Saturday
Feb042012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Crying wolf for "the cause"
Feb 4, 2012 Climate: other Media More from Imperial
There was a sort of cycle through the 2000s of stories saying "scientists say it's even worse than we thought"...and I think the media kind of cried wolf...and there's only so far that you can go with that kind of story because the public switched off.
James Randerson (at 31 mins)
Reader Comments (55)
These comments encourage in exactly the same way that the almost empty auditorium for the recent Michael Mann talk at Penn State encouraged. Even when you pack the panel with those who are meant only to agree (which, bless 'em, was not the approach taken by Index on Censorship for their open data debate at Imperial, as Colquhoun and Monbiot genuinely said something different and much needed) the roar of the unwashed masses is being heard above the oh-so-boring platitudes of the climate elite, presided over by none other than the most impartial eco-warrior and profiteer of them all, Lord Oxburgh of SMERSH, I mean GLOBE.
Yet the voice of outraged taxpayer, electricity user and anyone who knows what it is to smell a rat where there a very large, rotting one behind the ornate climate desk is coming through, clearly. And though Mann magnificently manages to ignore this in his self-superiority, the ordinary Guardian journalist is aware and says something approaching the truth. Two cheers at least for Mr Randerson.
So the scientists over-egged the pudding, so to speak?
So the "catastrophe" bit has been exaggerated?
So what exactly is the "cause" then? And would one of its "adherents" like to give us the theology of it in a nutshell so we can all decide whether we want to buy into it or not?
Quick! Before Ed Davey does something he might regret.
As noted the panel is really formed by like minded people, it all seemed to me irritatingly presumptive, the great and good indulging in a cosy "finalise the details" chit chat.
However I held some hope for the Q&A, and indeed at about 38 minutes the first two questioners did raised some - first one guy asks about the recent letter from medics to the Graun, the one that talked of oil vested interests, and he made the reasonable point what has it got to do with medics, and shouldn't we ask about vested interests in getting medical grants with the word "climate" attached, and secondly a woman asked about the possibility of NGOs being too fixated about climate to the detriment of being actually useful. This seemed to provoke some mumbling answers from the panel, with a notable staw man thrown in about climate scientist car parks not having fancy cars parked in them. The soviet feel was enhanced by the clear sound of gritted teeth when one panel member thanked them for "provocative" nature of the question. Obviously the "debate" was surprised that anything provocative was going to visit their cosy minds that day;)
Thinking they may have let a few more normal questioners in, carried on listening, however when the next guy basically ask "why should we care about public opinion when we only need to persuade the NGOs and politicians" the panelists seemed to sigh in agreement, relaxed to be back on friendly ground, the woman (Gray?) audibly shrugged in agreement and just mentioned the awful problem that we have living with a democratic system. I left it there maybe someone else asked a searching question later but my bile was rising too high at that stage to listen further. What a bunch of gob****s.
@mike jackson
Correction
'Quick! Before Ed Davey does something WE might regret'
Louise Gray sounds very sweet but she seems to be almost incoherent...or is it just me?
I now understand why so many of her articles sound to me that they have been cut and pasted from press releases.
To those of us who are quite convinced that we are not under any real threat from climate change..the whole "debate" is unlistenable for any length of time.
Agree. Gray seems to be rambling. Randerson at about 33 mins says studying clouds "misses the point" the rest of the "evidence is so compelling". I.e. graph goes up - we're all doomed. Won't someone think of the children!
Looking at clouds might help us understand WHY the graph goes up and whether it's then going to go down again! This is a dire discussion.
If this is a "debate" - what is the motion? It seems to be a media love in more than adding anything useful to climatology or it's communication in the media.
It's always a bit disappointing to find out that the main thing driving climate change alarmism (in the media, at least) is dull minds in high places. I'm sure being a writer for broadsheet newspapers used to mean something. It seems the only prerequisite these days is the lack of critical function.
Latimer
I'm taking the "christian" viewpoint this afternoon.
I need to think beautiful thoughts ahead of the Calcutta Cup match!
Mike Jackson - Let's hope the under soil heating at Murrayfield isn't powered by wind power or the game will be off!
Buck
Unless of course it's Eck the Fish that's providing the wind, in which case there will be no problem on that score.
Hanging up by the Constables, a tale of wind and folly....
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/hanging-up-by-the-constables/
Mike - we're safe "Following the final Five Nations match, v. Ireland in March 1991, the old system was removed from the playing pitch and replaced by a new gas-heated system of hot water pipes."
Don't you just love fossil fuels!
Now the only question is what time to start my first pint..
Heating football fields? Tell me more.
@Timheyes and Benpile
I fear that considerable swathes of GB have morphed into a "nomenklatura" state in which many well paid, and, dare I say it, semi-prestigious positions in newspapers, TV, politics and other media are obtained not by ability but by who you are, whose child you happen to be and who you or your parents know.
Maybe mostly it was ever thus, but being a baby boomer I thought had detected a certain amount of social mobility and advancement by ability in the 60's that seems to be disappearing now.
