Bishop Hill Ennobled scientists
May 24, 2011 Climate: Parliament Royal Society I chanced upon this Wikipedia document, which outlines the House of Lords Appointment commission. This is a body designed to make non-partisan recommendations for elevation to the upper house of the UK parliament. Other recommendations are made by the political parties.
The Wiki page lists everyone proposed for elevation to the peerage since the commission was instituted in 2001. I was struck by all the familiar names:
2001 Lord Browne
2001 Lord May
2005 Lord Turner (Member of Climate Change Committee)
2005 Lord Rees
2007 Lord Krebs (Member of Climate Change Committee)
2007 Lord Stern
By strange coincidence the chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission is Lord Jay of Ewelme, who seems to be something to do with GLOBE International. However, he was only appointed in 2008, so there is apparently no connection to the earlier appointments.
Odd.
Reader Comments (56)
If someone had the time it may be interesting to find out where they were all educated!
I will be meeting John Krebs soon. Any message you'd like me to pass on to him? He is an affable guy.
He was educated at Oxford HS and Pembroke, Oxford.
His current role is as Principal of Jesus College, Oxford. By coincidence (?) two of its former members are John Houghton and Gavin Schmidt.
By the grease of the Lord....
John Krebs is a decent man and a good scientist. However, I suspect that he has been seduced into a belief in AGW simply because he cannot contemplate that other scientists might be distorting the evidence for political purposes. That is what politicians do but scientists - never.
Turner is, of course not just a Member of the Committee on Climate Change. He Chairs it.
He is also Chair of the Financial Services Authority. The watchdog that (as with the Bank of England) famously failed to bark.
Just as historians sometimes like to contemplate whether the First World War might have ended sooner if the old Emperor Franz Josef had died earlier, perhaps in future they might wonder if Turner would have spotted the approaching financial steamroller if he hadn't been so keen to worry about climate, a subject about which he evidently knows nothing.
For a flavour on Turner's role in his 'day job' consider:-
http://ironiestoo.blogspot.com/2009/02/incredible-admissions-of-lord-turner-of.html
Climate alarmism is a very productive industry for some: wealth, honours, power, acclaim. And, on top of all of that, they get to think they are in the vanguard, saving mankind from the rapture, sorry, rupture of anything and everything by a mysteriously powerful trace gas. It is going to make one hell of a story one day - the folks in the future will have a great deal of fun with it. In the meantime, we poor contemparies are going to have to do our best to cope with the massive disruptions and losses which our ennobled saviours are bringing down upon us.
'contemporaries' - I originally had 'victims', which is easier to spell
I can't see why the appointments committee can't be an ordinary jury of ordinary people doing what an ordinary jury does best: judge the evidence presented regarding those before it and determine whether the evidence is sufficient to "send them down" ... all with the greatest confidence of the ordinary people.
Somehow, juries are perfectly adequate for sending people to prison - but when it comes to doling out the perks of high office - somehow this is a job reserved for the political elite.
And don't talk about electing them - as the pigs said in the sequel to Animal farm: "We will now have a democratic farm - so you can vote for whichever pig you wish to run the farm".
Out of interest. Who would "we" nominate to be a peer?
Well, since Bishops are soon to be ejected from the house, perhaps our host need to be ennobled?
En passant, I noticed in today's DT an obituary of Lord Morpeth who sat in the HoC as Sir William Elliot during the 60s and 70s. He was a Northumbrian farmer (well, with that name he would be!) and a classic example of what a first-rate parliamentarian ought to be.
I don't know what his opinion would be of the names you listed above but I can hazard a guess!
"Any message you'd like me to pass on to him?"
Hmm - I remember Krebs best for his fatuous remarks about organic food, while he was in charge of the Food Standards Agency. He claimed that it offered no benefit over conventionally-grown food, ignoring the fact that people buy organic not because of what's in it, but because of what isn't. In an unguarded moment, he then expressed a special liking for French unpasteurised cheese, apparently oblivious to the regulatory obstacles put in the way of UK would-be producers of the same thing by his department!
@james p
Re Krebs and organic:
Seems to me that he made a sensible point. There is no discernible nutritional benefit to organic food. And as head of the FSA it was a good thing for him to point out.
You might buy organic because it looks better to your neighbours at the Waitrose checkout or because you like the dinky little labels or because your kiddies have been brainwashed at school that its good for them...or for all sorts of reasons..good or bad.
