Monday
Nov122012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill +++BBC Climate 28 revealed+++
Nov 12, 2012 BBC Maurizio Morabito has obtained the details of the BBC climate 28. It had been published by the International Broadcasting Trust.
Greenpeace, Tearfund, Television for the Environment (one of the companies involved in the BBC free programming scandal), Stop Climate Chaos, Npower Renewables, E3G, and dear old Mike Hulme from UEA. Just the group you'd want guiding climate change coverage. Read the whole thing.
[For those who don't know what this is about, read the back story here.]
Reader Comments (231)
Pat
“Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer”. is an even odder invitee. He has what appears to be a thin to non-existent CV as producer even now that he is "Media Project Manager” and “Studio Manager” for The Open University, but he wasn't even those in 2006.
Before the seminar there was a just over 2 year gap – not filled in on his Linkedin page – since he had been “Business Consultant, Television Trust for the Enviroment (sic)” for a massive seven months in 2003.
There is no indication of even that kind of tangential climate involvement before or after that brief stint. (I say tangential because Business Consultant to a TV Trust doesn’t necessarily mean having any expertise in the subject matter they deal with)
There MAY be a reasonable explanation for him being invited but it seems unlikely that the BBC big brass needed his modest programme-making expertise and his climate involvement seems minimal to zero even by the standards of this meeting. He also appears to have had no formal position at the time.
Why on earth was he there?
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment. "Cheryl trained as a journalist on the Lancashire Evening Post before working for BBC radio as a reporter. In 1992 Cheryl moved to one of the UK's leading aid agencies, Christian Aid. Over the next 11 years she played a significant role in developing Christian Aid's cutting edge approach to communicating development to mainstream audiences... Cheryl is a trustee of the International Broadcasting Trust."
http://tve.org/about/tve-people/index.html
Dellers:
"...And what was the point of all that money on FOI against Tony Newbery if the IBT coughed this up anyway?" --Richard Drake
The mills of the Gods of Irony grind slowly...
This shows, yet again, the incalculable amount of damage the Boykoff idea of "false balance" has done to journalism.
In order to be credible, supposedly, you interview and present the views of experts alone. You censor the views of the commoners. - vide Boykoff. [1]
The BBC, in consonance with this idea, listens to experts on the matter of 'climate change.'
Only these experts are not experts, all along. The BBC cannot be seen listening to non-experts (see [1] above). So it *hides* their names and fights in a court of law.
Now everything is out.
The BBC is shown to have misled the public about the expertise of the supposed experts. It is the BBC that has introduced false balance. It listened to activists, called them experts and hid their names from the public.
Just a thought. They can't do anything to "The Wayback Machine" can they? There is so much priceless stuff in there (where ever it is).
Well done Maurizio what you have uncovered is evidence of a breach of the charter. The BBC is deigned to be independent of political persuasion. No wonder they wanted to call this meeting for scientific advice and did not wish to reveal those attending.
There should be questions in the House about this especially in relation to those involved in the current scandals, who were present then.
Thanks everybody. Bruce, I am going to use that.
On the matter of Chatham House Rules, note that the Dialogue page on the IBT website is still up and has been up since 2008 at least with plenty of names for their 2008 Real World Brainstorm seminar
http://www.ibt.org.uk/dialogue.php
So the Chatham House Rule on not publishing the names of participants did not apply, and not just in deleted PDF files.
[BH adds: This presumably may mean that Boaden has committed perjury]
artwest -
rafael hidalgo. seems he was with Open University from 2004, but in varous roles:
Zoominfo: TVE network
www.tve.org, 30 Aug 2011 [cached]
Rafael Hidalgo is tve's part-time coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean. A graduate in electronic engineering, Rafael Hidalgo worked in the Venezuelan media for 15 years. As executive director of Artévision-USB, the production arm of Simon Bolivar University in Caracas - and tve's partner in Caracas - he played a leading role in the ground-breaking microMACRO project, the tve Latin American Network's series on environmental entrepreneurs. He moved to Spain to complete a Media MBA (Universidad Carlos III, Madrid) in 2002 and joined tve as microMACRO project coordinator the following year. Since 2004, he has been working at the Open University, where he has had several roles involving the management of the production of teaching materials - including audiovisual, software, multimedia and web resources - see tve partners...
