Bishop Hill Dellers on Radio 5
Mar 23, 2012 Climate: Sceptics James Delingpole was on the Richard Bacon show on BBC Radio Five Live yesterday (audio here from 1:16:20). It's combative stuff, as you would expect from an avowed right-winger appearing on the Beeb.
James mentions my GWPF report and is challenged on his suggestion that the Society gave no thought to its support for AGW. He suggests that my report said this. This is not quite correct. I suggested that the Society didn't actually consult the fellows before supporting the movement.
I think in terms of getting over a reasonable case of what the sceptic argument is, James did well. It was nice to see the silly "97% of scientists support AGW" claim nailed.
Bishop Hill
I'm just scanning the text of Delingpole's book, and I can't actually find the bit where he says that the Royal Society gave no thought to supporting the AGW movement. Can anyone find it?
Reader Comments (49)
Listen to Richard Bacon's response to Delingpoles explanation of the 97% - Richard is totally pathetic.
Richard is totally ill-informed - and has made no effort to understand anything, yet rolls out total platitudes. I thought James was quite restrained with Richard, which made Richard look an even bigger fool, for his ignorance.
I notice that the Beeb can't bring themselves to admit that Dellers was given airtime...
I agree, but you also have to remember that it is an interviewer's job to be confrontational. There's not a lot of point (and precious little end result) in simply sitting there and nodding wisely (especially on radio!) with everything your interviewee says.
That way no-one gets to learn anything.
My only regret is that Dellers didn't specifically cite Doran et al and make clear the precise errors that Nurse made in Horizon because it let Bacon off the hook.
I can't be the only skeptic who finds Dellinpole toe curling ? I feel Lindzen, Monkton or even your Grace would do a lot better. I know I'll be against the tide here but I don't feel "Dellers" appearences help. Its a matter of taste I suppose.
There's not a lot of point (and precious little end result) in simply sitting there and nodding wisely (especially on radio!) with everything your interviewee says.
Oh, I don't know. It seems to serve al-BBC well enough as an approach when they're interviewing ecofascists.
Definitely worth a listen -- Bacon & Dellers make for a good show, both smart debaters and combative in the particular British way where insults are taken as part of the debating technique and the only way to lose is to pretend to get outraged.
Bacon scored some hits, discomforted Dellers to some extent, though from debating technique rather than knowledge.
Bacon didn't sound like a typical warmist, just a guy who likes a good verbal stoush. Recommended.
I seem to recall reading on this blog that the BBC were blocking skeptics from getting any airtime. What happened to that canard ?
When JD is on the Jeremy Vine Show the interview is always civilised. Bacon made the mistake of telling his audience in effect - 'I've got this Denier called Delingpole coming on in a minute, just watch me take the piss out of him'.
That set the scene for a glorious confrontation. Bearing in mind that JD was there to plug his new book 'Watermelons' it all went rather well.
In the morning his book had an AmazonUk rating of 5173, by nightfall it was at number 150 !
Radio 5 Live exposed a whole new audience to the climate debate and its listeners obviously wanted to know more and were prepared to pay good money to find out !
What's not to like ?
I agree with Morph. Dellers is a good egg and all that but he always oversells the case. Plus, while his line in polemics can more or less work on paper, when he speaks he is curiously incoherent.
That said, the level of ignorance displayed by Bacon is shocking and precisely demonstrates how so many in the media have unthinkingly swallowed the alarmist line. Anyone who takes seriously the claim that 97% of climate scientists etc etc etc is guilty of a disturbing failure to do even minimal research.
And 97% was deemed a consensus on this blog only a couple of days ago.
Bacon is the reason I stopped listening to 5 Live anymore. He is such a leftie its unbelievable and his shows reflect this. This of course is a pre-requisite for employment the Beeb.
His feeble attempts to dismiss Delingpole's evidence were laughable and he was unable to articulate any arguement and resorted to cherry picking and cheap shots.
I had hoped at one stage that Dellers raised Bacon's drug exploits - something which is OK with the Beeb apparently.
'Watermelons' by James Delingpole. As advertised by Richard Bacon...
