Friday
Dec072012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill 1984 and all that
Dec 7, 2012 Climate: Ward Media Here's Bob Ward speaking at the Help Rescue the Planet green gobfest. It's hard to summon up enthusiasm when the lighting is so unflattering, but for you, gentle reader, I make the effort. Think 1984 and you are along the right lines.
Reader Comments (31)
Is Bob Ward Agent 47
Agent 47?
Bob - I've only got as far as 6m30s but I have to let you know I'm at least one person who thinks it IS a reasonable interpretation of "The Code" to accurately report someone's views. I'll defer watching the rest for now.
May I suggest wearing protective headgear in order to avoid injury when your head crashes into the keyboard.
Outside of the deranged, counter-factual, groupthink echo chamber of you and your peers, Bob, nobody cares about the diminishing monetisation potential of your shared mealticket.
Yes, you could imagine that dismal, unthoughtful, automaton-like talk taking place a small cork-lined room deep in the Ministry of Truth. Ward though was so subdued here that I fear he would not get to introduce a two-minutes of hate spot in the near future - so that's a mercy.
Ward is objecting to the media being allowed to publish the opinions of people whose opinions he regards as wrong or misleading.
He ends with what he describes as three principles:
1. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but he or she is not entitled to his or her own facts.
2. The laws of physics and other evidence-based scientific findings are not just ‘points of view’.
3. Comment is free, but facts are sacred.
These might well form the legal underpinnings to enforce Ministry of Truth bulletins of what are to be taken as ‘facts’ . They might include disappearing polar bears, disappearing glaciers, disappearing icecaps, increasing tropical storms, accelerating sea level rises, 97% of scientists agree with X, (where X is a placemarker owned and operated by the Ministry), we only have 10 years left before Y (where Y, always bad, is another one of the same), computer model outputs are evidence from the future, criticism of Ministry of Truth facts is evidence of reality-denial, ignorance is strength, CO2 drives the climate system, freedom is slavery, truth is what the party says it is, global warming is accelerating, snow is a thing of the past, windfarms are efficient and cost-effective, war is peace, winters will be drier, winters will be wetter, winters will be warmer, winters will be colder, Australia is under permanent drought, Sandy was man-made, and so on.
Dr Bob Ward! GULP! Did he get the Nobel Prize too? I am so out of touch.
It is a rare gift, is it not, to be able to breathe such life into such a dull subject?
Apparently title adjustments happen only in one direction: 'Bob has a first degree in geology and an unfinished PhD thesis on palaeopiezometry.' (cf. historical temperature adjustments).
Joseph Goebbels would have been proud.
The main takeaway from this is:
Bob Ward is a communications director? Really? Seriously?
Call the Ministry. This must be stopped:
Dr. Hans H.J. Labohm has written a paper, soon to be published by Energy and Environment Journal titled: Climate Scepticism in Europe.
Dr. Hans Labohm says climate science scepticism is ”very much alive and kicking” in Europe.
The opening sentences set the tone in no uncertain terms. He calls the notion of dangerous manmade global warming a “delusion”, a science that has been plagued by “cherry–picking, spin-doctoring and scare–mongering by the United Nations’ IPCC and other climate alarmists.”
In his paper, Dr. Labohm analyzes the sceptic movement in various European countries and believes that “the tide seems to be turning” and that it has “gained considerable ground”. But the obstacles in Europe are still huge, as almost “all political parties are toeing the global warming line”. Labohm writes that “sceptical views – even from well-known scientists with impeccable credentials – tend to be ignored and/or actively suppressed by governments, academia and the media.” However, it appears that the obstacles can be overcome. Labohm adds, citing a variety of recent public opinion surveys:...'
More here: http://notrickszone.com/2012/12/07/dr-hans-labohm-on-scepticism-in-europe-the-tide-is-turning-very-much-alive-and-kicking/
Can we not capture the solar energy reflected of his chrome dome and harness it?
Maybe The Mann and The Schmidt could all join in with him for the benefit of humanity in a solar reflective chrome dome solar energy capture farm or whatever?
Now, the natural shape of the chrome domes is concave so maybe we'd need some geoengineering genius to come up with a doubly convex parabolic mirror type affair - constucted entiuely out of renewable sourses of course - and at vast expense to the taxpayer - to fully harness the monumental amounts of natuiral power available from these heroes.
Or am I taking the piss out of too easy a target?
*Really* creepy - Joseph Goebbels lives.
How could he stand there in all seriousness and talk about broadcast media being impartial?
I've sacrificed some time to listen to parts of a few of the other talks (http://helprescuetheplanet.com/programme/). In the last one, the organiser laments that there are so few delegates to his conference. Most of the talks I peeked at, none of which I could recommend for any good reason, are just 'lecturer droning at the lectern' but the start of the one of the talks is filmed from further back. As far as I could see, there were six people in the audience: http://helprescuetheplanet.com/2012/07/13/the-churchs-response-to-climate-change/.