TVE: News
www.tve.org, 10 July 2001 [cached]
"Our challenge will be to adapt 60 programmes in the catalogue of the international TV Trust for the Environment into television that appeal to a diverse audience in all the countries of our continent" adds Rafael Hidalgo, chief of Venezuela's Arte Vision.
http://www.zoominfo.com/#!search/profile/person?personId=28057353&targetid=profile
Great work.
I agree with Andrew O., the focus does not need to be the climate element here. It has enough legs of its own in the wider media.
However, based on the course of events, my instincts say there is more to this story. I hate to use the word conspiracy, but I want to know who organised this meeting. That does mean the sponsor's name in the BBC, but who lobbied for it. And the connections of those.
This to me points to a direct attempt of manipulation of the BBC. A concerted effort by unknown faces. Something smells.
However, the main media story should be the waste of resources, the integrity of the tribunal witnesses and the (lack of) openness of the BBC.
Maurizio for Director General.
I would like to complain about Maurizio's timing ;-)
The court room was hushed. The Judge giving his closing remarks, thinking of a job well done. Suddenly there is noise from the corridor. Everyone turns. The door flies open. Like Chamberlain returning from Munich, Maurizio holds a aloft a paper: "I have it!"...
A few days late Maurizio, but still not bad timing :-)
Summary as per Bruce's writing: Why the List of Participants to the BBC CMEP Jan 2006 Seminar is important
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant. post-katrina, maybe 2005/2006?
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research Colorado: THOUGHTS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON INSURANCE CLAIMS
Andrew Dlugolecki
Visiting Research Fellow, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/sparc/research/projects/extreme_events/munich_workshop/dlugolecki.pdf
Why is the BBC participating in "seminars" arranged by lobbyists (IBT) and using the opinions of lobbyists to dictate its output? Is this how it maintains its famous impartiality?
I'm not sure that it is getting this "just about right".
Jimmy Haigh at 5:59 AM
Actually, they can.
One line in the robots.txt file will block archiving, and the internet archive, playing safe, will retrospectively apply it to anything at that Web address, even if it had previously been owned by someone else. There've been a lot of complaints, but the IA treats robot.txt directives as all or nothing.
I've seen this in action: I miss the first International Virtual Conference for Mad Science, right down to its zero carbon proposal for summoning Lovecraftean horrors to power wind generators... (and other, equally loony schemes!)
If you find something interesting, archive it. Hard Drives are Terabytes these days.
I take it the BBBC (bl@@dy BBC) will be refunding the 6 figures it spent hiding this to all us licence payers ?
The middle of November seems to be a good time for climate sceptics. Hoorah for Maurizio, not forgetting Tony N and the Bishop.
@omnologos - You deserve to take the rest of the week off and drink yourself silly.
I'm glad I haven't paid my tv tax in years, China could take a few lessons from the BBC about biased reporting and cover ups.
Great work Maurizio.
We should now fund Tony to appeal the tribunal decision.
The possibilities for ridicule are too great to be passed up.
Inviting a group of wannabes into the BBC would receive an enthusiastic response but who rounded up the BBC bods and got them to attend?
Jiminy - timing isn't by chance. I wouldn't have looked so damned hard had the BBC not fielded six lawyers against a pensioner.
In climate change no nobody is a nobody, not even John Cook :)
Jiminy - timing isn't by chance. I wouldn't have looked so damned hard had the BBC not fielded six lawyers against a pensioner.
In climate change no nobody is a nobody, not even John Cook :)
Re: perjury - Boaden should check with her lawyers:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9673600/BBC-turmoil-worsens-as-Helen-Boaden-and-Stephen-Mitchell-hire-lawyers-to-deny-they-willingly-stepped-aside.html
Has anyone told The Register yet - I think they might enjoy writing about it somehow ;-)
Well Done!
Over at Judy Curry's site there is a discussion of Lackos' nutty "systemic causality" notion that Sandy was somehow - in a very mysterious but quite definite way - systemically caused by AGW.
One would be on firmer ground claiming that the BBC's AGW coverage was "systemically caused" by who was invited (and who was not) to this seminar.
The difference, of course, being that the later claim is true while the former is just smoke.
