Bishop Hill Turning the blind Eye
Aug 23, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Media Apparently the hitherto entirely unquestioning Private Eye has published a letter that is supportive of the sceptic position (H/T Philip Foster).
Warming signs
Sir,
Whatever the shortcomings of the parliamentary commission on banking standards (Eye 1320), it's outrageous to claim that the presence of climate change sceptics, such as Lord Lawson, gives it a 'bonkers' feel.
Like or dislike him as a politician, Lawson's book on global warming like that penned by former Eye writer Christopher Booker is well researched, pointing out that the climate change debate is not over and that the "remedies" for global warming may well cause more damage than the condition itself. Given such factors as the other side's doctoring of emails, the flawed "hockey stick" graph, and the wild inaccuracies of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, it doesn't seem bonkers to request an informed, open, calm discussion of the whole subject.This is all that Lawson has done, and Private Eye, with its usual healthy cynicism, should do the same, instead of toeing the current trendy orthodox line.
Whether this represents a gentle shift in the magazine's position or just an attempt to drum up a bit of an argument is unclear. Interesting, nevertheless.
Reader Comments (41)
creating a controversy is a great way of drumming up online business
am glad I don't read it much or at all any longer
Being deemed less bonkers than Booker on climate science might tempt some to call messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne.
I think this is great news, I have toyed with the idea of writing to Ian Hislop many times since his opinions on CAGW just do not fit with his normal anti establishment attitude. Hislop championing anti CAGW on "Have I got news for you" would be wonderful ^.^
Russell at his constructive and informative best...keep it up, old chap
It's not the first time that Private Eye has taken a slightly sideways look at the fossil fuel debate.
In issue 1298 (13 Oct 2011) they had a third of a page outlining the discovery under Lancashire of 200 trillion cu ft of gas (claimed as 10 times the entire North Sea discovery). It then went on to ridicule the establishment green interests that were 'auto-against', and highlighted how stupid some of their arguments were.
Perhaps we should do something to encourage this small shift?
As well as a former Chancellor, Lawson was also Energy Secretary, so he is experienced in weighing up arguments on energy policy, especially the cost benefit ratios. An Appeal to Reason (his book) is just that - he does not claim to be a scientist, the main thrust of his argument concerns the relative costs of "prevention" as opposed to adaptation. {Although he does do a delightful demolition job on Sterne). The real disgrace was that few publishers would touch it despite Lawson being a successful previously published writer. Incidentally The View from No. 11 - his memoirs of his time as Chancellor is not a self serving memoir but contains real intellectual meat, whether you agree or not with his views.
Well, if the magazine is edited by Ian Hislop, I'm pretty sure its line and the Liberal Democrat line will remain broadly similar. Not that the Eye should have a "line" on AGW. It's supposed to point out the absurdities, of which there are too many to summarize!
The Eye seems to have taken more of a "no comment" attitude as far as I can see, rather than active support (which is real pity given the rich seam of twists and turns a look at the various exonerations and cock-ups afford).
The Eye also runs, intermittently, a column: "Keeping the Lights On". So they are keeping their options open.
The problem is that the arts-educated Lord Gnome is said to be a convinced catastrophic warmist. The Eye will change its tune when the lights start going out and the miasma of corruption surrounding Big Wind starts to revolt the public.
Excellent letter, with the small exception of 'doctored emails'. Deleted, almost certainly (or attempts thereof), but I'm not aware of doctored.
On Lawson, I still remember him boasting about removing a tax in every budget. It hit me at the time as about the greatest boast a Chancellor could make. Less work for the clever tax lawyers, more for the productive economy. Such a record should ring true with many by 2012. That story needs to be retold.
On Private Eye and Hislop, the dam has to burst soon. Never has an area so ripe for satire been so neglected by the UK's self-appointed voice of the same.
And as for causation, surely this came about in response to the previous post, on the London BH pub meet. The force is with us :)
Delingpole seems to have a handle on this
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100019614/climategate-where-is-private-eye/
Hislop is very selective about the bits of the establishment he chooses to take a swipe at.
The latest wind turbine vested interest fiasco involving prime Tory targets must have been very tempting to him; but this would have revealed that Lib/Lab are just as tainted and the whole 'can of worms' would have to be opened. No one would be spared and Hislop would lose many 'friends' in low places.
There is so much sleaze being studiously ignored, in fact, that along with the MSM the previously 'investigative' PE are beginning to look about as controversial as the old dead Punch magazine !