Does this explain Ward's dull demeanour? And actually his lack of animation was common to all the speakers I had a glimpse at. They were all a bit sad, a bit slow, a bit uninspired. This is curious. I had not heard of 'Help Rescue the Planet', and it seemed to me there was no end of these organisations - all sharing the same gospel, all taking it upon themselves to save us, or in this case, 'the planet'. The gospel comes out of guesswork. The gospel produces groupthink.
This flop of a conference gives a peek at some of the faithful talking to each other. I think if I were engaged in saving entire planets, I would expect to be a little more excited about it. It is quite a task after all. How come it is being pursued - and not just in this group - by so many uninspiring, unimpressive, uninformed, and sometimes downright unpleasant, people?
Why would he want to describe himself as 'Dr'? To compete with Gillian McKeith http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/feb/12/advertising.food?
Nurse!
Bob Ward - is off his meds - again!
maybe we can compile the dictionary of English as used by Bob "fast fingers" Ward:
first entry would be "inaccurate": referring to a conclusion drawn by a scientist using data that have not been ratified or invented by Mike Mann.
ZT,
For clarification, (and I know you posted a link, so it's not you I'm correcting) Bob Ward does not have an 'unfinished PhD' he has FAILED it.
PhD studies have been time barred for decades - no submission = failure.
A very sinister man.... anyone who disagrees with me is inaccurate and misleading and should anyone publish an opinion which deviates from the Gospel according to Ward such opinion must be labelled as an insane and evil misinterpretation.
Please God don't let him be in charge of anything - he is deluded.
@ Stuck-record
"Bob Ward is a communications director? Really? Seriously?"
I would ask the same. Pulling up your trousers and cleaning out your earwax are not appropriate to public speaking. And overall, an incredibly dull delivery.
And quite incredible to hear him proposing that when the media interview or quote a scientist, it is their duty to decide whether the views of that scientist are accurate or inaccurate.
I find the climate change world becoming more and more surreal in that those (like Ward and Monbiot) who consider themselves defenders of the people are in fact advocating a 1984-style control of the peoples opinions.
did anyone else laugh at the fact that the peak of his graph was said to be about the Copenhagen conference.....rather than climategate?
but Bob we need to experience/be shown evidence of this warming to the UK, stop waffeling, nothing to do with "trust" just credibility (don't blame the editors of the rags FFS)
what a boring long drawn out ramble just to earn his crust.
diogenes, before he explained what the graph was, I was thinking climategate. Bob didn't mention that though, in his mind it was Copenhagen which caused the interest. lol.
His statement about the accuracy of the IPCC, with a few problems but no errors, turned my stomach.
He is a man who could not comprehend an opposing view.
Well, he's a bundle of laughs! Ward, if you pop in to BH see what is being said about you, may I suggest a graph showing:
(a) The communication skills of a Viscount in arab dress with the bezazz to drop a bombshell from the vacant seat of the Myanmar delegation and
(b) A drab monotone apparatchik whose joyless spirit freezes the very air.
[For clarity: Bobby baby, we don't doubt that you pop into Broadcasting House on a daily basis. You've certainly got the Beeb sewn up tight. The "BH" referred to above is Bishop Hill.]
[For clarity: "Bezazz" is a word meaning.......... no, Bob, if you have to look it up you ain't got it.]
Scariest moment for me was at 10:37 when, after explaining that TV documentaries are not required to be "accurate", he gave a little chuckle.
Was this a despairing chuckle of one who deplores the twisting of Truth? Or was it the confident anticipatory chuckle of one intending to close a loophole? As others have commented, there are strong echoes of Orwell's 1984 here.
Lol...the Bob Crow of AGW...
Poor old Bob. He hasn't read his De Tocqueville. The idea that that the pernicious oppression of the majority can numb the people's independence of mind in science and everywhere else hasn't even occurred to him.
He puts down the fact that only 34% of the people trust climate scientists entirely to the people's ignorance and gullibility and deplores the public's inability to discern lies from anyone other than the climate scientists themselves.
Curiously I agree with most of his proposed remedies, though I rather suspect that his idea of what constitutes a "fact" is very different from my own.
Also curiously he seems to have great hope that "Leveson" will restrict us all to a diet of WWF directed "newspeak" from the BBC .
I rather doubt that it will, but I do already have a profound distaste for the self -indulgent "Hacked Off" campaign and am starting to see that Bob Ward and Steve Coogan are both from the same stable and that press freedom really is something worth fighting for.
Nobody got to the bitter end then, and this gem:
“The final comment here is from CP Snow, the former editor of the Guardian, ‘Comment is free, but facts are sacred’.”
Why does Bob Ward remind me of Big Brother droning on endlessly on the screen in the famous "1984" ad for Apple's MacIntosh???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rZCofcCbc0
Not as good as this speech