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/
Bish, re your question:
Page 9 of Watermelons' says that the RS has "... jumped so wholeheartedly on the AGW bandwagon, with barely a thought...."
Hengist
What are you rabbitting on about?
97% of 3000+ when you ask 3000+ for an opinion is a consensus.
97% off 77 when you ask 3000+ for an opinion is not a consensus.
Got it?
Good.
And in neither case does the "consensus" mean anything very much.
Page 9 of Watermelons has this:
'We can see this sorry decline even in institutions like the Royal Society (founded 1690). Its once proud motto was Nullius in Verba - take no man's word for it - but this hardly squares with the way the organisation has jumped to wholeheartedly on the AGW bandwagon, with barely a thought as to whether the underlying science supports it.'
Raging with miff at being beaten to the post by DougS (11:00AM), I went back to the book to look for more. Here are a couple that seem relevant, if not quite as on the nail as Doug's:
1. JD quotes with obvious approval, on page 107, an essay by ScientistForTruth which includes this sentence: 'We have seen the Royal Society becoming a shamelessly crude advocacy society.'
2. On page 111, in his own words about the RS under Lord Rees: 'It listened to a coterie of post-normal scientists who were more interested in political activism than objective truth - and took their word for it.'
Hengist; please accept these facts from us grey heads who make objective analyses. The 97% was a deliberately false statistic. The climate models are based on provably wrong physics, are falsely calibrated and cannot predict climate. The evidence of systematic scientific fraud is ramping up and it is very likely that criminal prosecutions will soon be initiated.
Unless we adopt major measure to increase hydro power, e.g. flooding the Lake District and Sea lochs, the windmills above the present level in the UK will increase CO2 emissions above that without the windmills. Thus the whole energy policy of the left which you clearly represent, has been lacking in engineering input, a knee jerk response without thought as to the consequence,.
Stop behaving like spoilt children; the new Lysenkoism is finished.
James did very well in this interview. I think he realised he wasn't there to communicate with Richard Bacon, but with Richard Bacon's Five Live audience - and he succeeded. In trying to make himself an obstacle to that communication (as is his job), Bacon was an ill-informed pushover.
Well done James.
Dellers, bless him, is much better with the written word than in debate.
Nevertheless, the BBC seem to like him for some reason ( I think they think he is secretly one of their own and is just being contrary wilfully to stir things up a bit) and invite him to the party so we cannot complain. At least the BBC occasionally now allows a debate of this nature to actually take place. Once upon a time this would have been unheard of.
Every little helps. It is a welcome change from the previous mantra of "The Science is Settled".
Hengist
"I seem to recall reading on this blog that the BBC were blocking skeptics from getting any airtime."
But they're only about 97% successful.
I seem to recall reading on this blog that the BBC were blocking skeptics from getting any airtime. What happened to that canard ?
Mar 23, 2012 at 10:32 AM | Hengist
Plonker !! It was in the Jones report for the BBC that this blog reported. You have a massive disconnect between your retina and brain. Get it seen to.
Jones, Nurse, both biologists, Beddington, not a scientist, May, physics-trained but like Beddington a spread-sheet person, were easily deceived. Rees is a cosmologist so like Sagan was a fan of the great equations, no practical experiments.
These people have failed to understand why Aarhenius and Tyndall were wrong. It's because none of them looked out of the window at the real World.
Thanks for the link! I grinned all the way through it, my grin punctuated by only a couple of amused winces. It was "good radio".
It would have been more fun if Richard Bacon had been better informed. Of course, we can't expect chat hosts to be well enough informed to take on every subject that passes through their show, but he might at least have checked out the infamous "97%" before relying on it as his main weapon. What interests me is that he obviously thought that this one dubious factoid was all that he would need. By the time he got to the "red" bit, where he might have been able to hold out for a while, he was already the carpet under Dellers' feet.
Bacon could have read the book. He was caught on the hop, frankly, and it was rather disappointing that Dellers was left to inform Bacon of things that Bacon should have known, wasting valuable air time in the process which would have been better spent discussing more substantially the implications of the points that James raises in the book.