Amazing, well done. How can the BBC possibly defend it's editorial policy decision; how can it now defend against anyone who raised a complaint about it's bias and was rejected? They disregarded their charter and their obligation.
Well this update has rather killed my FOI request asking if Jimmy Savile attended this seminar either as a climate expert or delegate ;-)
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/jimmy_savile_climate_seminar
It was of course merely an experimental affair to see if throwing a J-Bomb (Jimmy Bomb) might lever a useful fact or two in this quest for the truth......
This will change nothing at the BBC, nothing at all. The new DG can only say one phrase "I'll get a grip of it". That's the limit of his management ability. The policy will stand. The BBC is a group of arrogant liberal hetersexual, homosexuals, trans-sexuals and lesbians with an attitude of righteous indignation embedded throughout the organisation. ALTHOUGH, John Humphreys did a really good interrogation just recently of the offending party (s).
I trust that both Booker and Delingpole will be all over this - I eagerly await their musings on this bizarre cast of "experts".
Nov 13, 2012 at 2:52 AM | Todd Martin
CALLING DELINGPOLE AND BOOKER. Have you got your RSS on.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
No surprises in the names then – all very predictable. But at least the list gives the BBC watcher something he can catch hold of and maybe trap the oleaginous beast.
With respect to BBC governance, The Leopard and Buffy beat me to it. By what process did the BBC arrive at the list? Whose advice they then took and used to shape public opinion - a leadership, not a reporting function. Who said the BBC should lead? Is it in their charter?
As this series of events impacts public policy in a way that the JS’ and the wronged Tory politician’s activities, whether alleged or actual, did not, it is, in my view, more important.
I therefore suspect that a letter, probably open, to Lord Patten, from one or more of the cognoscenti here might, in the present circumstances, prove effective in a way that would not have been the case in the past.
I am sure the Bishop would know what to write.
There's a dog that's not barking in that list of names.
Pat
"time for an appeal"
I hope Tony N goes ahead with it (and asks for costs). I don't suppose any of the other participants in his 'trial' have woken up to the developments yet, but the changes of tune in an appeal hearing would be fun to experience.
more
as u know in the UK, Aviva was Norwich Union:
UNEP Finance Initiative: Online Course: Climate Change Risks & Opportunities for the Finance Sector
MENTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Andrew Dlugolecki (Course mentor for weeks 1 & 2):
Dr. Andrew Dlugolecki worked for 27 years in Aviva insurance group, in a number of senior technical and operational posts with UK and international responsibilities, retiring from the post of Director of General Insurance Development in December 2000. Modelling the effect of weather on insurance claims in the 70’s and 80’s led to his involvement with global warming from 1987 onward. He served as the chief author on Financial Services for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 1995 Assessment Report, and has been an author, reviewer or review editor in later Assessment Reports. IPCC named him as a key
contributor when they received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He carried out similar duties for the official UK and EU reviews of climate change. In 2009 the UK's statutory committee on adaptation to climate change appointed him as a member with specialist knowledge on financial services. He chaired three studies of climate change by the Chartered Insurance Institute (1994, 2001 and 2009).
Andrew is a special advisor of the Carbon Disclosure Project and has been an advisor to UNEP FI on climate change since 2001, having written, edited, or project-managed several of their reports and briefings.
He also consults privately from his home in Perth, Scotland and includes UNFCCC as one of his clients.
http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/training/climate/cc_course_biographies.pdf
History of the Climatic Research Unit
Acknowledgements
This list is not fully exhaustive, but we would like to acknowledge the support of the following funders (in alphabetical order):
Norwich Union (now Aviva)
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history
Linkedin: David Viner
Programmer Norwich Union / Aviva
November 2001 – March 2003 (1 year 5 months) Norwich, United Kingdom
Senior Programmer Anglia Campus
January 1999 – September 2001 (2 years 9 months) Norwich
Java, PHP, Perl programmer.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/david-viner/38/255/752
Dec 2008: Uni of East Anglia: Norwich Union (Insurance) sponsors new university chair
Norwich Union and The University of East Anglia (UEA) have announced a new chair within the University’s School of Computing Sciences. The appointment, which is sponsored by the insurer, part of Aviva, will be the Aviva Chair in Insurance Statistics...