When the shi* finally hits the turbine many will wonder where real investigative journalists have been hiding all these years.
I was disapointed Private Eye missed Climategate - I did read somewhere that Hislop had consulted Monbiot and had believed the 'nothing to see here' meme. Could be interesting.
Aug 23, 2012 at 4:53 PM |Alan Reed
Alan, that was a very good article that I must admit to having missed first time round in 2009.
It is truly staggering that his article is still as perfectly valid, if not more so, today than it was then.
" Lawson was also Energy Secretary, so he is experienced in weighing up arguments on energy policy, especially the cost benefit ratios. "
Would you say that about Huhne and the present incumbent and Milliband etc? Lawson was obviously much more intellectually gifted than the current crop of politicos. Maybe even more intellectually gifted than commentator Russell. Definitely more gifted than serial me-me-me-addict, BBD.
I believe that Lady Gnome has some influence over the editor, not unlike our Dear Leader...
I subscribed for many years, but cancelled over the overtly establishment and unquestioning position they took on the climate issue, and the unjustifiably high esteem Monbiot was held in.
It would be great to see them open their 'eyes' on this one - I do miss the satire but can't support them financially until they get it right on this important topic.
Has dogenes shifted his barrel to El Vino's back door ?
Lawson is definately more gifted than his daughter in law's brother, the shirtmaker.
No, I didn't mean that just because Lawson had been energy secretary that made him wise - simply that he had experience in the role. Some people are enriched by experience and some just bring their intrinsic prejudices to their roles and make prats of themselves.
Reading for the first time some of the extremely unfunny satire of 'Russell' on his blog makes me want to think harder about this area. First, we have Josh. That is a tremendous asset. The Eye seems to have no concept of the value of such.
But the Eye in its turn has its wicked column of nonsense obstensibly taken from Joe Public letting the world know his and her opinion on the Internet. That satire works (for me) because much online discussion, unconstrained by any reputation price for the participants, is as banal and idiotic as shown. Places like BH can too easily be written off as a result. I'd prefer that didn't happen.
One of the many fascinating things touched on by Steve McIntyre at the GWPF a week ago was that he didn't think as highly of blogs as some of his followers appeared to. Useful tool but no replacement for a decent culture of scientific publishing, peer review and of course openness of data and code.
Hislop's scepticism about the Net I'm pretty sure extends to Wikipedia, as I think it should. But I'm not primarily trying to take a position here but to accurately discern the mental model of those coming from a different place. Unless I do I know I'm unlikely to be effective as a persuader.
Its to Private Eye shame that given the bloody awful investigation into CRU , which consisted of the types of 'tricks' which they claim to be very much against , that they said not a thing over them . Its impossible to think that they would have done the same if for instances it has be GM crops . Their silence in this case really did dam them .
Unfortunately for Hislop,despite or because of his eunuch position, society has an higher expectation of consistency from him when dealing with fraudulent government behaviour.
and Russell's credentials are.....? You are such a good chap, Russell, every intervention you make strenghtens the sceptics. It is for Russell and BBD to cast aspersions - (if they can without the help of SkS). Some of us like to consider arguments.
The Delingpole article mentioned by Alan Reed above gives the reason for Private Eye’s silence in this quote from Booker:
But it’s not just the Eye. The Observer’s David Mitchell, the Independent’s Marxist Mark Steel; and the Times’ Giles Coren - all admirably funny writers - have all run “some-things-are-just-too-serious-to-joke-about” articles full of contempt for sceptics. When even the licenced jesters go solemn, you know things are serious.So, Private Eye is just the same as the rest of the media, but a bit funnier at times. They always were pro-establishment, feeding off road-kill and people on their way out. When the MSM wake up to the GW scam, Private Eye will follow.
What I find odd, is that it seems people here were expecting something different.
It may be worth remembering that the last time PE took on the scientific establishment was over the MMR / autism 'scandal', when they were made to look very gullible when the facts finally emerged.
geoffchambers - two of the people you mention are not very bright, notably smug and decidedly unfunny leftist 'comedians' who have somehow wangled newspaper columns. The third is a mediocre food critic who trades on his father's name (and, indeed, whose comely sister is apparently engaged to one of the first two, Lord knows why). None is taken seriously by anyone who matters.
Heide has it perfectly right. I didn't stop the Eye subscription because Hislop is not writing according to my tastes on the topic (after all, I still receive National Geographic).