James' contempt for Bacon was just about audible by the end of the interview, as I'm pretty sure it would have been for any of us had we been granted a platform with such a lazy and inept interviewer. Much credit is due to Dellers for keeping his cool and, frankly, trouncing Bacon. Deservedly.
Full marks to Dellers for this. He gave back Bacon's contempt with interest. It was extremely entertaining radio too.
I thought it was a thoroughly entertaining segment. I also thought Richard Bacon was very reasonable. People on this blog might not agree, but beyond this microcosm, I think you'll find that RB's views are pretty mainstream. One of Delingpole's better performances, which I'm sure will garner him some extra book sales.
I am now worried however. I think we need death rays to protect ourselves from evil aliens.
Am I the only one unable to get the recording to work? I just get animated lines criss-crossing, but no apparent sound (I've checked that the sound is okay with other sources).
It worked here from Australia, with the lines criss-crossing on the display throughout.
Regarding the criticisms of James D I think anytime somebody stands up in public to the orthodoxy on Climate Change it can be a tricky engagement. The very large amount of details needed at your fingertips is not insubstantial and different people pull it off in their own way (eg Monckton).
Of course to argue for Climate Change in public theoretically needs the same amount of details at your fingertips but the interviewer is never as critical and it always ends as a free ride.
He did well, sounded as if he was annoyed when it became aparent that BAcon hadn't read his book, but then turned that fact to his advantage as the interview went on (Bacon seemed to have read less and less of it as the interview progressed). The point about the 97% and the green interests of the inquiry chairman is something that hopefully a few people will have googled and will probably be surprised when the facts back up JD.
I would have thought that when someone is interviewing an author about his book, professional integrity would dictate that the book is read first.
I thought Dellers came across really well and covered as much as he could considering Bacon clearly knew little of the subject and time had to be spent correcting him on the 97% and 'science is settled', and Royal Society Presidents know best myths. I particularly liked the direct hits he made on the windmills costing £120billion, and the "solar panel ponzi scheme". Also the laser weapons on every hilltop analogy. Just hope the BBC does not view this as an own goal and refrain from inviting James on future shows (not that he gets many invites anyway).
On the whole, excellent, as one interview like this reaches millions of people. The blogosphere has achieved wonders in terms of derailing the CO2 bandwagon but unfortunately we are still going to need the MSM to ensure it ends up in the scientific scrapyard.
There was perhaps one open goal that Dellers did miss - Bacon's claim that the 5 climategate inquiries had not found any fault with the basic science of AGW. (Afaik none of the inquires actually looked at the science)?
Thanks, rc. I managed to track down the interview via the BBC iplayer site here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01djp25/Richard_Bacon_22_03_2012/
It worked fine.
Just listened to the clip and thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought Dellers defended himself well against the various ad hom put-downs.
rc - I take it you are not the RC a la FOIA.zip ?
A very entertaining interview. I generally like Bacon's style but I think this was the first time I have ever heard him so vigorously defend the counter-point to his interviewee. Very unprofessional behavior from a good interviewer.
Having now listened to the interview, I thought Dellers slaughtered Bacon, who seemed to have thought he would be a pushover. I think he managed to score many good points - not as many as I might have liked, but more than most unschooled listeners would be aware of.
I tend to agree that Mr Delingpole is better in print. Thinking on your feet is a rare skill.
At last!
A proper airing of the skeptical view on the BBC. Hope the book flies off the shelf.
James came over very well, considering he is better on paper than in speech - tho' he is improving markedly in the latter when compared with the Nurse stich-up. Bacon appeared to think he could win the arguement by talking loudly over his interviewee - nul points.
One point I think James missed (being wise after the event) on the temperatures of the Roman and Medieval warm periods - no, we don't have temperature records, but there are records of grapes being grown commercially far north - in Bishop Aukland I believe, and you couldn't do that in present temperatures - particularly with the Roman / Medieval grapes - ergo, it must have been quite appreciably warmer.
Sorry James - should have said "Nurse ambush" rather than "stitch-up".
I had listened to this yesterday - and not knowing exactly when the interview would start heard practically the whole program. What struck me was the "build-up" Bacon gave him; if his listeners had no clue previously about the controversy surrounding "the science" (and the certainty of the "consensus" view), then they certainly would have by the time the interview segment began.