But it was right to point out that nutrition isn't one of them. And you are being conned if you believe that it is.
I too know Krebs very slightly and agree that he is a sociable and thoughtful guy.
"If someone had the time it may be interesting to find out where they were all educated!" --Lord Beaverbrook
Or, rather, where they were schooled.
A N Other
I would be interested to know Krebs opinion of how the costs for the Climate Change Bill can be justified at the current time given the ongoing financial crisis and the huge scientific uncertanties related to AGW?
I would prefix the question by stating I have no problem with the idea that CO2 promotes warming, but have seen zero scientific evidence of the positive feedbacks required for the 'worst case scenarios' of Stern et. al.
Perhaps Krebs could point me to a source which does show evidence of the positive feedbacks to justify the colossal expenditure?
Browne: King's Ely and St John's Cambridge
May: Sydney HS and Uni of Sydney
Turner: Hutcheson's GS and Glenalmond and Gonville and Caius, Cambridge
Rees: Shrewsbury and Trinity Coll. Cambridge
Stern: Latymer and Peterhouse, Cambridge
Mostly public school and mostly Cambridge.
Interesting. The chairman of the commission before Jay was Lord Stevenson whose education was:
Edinburgh Academy, Trinity College, Glenalmond, and King's College, Cambridge.
Apropos of Lord Krebs, I think he has acted with great reasonableness at the FSA> Compared, at least, with is counterparts in Denmark who have just added Marmite to the banned list of products that may not be sold. Along with Shreddies and Ovaltine
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/8533896/Marmite-made-illegal-in-Denmark.html
Perhaps the constant howling of the wind farms there, turning to no useful purpose, has led to an outbreak of suicide among the Danes. A lethal cocktail of crushed Shreddies smothered in Marmite washed down with a lethal dose of Ovaltine has clearly worried the authorities to distraction.
And I thought it was Iceland that contained the wunch of bankers......
Can I be Duke of Oil?
So what's your point? Warmism is a pre-requisite for ennoblement? What about Lords Turnbull , Lawson, Fellowes, Barnett, Donoughue, Baroness Nicholson , The Bishop of Chester, Viscount Camrose ...?
Bob May is also on a member of the CCC.
Whoops... Bob May may or may not be on a member of the CCC... What they do behind closed doors is their own business... No, wait...
What I meant to say is that he is a member of the CCC.
Come on, it's win/win for the Government. They hand out the titles, the title holders "titles" make their Climate claims sound more "authoritative". It's as shallow as that.
Ben
Yes, I just added the annotation to the names that might not be familiar to N American readers.
Hengist. Do read the post before you write. This is about people ennobled by the HoL Appointments Commission. I think you'll find that none of the people you listed came through that route.
Hengist
Do pay attention. The Bishop is talking about Peers nominated by the House of Lords Appointment Commission. All the peers you mention are political appointments apart from the Bishop of Chester, who sits in the House of by reason of seniority as a bishop, and Viscount Camrose, who is a hereditary peer.
Bishop
Sorry. Great minds and all that.
Hengist - I cannot respond at your blog - but here is a useful point of reference re tropical storms and global warming from a peer-reviewed scientist, Judith Curry, reviewing the contradictory outcomes of 3 assessment exercises:
http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/13/hurricanes-and-global-warming-5-years-post-katrina/
make of that what you will. The science is not as settled as you might like to believe. Your closed-loo[p debate is not so closed.
Sorry for going off-topic, Your Grace.
BTW, Hengist, have you visited the Blackboard and seen Lucia's thoughts yet?
Hengist
You are getting ahead of yourself again ;-)
May 22, 2011 at 8:14 PM
(Sorry, you will have to scroll - can't link comment-to-comment on this site.)
I believe the expression is 'crickets'.
Latimer - it depends what you call nutritional. Organic food consumers buy it because, in the case of plants, it won't contain herbicide or pesticide residues, and in the case of meat, it will have been properly husbanded, fed a natural diet and not be loaded with growth promoters and antibiotics. Not being poisoned is a nutritional benefit in my book!
@May 24, 2011 at 11:45 PM | James P
James
I buy it because I like it.
What was all that other stuff??
So far as meat is concerned, Marmite is "Approved by the Vegetarian Society".
That would tend to make me avoid it. But Hey! Nobody's perfect.