I stopped it because the CG silence exposed the fact that PE is just a "licensed jester" as per Geoff's words, not the purveyor of thoughtful analyses of British life and politics. So what's the point of buying it?
If Diogenes could but persuade Pseuds Corner to quarry the comments here and at WUWT, the hemorrhage of tenners would soon bankrupt Lord Gnome
Oh dear, does this mean that some of the public-school educated elite pseuds who read PE are actually commenting at dinner parties that it has been a bit cold at the S Africa farm this year also the Argentinian polo ponies have been a bit out of condition because the pampas have been so cold?
If Delingpole (quoted above by Geoff Chambers) is right about Ian Hislop regarding Moonbat as some sort of an expert on climate that is indeed so much the worse for Hislop - a man for whom I still have a great respect. Anyway the Eye has generally and perhaps wisely steered clear of the climate issue. It would have been nice if other equally unqualified and ignorant journalists had done the same.
It was Christopher Booker who had that chat with Hislop.
Perhaps if we bombard Lord Gnome with enough pointers, especially anything inconsistent from Moonbat, he might waver. Write to strobes@private-eye.co.uk
Private Eye have been running a series for some time entitled 'Keeping the lights on' which has frequent 'goes' at our 'energy policy'.
This title has now been adopted by the Daily Telegraph to introduce a series of balanced articles on that very topic, which I would commend to everyone, especially Wednesday's piece about 'windpower',
which opens with the words - 'They're eyesores. They chop up birds.They don't work when there's no wind.........(Still read it for yourselves, and the comments by 'AlecM')
A sea-change at the Daily Telegraph is very welcome. Gone is the thoroughly biased series 'Age of Energy' which was funded by BIG SHELL OIL, controlled by David Hone (SHELL's in-house Carbon Trader) and under the 'chairmanship' of the late-lamented (?) Geoffrey Lean, the 'world's oldest environment correspondent.
Geoffrey may re-emerge on Saturday morning, just to prove me wrong, with suggestions such as his recent one - 'Might not Greenpeace rename one of its ships SAMANTHA CAMERON, its former supporter'.
I'm afraid those commenting against Private Eye and then admitting they don't read it are silly. In their "Old Sparky" column they are regularly critical of the renewable energy sector and have carried many very funny cartoons decrying Wind Power. One of their favourite tagets is Tim Yeo and of course Camerons father-in-law who they have pointed out on more than one occassion as benefiting financially from the governments policy on renewables.
AlecM needs to get out to Smith's Lawn more- the eight pointers of the Argentine are bragging about how far uphill they've moved their strings and their malbec plantings to beat the increasing heat on the plains.
omnologus: no, you and Heidi are wrong. Far from being "pro-establishment, feeding off road-kill and people on their way out" and "not the purveyor of thoughtful analyses of British life and politics", PE has run some important anti- establishment campaigns. Two in particular come to mind: the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). In both cases, over several years, PE published detailed, well-informed warnings about the mess we were getting into. And, in both cases, PE's warnings were amply justified by the disgraceful waste of billions of pounds of public money.
So it's all the more unfortunate that the paper has essentially ignored CAGW - a scandal that may well make both of these seem relatively minor affairs.
Robin
I concur. I do read it and their failure to target CAGW is an anomaly. They have otherwise been well ahead of the curve on the City, railways, agriculture, Lockerbie and any number of 'initiatives' designed to fatten their promoters at the expense of the public. I wish Hislop would give Booker a regular slot, though...
JamesP should coun himself fortunate the Eye shied away from Alexander Cockburn's attempt to shift blame for AGW from underwater volcanoes onto a continuous rise in the temperature of the Earth's core.
Booker only fell for the former.
Like others above I cancelled my subscription because of PE's stance on MMR (and "pal-review" retraction) and lack of stance on CAGW.. Can't say I miss it much.
I have been a long term reader and multiple subscriber to the Eye but I also cancelled my subs earlier this year - partly due to Hislop's gullibility on AGW, but mainly because of his reversal on MMR and continued silence over the recent Wakefield witch-hunt. The MMR and vaccines issue is complex and political - and there are parallels with climate science. I won't go into detail here because it is OT, but suggest that those who think that Wakefield is the guilty party on the MMR issue read my (and others') comments at http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/3/14/stringer-on-climate-and-mmr.html .
Since this 2011 thread, John Stone has written more about the reasons for Hislop's turn-about:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/01/in-memoriam-paul-foot-private-eye-in-an-ethical-tangle-over-mmr.html