P.S. I am not starting a class war out of personal sour grapes here. I was really quite privileged but wilfully squandered all my own considerable opportunities!
Ben Pile
“the main thing driving climate change alarmism (in the media, at least) is dull minds in high places. I'm sure being a writer for broadsheet newspapers used to mean something”.
No doubt there have always been dull minds. But it didn’t matter so much when they disgreed with each other. As with membership of the EU, this is a crisis of democracy as much as a policy mistake.
"The Cause", like all other progressive activist causes, is basically aimed at allowing a lot of rather inadequate people to feel better about themselves.
IMHO
Imperial College must have a reason for putting on these doomfests. The introduction to the first one suggested it was to make the country’s budding scientists and engineers more rounded individuals (presumably so that the scepticism would slide off better).
My granddaugher just finished a geography degree at UCL, where Chris Rapley raps, and she said nobody in her group believed CAGW.
That was, in a way, a bold claim to make. Think of saying this in front of one of the enablers of the lie.
The bloke at Biased BBC is going to love me
Im now a BARB Audience Research respondent
I have got some bloke coming round next week to connect one of their TV audience viewer boxes into my 3 tellys
So if anyone from the BBC is reading this hurry up and fix the he Crystal Palace transmitter The telly in my spare bedroom cant pick up any BBC digital channels anymore
It started a few week back all the BBC started freezing and stopping and i rescanned the telly this morning now i have lost them altogether
Pain in the arse this audience thing i have to have another remote control and type it how many people are watching and what age group
But i do get a load of shopping vouchers out of it
So Top Gear any Martin Durkin documentary or documentary about fuel poverty
Babe Station Big Bang Theory Celebrity Juice CSI Andrew Neal Newsnight when Paxmans presenting and that new thing with Alex Polizzi (proper MILF and Suzy Perry and Polyanna)
Anything on Dave But not that 4eyed P--ck Dominick Bridgestock or Ricky Gervais unfunny arrogant overrated
Dont watch Strictly or the soaps or Downton or TOWIE
I will have about 20 people suddenly all watching
Geoff just type into GOOGLE
the words Imperial College and the Funding
Big Business buying off their Carbon Emissions guilt
Nothing like making people feel guilty to get them to dip into their wallets
Why charity is so profitable
"My granddaugher just finished a geography degree at UCL, where Chris Rapley raps, and she said nobody in her group believed CAGW."
Feb 4, 2012 at 2:58 PM | geoffchambers
And it didn't for one moment occur to you that she may have been indulging her frothing at the mouth grandfather? The chance of any given group, especially intelligent students, all being climate change deniers, are infintessimally small.
DNFTT
ZedDeadBed
Frothing? Who's frothing? You are an anonymous person insulting a named person's discussion of his family. I usually ignore you but you really are psychotic. I would welcome my posts deletion along with the trolls.
"You are an anonymous person insulting a named person"
"you really are psychotic."
The Leopard In The Basement
Climate change deniers - where irony comes to die.
ZDB
Duh! I can insult you, you loony. When I insult someone by name then you make the irony link.
Grammar: 0/10
Spelling: 0/10
Content: 0/10
Hhahaha...got kicked off the daily mail forums and back to another kicking here.
As they say, god loves a trier :)
Regards
Mailman
I think you've just revealed yourself as living in a rather small bubble ZDB.
The days when students were all "green" died around a decade ago.
Perhaps the news hasn't reached Truro yet though.
Leopard
It is instructive to observe the specific point at which zebe jumped in.
Warm supporters take it as a given that young people fully support their cause. Any information suggesting otherwise rankles them quite a bit.
Never ever suggest to a warmie that young people don't believe in them. Apoplexy!!
Just guessing Geoff - but maybe Jeremy Grantham's £12M had something to do with it.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_18-4-2008-11-8-39
Shub
yeah, I think I've been prey to that assumption that all students today have that underlying thinking too, but just listening to the panel "debate" made me wonder how anyone genuinely interested in science could pay lip service to the waffle at the extreme level that would satisfy those alarmists in the media. I think the interpretaive dance students in the occupy camps fit the bill, sure, but with anyone who can do the math its not so certain.
Feb 4, 2012 at 2:51 PM | Foxgoose
"The Cause", like all other progressive activist causes, is basically aimed at allowing a lot of rather inadequate people to feel better about themselves.
Well, that and the fact that a lot of people have made a hell of a lot of money out of it. And those same people hope to continue to make even more money out of it.'
In a word: Fraud.
Zed says:
"The chance of any given group, especially intelligent students, all being climate change deniers, are infintessimally (sic) small."
Simon Singh says:
"This became apparent to me when I was having lunch one day with five physics undergraduates from a London college. They were clearly bright, devoted to physics and fully paid-up fans of the scientific method. However, not one of them was committed to the notions that climate change was happening, that it was largely caused by human activity (eg the burning of fossil fuels) and that there would be trouble ahead unless something changed."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/01/climate-change-sceptics
I can't for the life of me think why on earth this was publicised as a "debate" (any more than Oxburgh's "inquiry" was termed as such). Presentation perhaps - 'tho I confess that so far I haven't managed more than 40 minutes of it. Do they really believe that nobody notices this. Such arrogance makes me very angry. On the other hand Loopy cut-and-paste Louise comes out as semi-articulate.