@jamesp
Fine. If it floats your boat.....and if you can afford the price premium.....
I haven't observed zillions of my fellow citizens having convulsions in the street and dying in the gutters because they have been poisoned by non-organic broccoli or risked a sausage from the local butcher. Food poisoning tends to come from nasty bugs not from 'pesticide residues' (whatever they may be). And it seems to me that organic (i.e covering your veg with raw s**t) is a good way to guarantee a great bug harvest.
But if you want to waste your money...go ahead. Nowt to do with me. Nor for you to interfere with my choices.
Latimer I usually enjoy and learn from your posts, but what's with the lazy Guardianista sneer about Waitrose? Seems to me they treat their staff and suppliers better than their competitors do, which is one reason to pay their prices, whether or not you give a monkey's about food labelled as organic.
@David S
Waitrose was the first supermarket to make a big thing about selling organic stuff. And still does - at least in my local one in leafy Surrey.
Other supermarkets have been quietly concealing their organic produce as the recession and inflation have bitten over the last period. It is not a big seller as prices go up.
I have nothing against Waitrose...indeed my breakfast today will be one of their fine kippers from Craster which are the tastiest available down here imo.
Latimer
"Nor for you to interfere with my choices."
I wasn't! I was criticising the double standards of Sir John Krebs. WRT poisoning, I suspect that the long-term effects of factory farming methods have yet to reveal themselves fully, although increased antibiotic resistance in humans is probably one.The breeding out of essential trace elements (such as selenium in wheat) is another.
@jamesp
Whatever the long term effects they must be pretty minor and hardly worth worrying about. Otherwise they'd have been obvious by now. Corpses scattered across the playing fields, deformed kids being born, plagues of locusts, four horesmen watching 'Apocalypse Now' on their iPods etc etc
Must admit I didn't know about selenium being an essential trace element. What is it essential for, and what are the signs of selenium deficiency?
But overall worrying about this stuff comes so far down the list of actual threats as to be near negligible for me.
Latimer
Selenium deficiency (Wiki)
I don't worry too much about it either - it was just an illustration. I doubt that MRSA would have such a hold in hospitals if antibiotics were not routinely fed to livestock, though. We are lucky to have a real butcher and locally grown produce (not all certified organic, but non-intensive) on our doorstep, and our own chickens. We can get unpasteurised milk and cheese, too, despite the best efforts of DEFRA...
Latimer, have a quick look at:
http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Selenium.htm
Google will provide you with >2m hits for "selenium deficiency".
Like you I refuse to get panicked by what I think is the excessive hype surrounding organic foods. On the other hand I dislike the idea that any essential trace element is being bred out of crops or that drugs that we know can lead to resistance (antibiotics, for example) are routinely used to boost production.
Of course if we weren't so hung up on the idea that genetic modification is per se evil then we might not need to worry so much. But we'd better not go down that road on this thread ...
Antibiotics vs bugs is an evolutionary war.
Personally I'd rather have healthy animals not racked with disease by giving them antibiotics now we know about them. The opposite consequence - dead putrefying animals with consequent starvation of the human population - is a zillion times worse.
And I know a place where you can get real free range eggs, away from the prying eyes of the hygiene police. Certified by my very fussy g/f to taste better than anything from the shops. But they are fed commercial non-organic chickenfeed too ..and thrive on it.
@mike jackson
We have a dachsund (proper standard size long haired one) that is an adorable wee beastie and we love him dearly.
He - and all his fellow dachshunds - was produced by genetic modification. Only they call it 'breeding'. For the life of me I cannot see the difference between choosing which dogs to pair and doing the same under more controlled conditions in a lab. They each arrive at a similar point.. a different DNA template to make an organism from.
Apart from some semi-religious nonsense about 'playing god', I am utterly baffled by all the screaming and shouting about GM.
Lord Browne
From the new book by Loren C Steffy - "BP and the Reckless Pursuit of Profit - Drowning in Oil"
"Stanford University in 1997, Browne outlined a plan that would redefine BP. ............... Rather than refute the emerging science linking man-made carbon emissions to global warming, he embraced it. The possibility of a link between greenhouse gases and climate change could no longer be ignored, he said."