It struck me that Bacon had obviously been given his "talking points" and had done very little (if any) independent research prior to the interview. I thought James did an extremely good job under these circumstances and definitely came out on top!
The only point I wish he could have made was wrt the "investigations". Not sure how many listeners would have known who Oxburgh is and his report was the least substantial of the lot. As others have mentioned, I think it would have been preferable had James found a way to let listeners know that none of the "investigations" even examined "the science" - as has been the case with the multitude of organizations that have endorsed the IPCC's conclusions.
It would also have been nice if he could have mentioned The Hockey Stick Illusion, Donna's book, and Harold Ambler's - all of which would help to enlighten the audience. But he was there to plug his own, and more power to him!
All in all, though, an excellent job! Thanks, James!
I have to disagree that Delinpole came out ahead, or on top or that he "won" however that may be judged.
It seems that with this and before with the Paul Nurse "interview" the beeb have selected James to be their "foaming mouthed right wing climate change denier" of choice simply because they can wind him up quite easily which is what happened here. And after that the points he was trying to make didn't come across all that clearly - IMHO.
Bacon's MO is to be abrasive or jokey where he can - he's very good at it even if he doesn't have a strong knowledge of the facts.
James is a very good writer though.
Generally I thought that Dellers did well - like a few others here, I wasn't too surprised to see the Watermelons generalisation come back and bite him some. I believe there was a thread here a while back - as JD was writing it I think - when some of us wondered whether trying to politicise it too much (though of course the whole CAGW thing is a political construct) would label him instead as a right wing loony. You can almost smell when Bacon wanted to pick him up on certain aspects which were maybe a bit overdramatic - and JD, stay away from the aliens - you just know which bits the bedwetters will quote, even though you qualified the analogy afterwards by saying that lasers would not be necessary.
Yet it will have reached a wider audience, and the Amazon stats are at least somewhat hopeful. Bacon got unusually shouty too. Always a pleasure to see him wound up.
Delingpole missed a trick when he was pressed on whether the warming over the last four decades was exceptional in the last 150 years. Using the annual HadCRUT3 series the warming from 1911 to 1944 was 0.70 C; the warming from 1976 to 2005 was 0.74C. Yes, the later temperature increase was higher than the previous one but not by a sufficient margin to call it 'exceptional'. Other temperature series give similar results.
Delingpole undoubtedly did well.
I thought the the BBC were ordered not to give time to skeptics. Perhaps Delingpole's views are considered fairly mainstream at this point.
But presumably The Team will be calling Black and Harrabin to complain. (And perhaps Harrabin will take the opportunity to shake the CRU down for another 15k - honest reporting doesn't come cheap after all).
I think James Delingpole was impressive. The BBC probably expected to ridicule him as a right wing blowhard, but it totally backfired on the ill-prepared interviewer who audibly lost his cool with his risibly feeble background knowledge and inability to score.
Has anyone listened to the podcast, it started with a quick summary, mentioned tweets etc and that John Prescot had been in touch then played the interviews. Haven't listened to it, just wondering if the various responses are at the end.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/dailybacon#playepisode1
"You also have to remember that it is an interviewer's job to be confrontational (Mar 23, 2012 at 9:58 AM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson).
Yes, it is, but the bbc has abundant form, when it comes to favouring one argument over another. The interviewer can have two opposing guests, but allow one of them to speak freely, while the other is incessantly interrupted. There was a recent item on "Today" about the Royal Family, in which two republicans were permitted to bleat away, to their hearts' content, with no opposing word, either from the "interviewer", or from anyone with an opposing view.
In the present case, Bacon felt entitled to sneak in at the end an assertion that five inquiries had endorsed the IPCC. The five inquiries to which he referred were the comically inadequate ones which supposedly investigated ClimateGate 1. Even if one believes that any of those investigations did a remotely rigorous job, they were not investigating the IPCC, so Bacon's comment was fundamentally dishonest.
lapogus - no not connected, maybe i should post as redc to avoid any confusion. rc is just the abbreviation of my email address.