ZDB:
So that's changed since Simon Singh reported this in April 2009?
Utterly disgraceful language to use of students. And everything TLitB says.
That Simon Singh article in full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/01/climate-change-sceptics
His Grace will probably delete all posts by Zebedee- and all replies - but no sceptic denies that the climate changes. The only deniers are the warmists who hold that the climate only started changing during the industrial revolution.
"His Grace will probably delete all posts by Zebedee- and all replies"
Feb 4, 2012 at 5:06 PM | Jimmy Haigh
Yup - if this blog loses its focus on pumping out disinformation day in day out then bang goes his paycheck. Hence deletion of dissent.
'The chance of any given group, especially intelligent students, all being climate change deniers, are infintessimally small'M. ZedsDeadBed
Actually, since these students have been indoctrinated with fake climate science since school, and are doing geography which does involve mastering facts, they are well placed to see how the fraudsters of the IPPC have failed.
And with the likes of ZDB as propagandists, well, at least Geobbels was effective.
I don't about crying wolf but there seems to be a lot of huffing and puffing.
Has anyone else noticed the BBC overkill reporting on the current cold snap?
Feb 4, 2012 at 5:12 PM | ZedsDeadBed
I'll tell you what to do Zippydeedoodah.
You start your own blog.
You do the work.
Lets see how you get on.
Put your balls on the chopping block.
It passed almost unnoticed due to the obviously stifling atmosphere. One member of the audience asked why it is necessary to try to convince the public, why not just concentrate on politicians and HEADS OF NGO's!!!! No further comment is needed on this.
Nik
Louise Grey has an article in the Telegraph today on the Joy of Windfarms, in which she admits:
“Subsides (sic) for wind and other renewables already add £52 per year to the average household electricity bill every year.
“John Constable, Policy Director at the Renewable Energy Foundation, said the cost of subsidising wind and other renewables will make up a fifth of the average electricity bill by 2020, as well as adding to the cost of goods and services”.
It seems foolish venturing a percentage, when you’ve no idea what the total bill will be like, but this seems quite an admission from the warmists. Does she know something we don’t? Like, for instance, the likely reversal of the rush to renewables? It will be useful to have an economic excuse handy to cover the government’s embarrassment when they realise how wrong they’ve been about CAGW.
Geoff
I don' t think Louise is actually thinking at all. She is just trying to be nice.
If it were just the IPCC that we needed to worry about, I would be encouraged. However, unfortunately, in skimming the "reports" that are being promulgated on the road to Rio, there are a number of indications that they're shifting the grounds for alarmism from "climate change" to the greater (and original) "cause" of "sustainable development".
Not to mention that - as Donna noted in a post the other day - UNESCO is now engaged in efforts towards indoctrinating and polluting the minds of toddlers.
There will come a day when children will ask in wide eyed wonder "Daddy, did they really used to cancel football matches because of frozen pitches?!"
But still the match went the way of those wearing the red rose. The boys wearing thistles tried their hearts out, but just made too many mistakes. I'm off to get another beer!!
Hilary, I'm sure both the shift to sustainable development and propaganda from UNESCO are true stories. But for me the key ingredient in the dangerous man-made global warming story is that it did resonate, for a while, with a large number of people in the West. That gave the unelected at UN level power that they had never had before. They're mighty keen to keep hold of and consolidate that power but as they drastically change the messages they won't be able to take anything like as many people with them, not least after the disillusion that set in on 17th November 2009 with Climategate 1 - and with Donna's book too, albeit as a slower burner. So it's a mighty interesting test case of undemocratic forces that amassed considerable clout facing increasing popular revolt across the world. I don't know the end of the story but the balance has tipped in our favour more than could have been foreseen on 16th November in 2009, to be sure.
Randerson also said that there was lots of money 'on the other side of the argument'. Why are these people acutely aware of the distorting effect of private money but seemingly blind to identical pounds in far greater quantities that have first passed through the hands of the Government?
A passage from pages 184-185 "Climategate: The CRUtape letters" by Steven Mosher and Thomas W. Fuller is probably relevant here.
After berating AGW "believers" for crying wolf, Mosher and Fuller then say:
They then go in to a discussion of things we do know about AGW, and conclude that:
Richard Betts,
I'm not sure what your point is. You seems to be invoking an argument from authority. But Mosher and Fuller are both believers, albeit believers who are willing to engage with atheists and agnostics (as you are). If their opinions were regarded as authoritative by sceptics, then CA and WUWT (which both get regular exposure to their views) would surely have shut up shop.
As you must have noticed, many BH readers do not think the 1970-2000 temperature rise is anything out of the ordinary, nor that "it needs our attention", much less that we need to (try and) "do something about it". Your citation of Mosher and Fuller is unlikely to change our minds.