The new arrangement will strengthen existing relationships between Norwich Union and the University, and will help to further advance the statistical capability within the business. The initial agreement is for three years…
Professor Vic Rayward-Smith, Head of the University’s School of Computing Sciences, says: “We are delighted to receive this sponsorship. The funding of this chair will strengthen further the already strong relationship between two of Norwich’s most important organisations.
“Statistical techniques are a major research area within the School and for many years, we have worked with Norwich Union helping them to analyse their own customer databases and to develop accurate pricing and marketing strategies.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2008/dec/Norwich+Union+sponsors+new+university+chair+
May 2003: Uni of East Anglia: Norwich Union signs up WeatherQuest
The market for insurance weather services sees a new player this month, as Norwich Union sign up WeatherQuest to provide their weather claims validation information and weather forecast support services.
WeatherQuest, with its headquarters at the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) School of Environmental Sciences, has been providing a pilot service to Norwich Union for the past six months, and following a successful review has now been signed up for a three-year service.
“We’re delighted to be working with Norwich Union,” said WeatherQuest Managing Director, Jim Bacon. “Our experience is that over 30 per cent of weather related insurance claims are not backed up by the weather records, so we believe we’re helping Norwich Union save money as well as providing them with the daily, up to date information they need…
With weather and climate remaining high on insurance agendas, WeatherQuest benefits from close links with UEA’s internationally renowned climate expertise, with both the Climatic Research Unit and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research also being based in UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2003/may/Norwich+Union+signs+up+WeatherQuest
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Project Duration: April 2001 to May 2003
Contact: Prof. J. Palutokof
Climatic Research Unit
The work undertaken in this project has been extremely limited by data availability.
•HadRM3H data were not made available until April 2002 (12 months into the project timetable) due to delays in the launch of the UKCIP02 scenarios.
•HadAM3H data are still incomplete.
•Access to insurance claims data has proven problematic. This is primarily due to the fragmented nature of the Aviva group (Norwich Union, Commercial Union and General Accident), a consequence of several large mergers. However, Royal Sun Alliance has provided claims data for five storms…
There is broad scope for further work:
includes:
The insurance industry in particular would benefit from information regarding windstorm activity for earlier future time slices than the 2080s available currently for HadAM3H and HadRM3H e.g., for the 2020s and 2050s.
Socio-economic scenarios designed specifically for the insurance and forestry industries, taking into account factors such as future building stock distribution, insurance coverage and forest cover, could improve the vulnerability predictions for the future.
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/content/final-project-overview-15
Wikipedia: Hubert Lamb
Climatic Research Unit
At first his view was that global cooling would lead within 10,000 years to a future ice age and he was known as “the ice man”, but over a period including the UK’s exceptional drought and heat wave of 1975–76 he changed to predicting that global warming could have serious effects within a century. His warnings of damage to agriculture, ice caps melting, and cities being flooded caught widespread attention and helped to shape public opinion. He gained the unit sponsorship from ***seven major insurance companies, who wanted to make use of the research of the unit when making their own studies of the implications of climate change for insurance against storm and flood damage…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Lamb
Mike Hulme:
“Did anyone hear Stott vs. Houghton on Today, radio 4 this morning? Woeful stuff really. This is one reason why Tyndall is sponsoring the Cambridge Media/Environment Programme to starve this type of reporting at source.” (email 2496)
let us also not forget, that Roger Harrabin BBC & CMEP - (and Greenpeace Bill Hare) were also on the Tyndall board from 2002-to at least NOv 2005.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-impartiality-at-the-bbc/
When did Roger Harrabin step down from Tyndall advsiroy board
(and he no made no mention, when reporting climategate, of connections)
At last!
But we speculated on this and came up with a similar hypothesis - well done Maurizio and thank you.
If some of the notable commenters on this blog with the help of the Bish' could have drawn up a list - would it not have looked at bit like the above?
Advocacy and gathering the advocates leads to propaganda, dissembling, misdirection and outright scamming but isn't that the plan and hasn't that been the plan all along ever since the politicians saw the light and potential of the CAGW scam?
Another realist coup and and another nail in the coffin of the BBC.
@ MikeHaseler
I notice they have people from the US, from China from Denmark from German. They even have two people from greenpeace ...
