Bishop Hill Phil Jones in the Mirror
Feb 5, 2012 Climate: Jones Climate: other Last summer, I was at a debate at the Edinburgh book festival in which one of the participants, an environmentalist, lectured everyone about the perils of global warming and then in almost the same breath started telling us about his latest trip to China.
I sometimes wonder whether accusations of hypocrisy have any effect on many such people; among them the tendency to take long-haul flights seems remarkably widespread.
In this vein, I see that the media look as if they are wising up to this behaviour, with Phil Jones is the subject of a knockabout article in the Mirror:
A controversial scientist flew 20,000 miles to Tahiti and back… to preach about global warming.
Prof Phil Jones’ trip to the Pacific is among more than a QUARTER OF A MILLION miles of air travel he has racked up in the past five years.
The boffin’s fuel-burning flights mean his carbon footprint is so big it would take 95 acres of trees a year to absorb it all, Government figures show.
Reader Comments (73)
@TerryS
I'm delighted that you can see things so clearly. I take it in future you wont be questioning the clear link between rising temps, and the need for politicians to reduce CO2 emissions . And I will agree that Jones is a hypocrite .
Have a nice lunch.
A friend of mine arranged a jet charter for Al Gore. Not only did he not fly first class (a rather fine way of travelling) but he wouldn't even take a small jet which would have needed a fuel stop in Iceland. He couldn't possibly wait for half an hour in a luxury passenger lounge at a private handling agent, even though it would have saved more fuel than the average used by people in Europe or the USA in air travel in a year.
Feb 5, 2012 at 4:02 PM | Hengist McStone says:
I take it in future you wont be questioning the clear link between rising temps, and the need for politicians to reduce CO2 emissions .
So it's only politicians who need to act like CO2 emissions should be reduced, or is that an end you try to personally achieve yourself?
Hengist
The above comment demonstrates a severe lack of comprehension and logic skills.
At no point, within the comments of this article, have I made any claims as to the effect (or lack of effect) of CO2. At no point have I claimed that either action needs to be taken or does not need to be taken. The question as to whether or not Phil Jones has acted in a hypocritical way is not dependant upon any thought, deed or action of myself or any other person. It is solely dependant upon the thoughts, deeds and actions of Phil Jones. I do not need to be a Christian to call a Priest, Jewish to call a Rabbi, or Muslim to call an Imam hypocritical for saying one thing and then doing another. I do not need to either believe or not believe in CAGW, AGW, climate change or climate disruption to call Phil Jones hypocritical.
It is Phil Jones's claims that we need to cut emissions and then his actions in flying 250,000 miles that makes him a hypocrite and this is entirely independent of whether CO2 emissions are harmful or beneficial.
@JPeden
Good point. I drove < 3000miles last year which was mostly family commitments. A couple of years ago I flew to Madrid for a course . I don't claim to be perfect , I am a product of the epoch I live in, and boy I figure that makes me very lucky. I haven't calculated my carbon footprint btw, if I did I'm sure there would be room for improvement.
It's only politicians who have the power to make the collective decisions necessary. Moreover it's politicians who have the responsibility to see that such decisions are taken somewhere. They are failing to do so and leaving it up to the individual , who can only reduce his/her own limited carbon footprint .
Email 3711
" There is only one view worth listening to - and that is what IPCC says on the subject. Climate change is happening, it will continue to get warmer and all the things said in the SPM. I understand how awkward it is when the public and fellow scientists see programmes like that produced by Channel 4 a week or so ago. There were barely any climate scientists on the programme and the few that were had their views distorted. Why the media (both paper and TV) want to portray divisions is beyond me. Amongst climate scientists (and I know I define who these are above, so it may seem awkward) there is almost total unanimity on the fact that the climate is changing and will continue to warm. Even the measures proposed in Britain don't go far enough to stop most of the effects. This is a personal opinion. Aviation is the fastest growing sector for emissions, but still quite small. We have done without mass flying until recently. It seems as though we could do without it now. This is hypocracy on my behalf, having just flown in from the US and off to Korea on Sunday. One was a meeting of a project and the next is to talk to the Korean Met Society, so I'm not practicising what I'm preaching."
Phil Jones in the Climategate emails. Is it ethically better to be aware of ones own hypocracy or blind to it? Discuss.
Jack
I presume (hope, indeed) that your quote is word for word and spelling for spelling.
In which case Jones admits to 'hypocracy' which I can only assume [on the basis of 'hypo-' = 'defective' and '-cracy' from the Greek kratos = power or authority and usually in common parlance relates to 'government by'] that he supports government by defectives!
It could catch on.
I suspect, however, that he actually means 'hypocrisy' which is different matter.
"It's only politicians who have the power to make the collective decisions necessary"
So it doesn't matter what you do personally.. :-)
But until AGW protagonists/catastrophists learn to walk the walk, why should anyone listen to them?
At least Phil admits that he does not practice what he preaches. That at least is a step (albeit a very small step) in the right direction.
Perhaps they can only discuss climate change in beach resorts because they like to be able to keep one eye on the sea level - in case it creeps up on them.
Phil Jones has a thick hide, calculated obstuseness, or totally insensate?
But, give him a break, it's tough out there; casting around for funding is a dirty business, options, beliefs and integrity [ho ho] all go out through the window and opportunities to visit gratis lots of exotic locations - is one of the reasons he became converted to AGW.
