Bishop Hill Polar bears
Aug 7, 2013 Climate: WG2 I was just on Radio 5 to talk about the Guardian's "polar bear dies of climate change" article. I was up against Greenpeace's John Sauven. I think I was better read on the subject than he was.
I liked this tweet from 4d2b
Easy victory for @aDissentient over Greenpeace spox re polar bears on @bbc5live just now.
and this one from Barry Woods:
AM: I read the report it says computer models. - greenpeace: andrew should read the report, AM: I said I read the report!!
There are a couple of points I should probably follow up on. The bear was found 150 miles from where they have seen it in previous years and the Guardian says this represents "an unusual movement away from its normal range". However, given that polar bears normally range over hundreds of miles, this doesn't quite seem to stack up.
I'll try to upload the audio when it's available.
Bishop Hill
The audio file is here.
Reader Comments (105)
"always alert to other food sources"
Especially environmentalists.
jamesp: Naughty thought but amusing one. Foundation for a Pingu-like animation or computer game?
This is my reply to an article on DeSmog Blog that seeks to trash Susan Crockford for receiving a stipend from the Heartland Institute, which quotes Peter Gleick's infamous "Heartland Strategy" forgery (the gift that keeps on giving). My comment will probably never clear moderation there, so I'm cross-posting it here.
The so-called “Strategy Paper” was a forgery written by Peter Gleick, during his infamous identity theft, document theft and forgery “leak” to this (and other) alarmist blogs. For those ethical and criminal lapses, Gleick was cheered and hailed as a hero by the CAGW alarmisphere. And now, probably only because of your blind obedience to your own alarmist ideology, and your faith in the lies of a lying, forger and thief, you have transformed his lying propaganda into objective truth. Frankly, I would expect no less from the duplicitious liars and propagandists at DeSmog Blog.
For the rocord, here’s what Heartland Institute says abou the mission of the NIPCC (directly from their own official NIPCC web site: [The] NIPCC was created to provide an independent “second opinion” on the topics addressed by the initial drafts of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.
Is it me or is arguing with climatists like Whack-A-Mole sometimes? They put forward Argument A which you shoot down, so they then put forward Argument B as if A had never existed. You shoot down B, and back comes Argument A.
"This report says..."
"The report is a conjecture based on computer models and hasn't provided any hard proof of facts."
"But..." (appeal to authority)..... "Square Earth", etc.
"That's just an appeal to authority. They need to prove what they're claiming."
"But, have you read the report?"
"Yes. I've read the report. It's a conjecture with no solid proof of anything."
"But..." (appeal to authority).....
Jonathan: It is Whack-A-Mole almost every time. That's one reason it's important to stay as focused as is reasonable in each particular context. And it is highly context-dependent. Andrew Neil did brilliantly as interviewer (IMHO) to stick to the temperature standstill with Ed Davey, until broadening out to the many billions of our money the minister's planning to waste in the next few years. The other Andrew has had two very different recent outings as interviewee at the Commons select committee and on Radio 5 Live. Here are a couple of final reflections on the both.
One is that you don't have to be Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton - in other words, a top 0.1% media and political performer - to give the lie to the crude demonisation of climate sceptics that has gone on for so long from the likes of John Sauven and others. You simply have to be reasonable, in both senses, and come across as such. But that's easier said than done under the provocation that often passes for debate in the climate area. I think we should be grateful that Andrew's had the opportunity and managed to hop over perhaps a low bar with aplomb.
But I think there's more and it seems to me to be very encouraging. I think our host, without knowing which way the other participants are going to go, has shown an instinct for avoiding trouble and hitting simple but effective targets on both occasions. This is far more rare. It's quite different from the ability to pen a good read like The Hockey Stick Illusion, although of course the two skill sets overlap. And I'm not saying there's no room for improvement. Would Andrew Neil have been able to do such an effective interview of Ed Davey thirty years ago? Of course not. There are decades-worth of skills to learn. But since Andrew's warm and fact-filled contribution to Anthony Watts' climate-a-thon (or whatever it was called) I think we've been seeing something that could be of real significance in resolving many parts of the climate wars in the UK, for the common good.
I don't say this to flatter. I say it because I really care. As I'm sure do some others that have sounded more critical notes in this thread and elsewhere.