But as far as I can see:
THEY HAVE NO F**KING PERSON FROM SCOTLAND
Why the profanity? Can't you express yourself in a civilised manner? As far as I can tell they don't have anyone from Wales either.
Roy
Whether this story makes the mainstream media depends on finding a human interest angle - not one quite as vile as the Savile saga, one hopes - but something at least a bit saucy.
Drop the Orlowski high tone and start asking why Joe Smith invited a Harvard student as one of the top climate experts, and went on to cowrite an article with her.
There are photos of Eleni Andreadis all over the internet. She’s rather nice.
Andrew has anyone reported this to the National Audit Office or the Parliamentary Media Select Committee. How can the BBC justify spending public money in an attempt to cover up something that had already been published?
http://www.nao.org.uk/
Icing on a very large cake this week for those of us disappointed in what has happened to a once great institution.
The entire BBC News management team may go. Sadly those promoted to replace them will be no more than clones.
However, it is just possible that there will be major changes but don't hold your collective breath.
November is truly the kindest month. Well Done, Omnologos.
There's a statement on this on SCEF.org.uk, which was sent to all the UK media ... but for some strange reason our server is down today.
As I said an other post , the trick is make sure you invite the 'right people ' to the meeting to get the results you want from it . And that seems to be what they done , of more interest now will be who invited them and what the rational was behind that choice . Now the can of worms is open I wonder if that can be found out .
And just to be really sceptical ... is it just coincidence this happens to come to the surface just days before Doha?
But on reflection, given the recent court case and the behaviour of the BBC, it's obvious why someone would be looking.
The International Broadcast Trust sounds rather grand, but it is in fact one man - Mark Galloway - and perhaps an assistant. Add some DFID grants for specific projects, some grants whose source is not apparent and voila -you have something which helps shape climate change reporting in the UK.
CB says:
'The International Broadcast Trust sounds rather grand, but it is in fact one man - Mark Galloway - and perhaps an assistant'
Sounds about on a par with the GWPF. Same sort of size of organisation, same sort of setup, same sort of income.
And the IBT are also rather coy about their sources of funds. In the last accounts I could find (2008), they simply say 'Grants for increasing awareness of the developing world' £93,750.
Galloway is obviously a very successful operator. But that the BBC should entirely base their climat change stance on a seminar organised by just one guy and a set of activist mates is pretty unbelievable.
It's about as likely as them condoning paedophilia by the star presenter of TOTP or making a whole Newsnight programme based just on the words of of one very flaky individual.....
On the other hand... :-)
Latimer, you can get their latest accounts here
They got £154,146 in grants but don't state if it was government or private institutions.
More Climategate stuff regarding the Biased Bulls*** Corporation
BBC Bias
1683.txt: Briffa is coached in what to say in a BBC documentary by producer Jonathan Renouf: " Your essential job is to "prove" to Paul that what we're experiencing now is NOT just another of those natural fluctuations we've seen in the past. The hockey stick curve is a crucial piece of evidence because it shows how abnormal the present period is - the present warming is unprecedented in speed and amplitude, something like that. "
3757.txt: Roger Harrabin (BBC) asks Mike Hulme " What should the BBC be doing this time in terms of news, current affairs, drama, documentaries, game shows, music etc? " (see also this news story).
2496.txt: Mike Hulme (UEA): " This is one reason why Tyndall is sponsoring the Cambridge Media/Environment Programme to starve this type of reporting at source. " (the CMEP was run by Roger Harrabin).
4894.txt: Alex Kirby (BBC): " But we are constantly being savaged by the loonies for not giving them any coverage at all, especially as you say with the COP in the offing, and being the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are, there is an expectation in some quarters that we will every now and then let them say something. "
A little birdy also alleges to me that Helen Boaden's recent claim in the Tribunal that "Chatham House Rules applied" might well be a terminological inexactitude.
TerryS,
If you look at the latest accounts, and for several older ones, scroll down far enough to see the notes to the accounts. The 'Movements in funds' section usually lists DFID as a donor of restricted funds. It's not quite saying where all of it comes from but it is a start.
When they work that hard to crush you, you know (a) that something's up (b) that you're going to beat them back. Ho Ho indeed.
BTW John Cook has in all likelihood used his robots.txt to block Skepticalscience from being archived on the Wayback.