Friday
Oct182013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Worst BBC programme of all time?
Oct 18, 2013 BBC Climate: Sceptics 
BBC Radio 4's Feedback programme looked at the space given to global warming sceptics in the period covering the release of the Fifth Assessment Report.
The programme was shameless, stupid and dishonest.
But you knew that.
Reader Comments (154)
stewgreen (12:07 PM) - Thanks for mentioning that survey, discussed here.
I particularly like the term “emotional innumeracy." A particular example of appeal to this weakness stands out in my memory: a few years ago some research [Velicogna, if I remember correctly] estimated Greenland ice melt rate at around 300 Gt/yr. Rather than present this in context, it was described as "9000 tonnes of ice every second." (Cf. this BH post.)
Put in context, this melt rate would contribute a total of 3 inches per century to sea level rise. But a far greater rhetorical effect is achieved by omitting context, trusting to the emotional innumeracy of the audience to make the facts seem scarier.
The effect of renewables on the German grid is discussed here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9205
It was estimated that a 4 day grid failure would cause 200,000 deaths.
None of the renewables' advocacy organisations such as the BBC has investigated the reliability issue.
AlecM: 'Munich had its coldest start to winter in 200 years..'
That'll be due to global warming then...
Wildfires in New South Wales - 'worst for a decade'..?
OBVIOUSLY due to global warming...
My point is this - we have far better means of measuring temperature, rainfall and everything else than our forbears. So therefore - we measure these parameters, and because we have computers, we use computer models.
However- feeding recent data into computer models does NOT mean that trends (up or down) will continue. There is no rason to assume that they will. Measurements only tell us what HAS occurred, not what WILL occur.
Just sayin'...
I find it obscene that a nitwit like Steve Jones can persistently use the word "denier" and the BBC host gives him a totally free pass. All he would have to say is "we'll, isn't it true that these skeptics might actually be right ?"
Honestly, it's a joke.
Oct 19, 2013 at 1:31 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlecM
Thanks for the extra detail.
Of course they would like to believe that the cream rises to the top (and like us to believe it).
On the other hand, scum floats.
thoughtful
CO2 is denser than "normal" air hence the Lake Nyos, Lake Monoun and similar disasters. Of it didn't poison people just suffocated them in their sleep. Just imagine what the press would say if a CCS scheme did something similar in the UK, say in the Truro area?
Lake Nyos
Troll comments and follow-ups removed. Today's Moderator.
AlecM
Also a bad start to the winter in Colorado seeing 100,000+ cattle killed in early snow storm.
Colorado
Also
Murmansk
Why are there so many angry comments here but none on the BBC Radio 4 Feedback blog?
Our Secretary of State for Energy and (now cooling) Climate Change is a bit like a character from 'Animal Farm':
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
@Oct 19, 2013 at 3:01 PM | Unregistered CommenterSamuel Pickwick
Good point, I didn't realise there was a specific blog page for this program, I've just been tweeting to @BBCR4Feedback.
Feedback Blog page here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/blogradio4/posts/Feedback-Should-the-BBC-always-be-impartial
Twitter comments
- Barry's got a good point : rather than a few random complaints by the public it does seem that Feedback was hijacked by something organised (.. they already knew I supported Carter, but didn't contact me) Tie that in with the undisclosing that one speaker owns a green power company.. perhaps there are Green PR professionals involved ?
- yep : "playing the man not the ball",
The logical way to comment is to explain "Carter was wrong cos of 1, 2, 3", but instead Jones line was "deniers should be banned"
The "appeal to authority" "carter should be banned cos he's not a climate expert" -
- people are brought on usually to comment on an area of their expertise
Steve Jones was brought on cos he wrote a report on the BBC's reporting of Climate Science ..
- Bob Carter was brought on to comment on the IPCC cos he had just written a report Climate Change Reconsidered II another extensive commentary on IPCC science. So he is an expert on commenting on the IPCC reports. He is further qualified to comment as he has written a number of books on the field and additionally through his expertise in the geology field. (He is paid by the NIPCC whose funding is from Heartland who in turn do not receive much from Oil corps so the paid by BigOil label doesn't stick.)
- I note that Steve Jones is no more qualified than the ordinary citizen to quote on Climate Science nor IPCC reports, yet he was allowed to extensively misrepresent climate science unopposed. I would say that he does have vested interest in getting skeptics banned.
- Leopards right, Jones was allowed to make slurs in unscientific way
- derogatory namecalling a devious tactic used to frame debate, OK on blog comments, but not on professional media.