For me and at the zenith of hypocrisy, he simply cannot compete with Al the purveyor of Goreballs, he of the "sea level rise of 30' " fame, who invests in BEACH FRONT PROPERTIES.
Beat that.
@TerryS
That takes us to where I came in. That the charge of hypocrisy is a rhetorical device to be deployed against those on the opposite side of the argument. Advocates positioned as skeptics enjoy immunity from the charge of hypocrisy because they are arguing there is no need to cut emissions.
@JamesP Im not saying it doesn't matter what you do personally at all. Collective decisions need to be made because the problem is very big. Even if every scientist and greenie and all the lefties on the planet cut their footprint drastically it would not be enough.
how I love the little Hegistisms and outbreaks of strangely-worded stupidity.
"Advocates positioned as skeptics (sic) - why not just say sceptics? The use of the phrase "advocates positioned as" is just irrelevant verbiage which adds nothing to your remark beyond giving it an air of pomposity.
Jones himself pointed out his own hypocrisy.
Why does Hengist think that there is hypocrisy in believing that the possible CO2 problem is massively over-hyped and that there is therefore no burning need to reduce emissions? As usual, I am forced to conclude that Hengist does not understand English. Perhaps he cannot conceive that there are people who take anything authored by Jones, Mann, Pachauri, Greenpeace etc with a huge amount of salt.
Re: Hengist
Calling somebody a hypocrite because they do not practice what they preach is not a rhetorical device. You can find out more about what a rhetorical device is here.
Sceptics do not enjoy immunity. For example: Claiming CO2 is harmless and then doing everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint would be hypocritical. NOTE. Doing everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint is different than saving energy. In the former your primary goal is reducing the carbon footprint and the side effect might be a reduction in energy use. In the latter the primary goal is saving energy and reduced CO2 is simply a side effect. The latter would not make you a hypocrite.
He still can't show where Jones has ever said that carbon dioxide emissions don't need to be reduced.
Does that make Hengist a hypocrite? He demands his opponents in the debate come up with quotes from Jones, but when someone points out that the onus is on Jones, and he therefore needs to come up with a quote, he ignores it.
Let's not get sidetracked by Hengist's strange arguments. The Daily Mirror has had a go at poor Phil. Has he been thrown under the bus (as my colonial cousins might say)?
And then there's this on the subject of Climategate:
I love those quotation marks.
Ignore zed2.0
Very interesting that the Mirror is running this story.
Private Eye is starting to crack as well. In spite of its self-proclaimed mission to "ridicule ALL orthodoxies" it has always had a small number of taboo subjects. For a long time AGW has been off limits - in spite of being a target-rich subject with stratospheric levels of hypocrisy.
Over the last 6 months there have been a number of pieces poking fun at the greenies - and not just from a "deep-green" angle. There is now a regular column from "Old Sparky" highlighting energy issues in a factual way.
http://di2.nu/foia/1206628118.txt (27 Mar 2008)
James, that was a real dig there, wasn't it.
They also make it sound as though he stood after the email leak and got reinstated at his insistence. As opposed to the official line of 'impartial investigations' completely 'exonerating' him.
Warmies, watch out!!
I am reading the Michael Mann book now (I am sure the Bish and SM will have a go at his explanation of the statistics etc). The rest of the account is singularly unexciting. It is not Mann's fault - only I know more the events he talks about in his book, from the emails. Mann, on the other hand, strings together a narrative drawing from journalists' and newsarticle accounts, about an event he participated in first-hand. What a lost opportunity for him!
Here I was, holding the text of the man at the centre of the storm, thinking he's going to spill some details he'd withheld from basic courtesy which he was going let loose and blow away my denier brains, and ....there he was, regurgitating stories from Monastersky and Regelado. Utterly insipid.
Moreover the man sounds like a conspiratorial loon - he starts off his book with something about oil company people messing with Ben Santer, and then goes on to the anthrax powder, the 'Serengeti strategy', cigar company executives, psychoanalytic babble. The Serengeti story is particularly hilarious. The semi-pleading emails he wrote to his colleagues about being the target of fossil fuel lobbies make more sense now.
The book itself and the reviews at Amazon that have appeared display a sort of a bunker mentality. In the meanwhile, Mann is still insisting that his MBH code is his 'intellectual property', and that the Jesus paper provides 'independent confirmation' of his results.
Where else to hide, but in bunkers?
I'm not sure whether to buy it or not Shub. Once you've read it perhaps you could write an Amazon review as a guide.
Jack
“Private Eye is starting to crack..”
I think if Lord Gnome (Hislop) can be persuaded that he’s been had, there will be some very rapid catching up. I’m sure Booker is working on him, but Lady G has influence the other way, I believe.
“honest and sound”
It only needs to be sound, surely? As written, it equates to ‘he really meant well’.
@ 'Retired Dave' Feb 5, 2012 at 10:13 AM
"I wondered how long it would take for the AGW "cause" to suggest taxing shipping for CO2."
next they will want to ban all ships because they exacerbate sea level rise (by displacement), only x ships may be on the worlds sea's at once, controlled by some UN World Oceans Committee.
problem will be you can't haul them on shore because the extra mass will exacerbate costal erosion & sea level rise by depressing the land.
only answer is to burn them (wooden), Viking like.