Monday
Jul182011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Guardian: "No agenda"
Jul 18, 2011 Media The Guardian has an interesting thread in which it appears to deny having an agenda on the AGW issue. Or sort of denies it:
"I don't think that there is any deliberate skewing of our reporting to suit a particular set of beliefs that are at odds with editorial guidelines"
Reader Comments (63)
simpleseekeraftertruth,
The Guardian is very relevant simply because it is the print version of the BBC. Secondly, the BBC also spends a disproportionate amount of money on advertising jobs with the Guardian, while sunlight comes second.
Mailman
@Geronimo (Jul 18, 2011 at 1:31 PM ):
a logarithmic effect means that the effect is the *same* for every doubling
The Guardian is apparently heading for a £35 million loss this year. Seems the product just isn't selling. Now there's a gap in the market with the demise of the NotW, they could perhaps migrate up to fill the niche?
Pointman
Maybe ZDB is suffering from Monbiots's strange curling disease.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/jul/15/vegetables-disease-aminopyralid-pesticide
It would explain a lot.
I think Athelstan has hit on a great Guardian rebranding title- The 'Ex' Organ. He favours 'Execrable'.
Depending on inclination, dedicated faithful, BBC, right through to visceral hate , 'Ex' can represent the adjective of choice. It is not necessary in this forum to enlarge on the rich diversity of one's chosen personalized Organ.
As regards CIF 'scientific' quality ,its worth remembering that CIF environment journalists 'science qualifications' amount to a grand total of one , Monboit's 30 years old 2:1 in Zoology an area he has never worked in. That may explain two things, why its seldom covers the actual science, preferring policy and emotion, and why when it does it get it wrong so often . While it seems to have handed PR or spinning/smearing over to Bob 'fast fingers' Ward , perhaps has his cost free and give the Guardains loss you can understand that.
Quite correct HaroldW on all of your points.
"These people have no more right to be heard than 9/11 truthers and creationists."
Jul 18, 2011 at 12:21 PM | ZedsDeadBed
An extraordinarily revealing statement. The concept of freedom of speech or freedom to religious practise seems to have missed you, ZDB.
Don't know any 9/11 truthers Zed but I do know quite a few creationists. They know I disagree with them but we get on very amicably and respectfully.
I wish the average warmistador was as pleasant as they were.
ZedsDeadBed writes:
"The science overwhelmingly says that AGW is the correct theory. There are a tiny amount of people, generally fringe-types and wingnuts, who try and claim that the science is wrong."
All that I have been able to find by way of CAGW theory is a bunch of Gaia Models and the sort of work that Michael Mann does. The Gaia Models contain no physical hypotheses and those who use them are deluded to believe that the models can substitute for physical hypotheses. There can be no empirical support for Gaia Models because models do not imply or, in any way, specify observations that could serve as confirmation for predictions. This is not surprising. Models are wonderfully useful for analytic purposes but not for synthetic purposes. As regards Mann and The Team, if their work had been beyond reproach then it would have established only that there is a correlation between a string of tree ring proxy numbers and a string of temperature readings. They produced not one physical hypothesis in their work but they assumed that their proxies would not vary in behavior over a period of 1000 years. You need actual physical hypotheses about proxy behavior to back up such a claim. They had none and have none.
So, in your words, can you state just what it is that you see as the great scientific achievement of the Warmista? What are their theories, stated as physical hypotheses, and what is the evidence for them? Come up with something reasonable and you might make a convert of me.
By the way, I do accept Arrhenius' work as genuine science. But that gives you only AGW, harmless warming. To get to CAGW, dangerous warming, you need reasonably well confirmed physical hypotheses about forcings, such as cloud behavior, which explain how one or more of them acts as a positive feedback. The Warmista have not produced so much as one such hypothesis.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Let’s imagine a two dimensional field with horizontal and vertical axes.
The horizontal axis is labeled “Catrastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming” and its (arbitrary) scale goes from -5 on the left to +5 on the right. The left hand, negative, end (with all the bad connotations of negative) is labeled “Warmist”. The right hand, positive end (with all the connotations of positive) is labeled “Denial”.
The vertical axis up the middle of the field is labeled “Understanding”. Its scale is immaterial.
Nearly everbody’s objective is to move upwards from the horizontal axis. If you do it earnestly and honestly you move vertically upwards. If you intend to move on the slant, either to left or right, you are biased and intent on making a case.
If you are Mann, Briffa, Jones, the IPCC, etc, you probably do start from the origin (0,0) but, as you intend, you move to the left as you go upwards. You probably don’t even pretend to yourself that you are moving straight up.
If you are the Guardian (or the BBC I suppose) you start from somewhere on the left, say -3,0, but you think you are at 0,0. Being earnest and honest, you try to move vertically upwards, but, well, you might wander a little further to the left. Sir Paul N. as well, I suppose.
If you are Bob Ward, it doesn’t matter where you start, because you head sharply to the left and you must be at -5, the Warmist end, by the time you reach the understanding you want. Sir John B much the same - it follows from his job.
So the Guardian and its readers don’t think they are biased because they are not. It’s just that they start from the wrong place.
On this blog, of course, we start from 0.0 and move vertically upwards.
As to my identity, I have no intention of revealing it people to whom I am hostile for obvious reasons. Especially with people like Do Pablo de la Sierra about who threaten to try and get the IRA to scare website providers because he doesn't like their message.
For those who may think that ZDB is displaying a well-honed sense of paranoia, I have it on the very best of authority that DPdlS was in fact a very senior commander during The Troubles but was captured when an operation he was involved in was betrayed by a sniveling informant. They tried to turn him and gave him a few hours of freedom to think it over, but strapped an electronic ankle bracelet on him just in case. DPdlS wasted no time. He managed to remove the tracking device by cutting off his left foot with a pen knife and then, to hide all traces and throw pursuers off the scent, fed the foot and bracelet to a shark which was later caught by a Japanese trawler in the South China Sea. He collected his loved ones that very night and made his way by tramp steamer to the Americas where he has been hiding in plain sight among a population who are all named "de la Sierra" , a trick by the way that was used by Eamon de Vallera: when the police got word he was in the area, they ordered every one with an Irish name to be brought in for questioning. Safely out of reach, he continues to direct operations, but having realized the CAGW is a dastardly British plot to resubjugate the Irish he has directed the resources of The Organization to eliminating CAGW proponents wherever they can be found.
Oh, yes. ZBD has much to fear from Don Pablo de la Sierra.
They no longer notice their own smell.