Wow. This is the summary of this climate item on the Feedback Blog page (see link above) my emphasis:
Pretty crass labeling of Bob Carter as a denier with scare quotes. I'll put forward a comment there.
Greenlighting the Green-only policy
- Those proponents that Feedback aired are not just complaining about the 1 time Carter was on, they are seeking to confirm applying the Guardian, LA-Times policies of Censorship and banning skeptics to the BBC
Truth Matters : If we sit back to this then we are greenlighting that
FALSE ANALOGY :
1. Skeptic blogs have bigger following than the alarmist blogs (see recent analysis on WUWT)
2. Skeptics vote so have a right to be represented.. e.g. questioning IPCC is UKIP policy, by excluding their viewpoint from debate the BBC is excluding a sizable number of voters
3. "The Earth being a globe" : scientifically VALIDATED .... "manmade CO2 will cause catastrophe" : NOT scientifically VALIDATED
- New IPCC reports do not have the right to have no-one question them
The blog ..good point ..I am outraged, but not angry .. we here prefer to deal with contentions by logically disssecting them point by point .. not by drama queening and sending storms of angry ranting tweets calling for CENSORSHIP and BANNING .. (that's why I call them DramaGreens)
I am sure the committed think how wonderful it would be if there were no objective observers willing and able to see the truth behind the screen saver put up by organisations like the BBC which pretend IPCC science is holy writ and that a windmill and PV-based power generation system can somehow replace a central power grid!
This Plan is financed and controlled by Corporations buying an oligopoly to feast on the hopes and aspirations of ordinary decent people.
Samuel Pickwick Oct 19, 2013 at 3:01 PM
Many thanks. Signed up and commented. Your criticism is one I’ve often made myself in the past. I think it’s probably a natural psychological reaction - we need to talk among ourselves before we get our courage up enough to express ourselves in the big, wide, hostile world.
I’ve seen it happen a few times now that a critical mass of sceptical comments can silence a thread with a killer wave of boring old common sense - most gratifying.
My comment is up on the feedback blog now, I don't think it's angry at all, pointed hopefully? ;)
@Oct 19, 2013 at 3:31 PM | Registered Commenter stewgreen
For the record a couple of those tweets you mention are mis-attributed. I'm not bugged about attribution, but the original owner(s) may mind :)
This was me, not Barry:
"came across as hi-jacked by grubby media power play, not complaints by public. Who to complain to? ;)"
This was not me (not sure who):
"- I remember name calling from school. Usually those who had run out of ideas and lost the argument"
I was sickened by the unchallenged hypocrisy of letting a non 'climate scientist' claim monopoly rights to commentary for 'climate scientists'; would the BBC allow a conventional political party such a monopoly? Hence I have e-mailed the following criticism to Feedback:-
<<Dear Sir, I was shocked but not surprised by Feedback's soft interview of Prof. Jones on climate change. Essentially he was appealing for a monopoly of the airwaves such that only "climate scientists" get to comment on global warming. On the contrary, anybody numerate should be able to comment on this issue. After all, there has for years been a yawning gulf between the alarmist viewpoint proposed by the IPCC, supported almost unquestioningly by the BBC, and the reality of the temperature and climate change records. It is high time the BBC stopped pretending "the science is settled", returned to its charter's values and gave Radio 4 listeners the opportunity to decide for themselves which side of the debate is largely propagandising and which is closer to the truth. As adults we can decide. Even if some of your listeners are parti pris, the rest of us will appreciate the fresh air. High time to clean out the BBC's augean stables - it's years over due.>>
At one time I used to write reasoned anti AGW scientific scepticism on the BBC blogs. The BBC's clearly did not approve and after some time banned me with the spurious explanation that my writing was "off topic" which I suppose from within the BBC gruaniad bubble was probably right.
Despite numerous letters to ascending levels within the BBC, after 2 years I remain banned and I imagine will remain so for the rest of my life. So much for the BBC's much vaunted commitment to openness and free speech.
The BBC programme was fascinating for its comment by Steve Jones that the BBC was wrong to allow the 'climate denier' equal opportunity to talk against 'the experts'. The fact is, the latter are by definition parroting the consensus, because that is what government pays for, and any 'consensus' in science can run into trouble at any time because they could all have missed something crucial.
The BBC guy bravely stated that to censor the opposite view, which is that CO2 apparently has little warming capability, as shown experimentally, was wrong.
