortage of links between the nuclear industry and the New Labour establishment.
sHx
When all is said and done, it took a natural disaster to interrupt 40 years of trouble-free operation at Fukushima Daiichi. You are glossing over this in your eagerness to make your anti-nuclear point.
Coal is certainly here to stay, but as I have tried to point out, it is now tangled in climate politics to the extent that it no longer exists as a viable option in the UK. Did you read my detailed response to you on the ‘Hastings energy gap’ thread? [March 16 11:14am]
Coal may have a larger role than ~50% of the global energy mix by mid-century (with a substantial bias towards non-OECD energy production) but I doubt it. You may not wish to contemplate this, but in all likelihood GATA will continue to rise, and attribution arguments about CO2 will wither away. So will support for coal in industrialised economies.
Then it’s back to new-technology nuclear. Your position is emotive, not rational (40 years of safe operation, remember… 40 years…).
E Smith
No further communication with you until you deal with my comments on the ‘Hastings Energy Gap’ thread in a direct, honest and sensible manner. IMO you are not credible.
ShX, you say that 'politicians are not stupid'. In view of the money wasted on wind power, would you care to expand on the statement? Do you have any other evidence to support your statement? If so, I'd love to read it.
Thanks in anticipation of a good(if short) read.
Happy to oblige, Alexander K. My job is to make you feel happy and content.
"Politicians are stupid. Their job is to manage competing interests. If they think people will meekly accept rolling power blackouts, then they won't mind introducing rolling blackouts, especially if the option proves politically more profitable than not doing so."
@BBD
"Your position is emotive, not rational..."
I always get emotional at the sight mushroom clouds.
sHx
Mushroom clouds? You mean the distinctive signature of an aeroburst nuclear weapon? Which has what, exactly, to do with nuclear power generation?
You are handing it to me on a plate ;-)
sHx
I made several points in my comment at 11:12am. How about addressing them?
Thanks.
@BBD
OK. Sorry for taking the short cut there.
Rest assured, the greatest safety concern I had regarding the nuclear power plant was what would happen to the waste. The very thought of leaving them lying around for tens of thousands of years was very bothersome. That was the case until last week. Now, my fears of meltdowns have been enriched again.
You say 40 years and no accident and I'd say 25 years and we have another one. It is quite possible we'd have had more accidents (or attacks and sabotage) had the nuclear reactors proliferated.
Some international relations scholars argue the best way to ensure the world peace is to enable all states access to nuclear bomb. The idea that is that states are rational actors and the power of nuke is such that no state would ever use it, especially if there is a chance of retaliation. And as proof of their claim, they highlight the fact that no nuke was detonated in anger since WW2. They also argue that had it not been for nuclear proliferation, there would have been conventional warfare between the Cold War rivals possibly killing millions of people.
That might be the case, but the world superpowers and their allies did come perilously close to a state of MADness (Mutually Assured Destruction) in 1963. Conventional warfare between superpowers that might have taken place in the absence of nukes were waged anyway in proxy wars all over the world killing millions of people.
And you can't blame people for not trusting nuclear scientists on safety, either. The first thing the nuclear science did after splitting atom was to build a doomsday bomb. The second, the third, the fourth items on the agenda for nuclear science was to build bigger bombs, better bombs, dirtier bombs. The fifth item was to find out how people can protect themselves from such bombs.
The image of nuclear power is forever tarnished by mushroom clouds and the radiation glows and the three-eyed monsters. Forget about Chernobyl for the moment, any 'harmless' nuclear incident like the one on three-mile island is an example of a nuclear bomb with the fuse burning. You can't blame people for not wanting to have potential nukes in their backyards.
You are welcome to have as many nuclear reactors in your country as you wish, if you think it makes economic sense as well. I'll still love your country and visit it. But not in Australia, mate. Here, coal is cheap and plentiful, and nuclear doesn't make any political sense at all.
sHx
Thank you for your frank response. I sense this is the place to leave it: we've made our points and should agree to differ cordially.
Doubtless it will crop up again ;-)
As always. Best wishes.
sHx
Likewise.