"Later that same year, he pushed for an internal trading scheme that BP could use to reduce its carbon emissions by allocating quotas of pollution permits to the company's business units worldwide. A unit that came in below its emissions targets could sell its excess permits, while one that exceeded its targets could buy them. .................. Browne was so taken by the idea that he used his political connections to pitch it to the Clinton administration in the US and to friend of his, the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. The UK embraced the plan, creating a private market for carbon trading in 2002. In the US, where it has become known as "cap and trade," it remains a controversial idea."
The book goes on to describe how Browne continued to milk the "green" agenda, basking in the global media attention that came with it. What seems to drive Lord Browne - is the need for global influence and attention. He has a degree in physics. His thinking is opportunistic - a classic case of "what is in it for me." A Lord indeed ....................
I suspect that the craze for organic produce is little more than a weird kind of snobbery. If the meat, milk and veg. I eat are grown, raised and processed in an ethical manner, I can see no problems with eating it providing one takes the precaution of washing produce to remove any nasties and following all the simple kitchen rules about food hygene taught in primary schools.
As a sufferer of a disease carried in raw milk, I think the fad for drinking unpasteurised milk and eating unpasteurised cheese is incredibly stupid. Louis Pasteur's work is one of the reasons for the generally high standard of public health in the developed world. Why go back to a less enlightened and much more unsafe era?
@alexander k
One might also observe that when the steam engine became a practical tool for power generation, the use of windmill technology died out. Because it was very poorly fitted for purpose by comparison.
As you say 'why go back to a much less enlightened time'?
I don't think any amount of selective breeding would get fish genes into crops! I can't say if that's a Bad Thing, but a certain amount of caution might be sensible...
A gene is a gene is a gene. . Whether it is of any use to the organism containing it is dependent on the environment of the organism.
I forget what proportion of our DNA we already share with fish, but its pretty high ...certainly greater than 50%. And I don't imagine that the barley will be swimming up the Thames anytime soon.....
Isn't Lord Jay the ex son in law of James Callagan? A former ambasador to France and the US?
James P (and Mike Jackson)
"I suspect that the long-term effects of factory farming methods have yet to reveal themselves fully, although increased antibiotic resistance in humans is probably one."
"I doubt that MRSA would have such a hold in hospitals if antibiotics were not routinely fed to livestock, though."
I am afraid your ignorance and your indoctrination by the Soil Association, or the RSPCA, or Compassion in World Farming, (but we attack the UK because it's easier), or whoever, shows through in your comments. Antibiotics are not and cannot be routinely fed to farm animals. Treatment for a bacterial disease has to be confirmed by a sensitivity test, unlike human medicine, where the drug of choice depends on the goodies dispersed by the last drug salesman in the area. In any case, drugs cost money and unless there is a specific need, they will not be given, a different approach to that taken by the NHS, which has indeed led to the prevalence of MRSA.
The term factory farming is such a ridiculous, emotive term, if animals were not farmed intensively, we would import far more food than we already do. The imposition of free range on the domestic fowl, a creature of tropical origin, through the vicissitudes of a British winter, borders on cruelty. However, news footage, as with melting Arctic ice, is only ever recorded in the summer.
How do I know? Forty years of supplying healthy, nutritious, affordable, high quality poultry products to the British public, from well fed, high welfare livestock with a very high level of husbandry practice.
I believe so, Steve,.. and editor of the Economist and the predecessor of Brian Walden on ITV's Sunday lunchtime interview show.
Dennis
"The imposition of free range.."
An interesting concept. I'm sure they could stay inside if they really wanted to! Ours seem to enjoy grubbing about in the earth for things to nibble, hopping up onto objects, having dust baths and generally doing outdoor chickeny things all day. The only time they go into their house is at night, which they do at sunset, like clockwork.
I accept that your commercial operation is somewhat different and I'm glad you care about their welfare. I suspect that other producers may care less.
As for intensive agriculture, I would be more sympathetic if there were not a thing called 'set-aside'...
Dennis
"Antibiotics are not and cannot be routinely fed to farm animals."
They were though, in the US at least:
"From 1975 to 1991, the incidence of methicillin-resistant staph bacteria in U.S. hospitals increased from 2.4 percent to 29 percent. The CDC has concluded that antimicrobial use in food animals is the dominant source of antibiotic resistance among food-borne pathogens in the United States ..The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that nontherapeutic livestock use accounts for 70
percent of total antimicrobial use."
Article written in 2002 - things are better now, but the legislation was fought tooth and nail by the big producers. It certainly sounds like factory farming to me.