The comment on the blog from 'Spartacusisfree' gives an interesting take, asserting that the real AGW has been from the reversal of the accepted sign of the effect of aerosol pollution on cloud albedo thus neatly explaining some or even most of the 1980s and 1990s warming as being from Asian industrialisation AND the present temperature plateau. After all, if the consensus people try to claim the latter is solar, they shoot themselves simultaneously in the foot and the behind.
Steve Jones, a geneticist with none of the advanced physics you need to establish the real science, appears to be a quietly spoken 'warmist' fanatic for his insistence that only the 'consensus' is science.
What needs brought up more often is that skeptics have been mostly proven right on the actual science whilst believers have been mostly [wrong? Ed.} So who then are the real experts?
It was not the current state of the science being discussed here; it was the out of date opinions about the state of the science before all of these opinions were proven wrong by multiple sets of observations. About the only fact in the programme was that virtually nobody working in climate science in the UK will challenge the consensus. The attitude of Steve Jones against dissenters demonstrated exactly why that is.
What Bob Carter said was irrefutable; there is nothing unusual or unnatural about todays benign and beneficial warming in historical context; neither the magnitude nor the rate. All that Jones mentioned to counter that obvious fact was that CO2 has been rising. Well yes but so what? The motion actually before us is that ever rising CO2 should provide ever rising temperatures but exactly the opposite has happened, It doesn't matter what percentage of scientists believe a myth - it remains a myth. For all the talk of mountains of evidence - all of it is evidence of gradual global warming but there is not a single shred of evidence of any unnatural or manmade warming. That is the key! They thought thought the models provided that evidence but the models were all wrong. Te idea that temperatures should not rise naturally is merely a bad philosophy that is refuted by actual historical data - something that a Geologist is best placed to provide.
There are just too many mouths in the trough amongst the commited professional climateers though to admit the truth; that they don't actually have a clue about what drives climate! It took the beggars a long time even to stop denying the obvious fact that the temperature rise had stopped. Some of them still deny it. Yes the mainstream consensus scientists are the real deniers of reality!. Quite how journalists or indeed anyone with any intelligence can let them get away with repeating fallacies as if they were facts is utterly beyond me.
@JamesG: the explanation is that much of the 'consensus' science is wrong, obvious to any professional scientist. It is real to the believers because they wrongly believe that a radiation field measured by a 'pyrgeometer' is a real energy flux: it isn't. In short, it's all a big cock up with added layers of incorrect data (double real low level cloud optical depth) to pretend the models are valid because they apparently hind cast. They have less predictive capability than seaweed.
The BBC is institutionally disposed towards metaphysical naturalism, in the same sense that the Met' Police were (??) Institutionally racist. All the policies may point to balance but practice falls far short. Many (most) presenters of science are in the same cast. We have numerous comedians "on message" as well as lending their genius to science presentation. Their speciality usually being to point out that if you don't believe the scientist, err, you must be an eejit, errr.
Given that prof Jones is one of the in crowd it was extremely unlikely that he would be challenged. The danger is when his kind of thinking goes unchallenged we can slip into totalitarianism.
entropic man (Oct 19, 2013 at 2:01 AM) said “Climate change research and reviews such as IPCC AR5 are science based. The opposition is mostly opinion based.”
I‘ll repeat a comment I made to one of your previous questions, which you never responded to, because I think it has similar relevance.
In the ‘Valentine’s day’ post (Oct 17, 2013 at 1:04 AM) you asked "Where are all those sceptic papers?” and I replied…
Well, I don't think they get published with a key word like 'sceptic'. What you should really be asking is how many papers get published that either:
1) offer alternate models and/or interpretations of the empirical data, such as this one...
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/stadium-wave.pdf
2) assess the model projections against empirical data to indicate their fidelity, such as this one...
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n9/pdf/nclimate1972.pdf
My personal observations suggest that the vast majority (95% :-) of 'climate scientists' and related papers deal with the outcome of models and the consequential future impact on environment/species/society/etc. If this is true, then I would not expect these people to be critical of the models because they assume that the people who specialise in developing them know what they're doing... hence the lack of sceptical statements from the 'majority of climate scientists'.
15 comments now at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/blogradio4/posts/Feedback-Should-the-BBC-always-be-impartial
Many excellent comments here that should be there.
- BBC Feedback before your broadcast you and your antiskeptic complainers analysed a TRANSCRIPT of Prof Bob Carters's words piece of the radio ?
- please post a link to a non-skeptic website where the transcript was posted before your broadcast...please
Supporters of the IPCC benefit from critical questioning on the BBC, because they can calmly disect the criticism and show that it does stand up therefore re-inforcing the AR5 report. Only if you were afraid of flaws being exposed would you try to get criticism banned.
How many of IPCC supporters ? and how many opposers would benefit from BBC airing questioning of IPCC reports ?
ALL OF THEM SURELY
So WHY BAN CRITICISM ?
- Geoff I am going to post a comment there blogs/blogradio4/posts/Feedback-Should-the-BBC-always-be-impartial suggesting they look at the comments here...cos,
1. we have many more comments here
2. Here is a better quality ..some of the comments there demean sceptics e.g. showing certainty about unvalidated stuff (that is the IPCC game not ours) so a guy should not be saying "yeh the ice age is coming", cos it gives Steve Jones ammunition his shouts of "nutcases"
3. Comment here is immediate & uncensored (comments only removed after people have seen it was disruptive trolling)
- then I will post there quickly outlining where they have probably broken the law and should edit the show before repeating it on Sunday (even though the original form is useful to us as it exposes what one-sided censoring bullies they are)
- Here we all know the fallacy of authority - but I don't think BBC_Feedback have the patience for analysing facts rather they would prefer an authority figure supporting our side.. can we put one forward ? It would be great if Prof Carter himself asked for the right of reply ..We do have scientists etc. who would put could put Jones in his place, but are any free who are not afraid to take the risk of upsetting the apple cart ? Prof Curry would probably do it these days
Alex Cull at Oct 18, 2013 at 9:20 PM - Thanks for your efforts/time spent as usual Alex (much appreciated to give others a source to pull quotes from:-)
"Steve Jones: The problem with passionate climate change deniers out there is that whatever the evidence, they will not accept that they are wrong. So, under those circumstances, there's no real point in talking to them."
anybody know the evidence he is talking about ? does he mean the mere fact there is a consensus (in the English speaking part of the world) under the IPCC umbrella is all he needs to decide who is right or wrong on the science of climate change, weird guy if so.
ps. seem to remember his other half makes docs etc for tv, may explain (if correct) why he thinks the recent Horizon progs are great (in my biased opinion they have been crap for many years now).
Entropic Man
You say
"I was particularly taken by Steve Jones' distinguishing between science and opinion. Climate change research and reviews such as IPCC AR5 are science based. The opposition is mostly opinion based."
Did this come from a climate model or is it an opinion that you hold? I have seen thaqt you are becoming ever more frequent in your denial of the existence of sceptical climate science. Are you parti pris, perhaps?
Jones family benefit from ClimateScarePorn documentaries Horizon pay for ..probably
..not stalking, just Google@diogenes ..drop it mate. I thought @Entropic Man was being sarcastic ..if he is not and thinks "scientists say"= "VALIDATED science" then it is a comment to leave up, cos it shows how dumb DramaGreens are
No such thing as bad publicity ?
At least they mentioned Bob Carter and the Non governmental international panel on Climate Change NIPCC at 2min 15s
At 8min10s Steve Jones admitted there were some skeptical reasons worth considering. At 4 min 50 he had admitted that there were concerns that there were problems with the models and that some forecasts had been overstated.
At 9min 40s Steve Jones said he thought dissenting voices should not be silenced. He mentioned the case of physics where some were saying in 1905 that everything was settled with nothing left to discover but then Einstein sent shock waves through previous orthodoxy.
Maybe it is lazy thinking to try to shut down a debate and only allow a black and white summary ?
Most issues in life are many sided, not just two dimensional
As Antigreen.blogspot.uk quotes, " Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” -- Voltaire "
I wonder if the first stage in " science " is to consider all the options, the next step is to work out the likelihood of each possibility - to check each option against reality ?
How can you make your mind up about the conclusions without considering the full debate ?
Maybe it is about being able to discuss the relative merits of each scenario ?
Interesting to listen to Richard Feynman : The scientific method in 1 minute flat : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBFZEYkzKXc First guess a hypothesis then check against observed experience
Also Feynman : Mathematicians versus Physicists http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw , at 1.43 there needs to be understanding of the connection between the words with the real world
Reasons why the science is irrelevant?
Next month there is a gathering in Warsaw, take 5 and attempt to comprehend the infrastructure required to facilitate the following schedules
" List of exhibits "
" Side events schedule "
Then remind yourself that these are only the "side events" if you want to check out the whole circus, then I do hope you have access to the considerable resource it will require.
" Warsaw Climate Change Conference - November 2013"
O, and if you look closely you will find our BBC listed amongst the exhibitors.
I think the phrase “parti pris” was misused originally in this spat (as in “taking part; wilfully contributing to”), and continues to be misused. Its OED definition is:
To be honest, even as a self confessed (and proud of it) warmist, I thought the programme was pretty bad. It was appallingly unbalanced and suggested by default that freedom of speech was only acceptable if you said the correct things. Wake up BBC, freedom of expression includes the freedom to be wrong. Just because I don't agree with what many skeptics say, I would always defend their right to say it.
DailyMail Feedback fails to mention BBC lawbreaking, but allows green mates on to make slurs
click the link above for more@Garethman : Welcome, thankyou for being civilised
stewgreen
thanks for responding. I thought the article (not the Feedback programme) was actually rather good. See the comment on apartheid. I can remember swearing at the radio every time a report on the torture of some black activist was “balanced” by an interview with a South African minister swearing that the Seth Efrican government never tortured bleck ectivists.
But what else should the BBC do? Their ability to get access to everyone - South African ministers included - is based on their reputation for impartiality.
There is clearly still a movement within the BBC which wants to maintain that tradition. The Roger Harabins and Steve Jones are trying to erect a smokescreen of scientific “truth” to prevent them from doing their job. Simple journalistic principles of eternal suspicion are what’s required - so let’s point them towards Judith Curry or Paul Dennis or Old Moore’s Almanack and let their journalist nose for a story do the rest.
Anyone have some fly spray? I think I can hear a tsetse fly buzzing around
I was particularly amused to hear Professor Jones (Genetics) say, that in 1905 when Einstein advanced his theory, "the entire science of Physics collapsed" sic. Obviously well qualified to talk about any science.
No it didn't, it was added to.
Tammly (aka BSc Physics Univ Birmingham 1976)
Another gem this morning: Lord Nick Stern saying Richard Feynman was his hero!
I see a lot of new faces here and for the those who do not know Bob Carter's work he was a Professor with a chair in the James Cook University in Australia later Emeritus Professor when he retired. However he was banned from access to the University on its Library presumably because of his very measured and science based comments on "Global Warming" He is a very good presenter of his case and I recommend his various YouTube Videos. The has written books on climate the most recent of which is "Taxing Air" and the early "Climate: the Counter-consensus (Independent Minds) " both excellent.
Sorry about the typos I must read what I type BEFORE I post it but I am sure you get the gist.
Reliance on Authority over validated was the common error in Feedback ..so 1. here is a an authorative essay on The Denier word and BBC policy Warren Pearce Leverhulme Research Fellow on Making Science Public programme, University of Nottingham March 2013
- 2. Here is a clear version of a more skeptic viewpoint from James Dellingpole, Telegraph blogs, August 28 2013.
Do the BBC have a secret handshake for sceptics as well, like Conservative supporters?
http://order-order.com/2013/10/14/secret-handshake-for-tories-in-the-beeb/
The Rise of Climate Censorship from GWPF a new article and cartoon about the LA-Times censorship
A post at Order-Order talks of Tories having a secret handshake at the BBC. Amusing and informing if true.
http://order-order.com/2013/10/14/secret-handshake-for-tories-in-the-beeb/
The BBC are still taking feedback comments on the following blog and processing moderation of them quite quickly at the moment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/blogradio4/posts/Feedback-Should-the-BBC-always-be-impartial
I know a bloke who hasn't paid the TV licence fee for years. It's the only way.
This tripe confirmed the bloke in question is entirely correct.
Jeez. You say that like it's a rare thing to know someone who doesn't buy a license. I can't believe anyone buys a TV license. And it has nothing - I mean NOTHING - to do with the lack of quality or honesty or the amount of "tripe" from the BBC. If the BBC was the best thing since sliced bread it wouldn't make a difference to the principle, which (I'm sorry to say) you seem to have missed.
It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that some of us still value the right to watch a TV set without the Government's holy permission. It's that simple.
If you believe it is acceptable that you should pay for a permit to watch TV then carry on paying. If you quiver at night worrying that the TV Gestapo has the right to enter your property to check up on you, and even obtain a warrant with no evidence (which they cannot, by the way) then carry on paying. The rest of us will laugh at you as you whinge about how rubbish the BBC is and how you are considering one day, maybe, perhaps stopping paying.
Pharos
When I looked at the comments on the BBC site a few moments ago, it appeared that you have to click the down arrow to indicate a high rating and the up arrow if you don't like the comment. Am I misreading something?