Friday
Jul042014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The BBC and its scientists
Jul 4, 2014 BBC The last time the BBC Trust discussed a seminar of leading scientists that had informed their editorial policy they were infamously not telling the truth and, after many years of requests for information and fruitless internet searches, it was finally determined that the people involved were in fact almost without exception green activists or green scientivists.
It's therefore interesting to note this little snippet from the BBC Trust report discussed earlier today:
There was an in depth briefing for key editors and correspondents organised by the College of Journalism ahead of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate change, which was published in September. This consisted of a briefing from senior members of the IPCC, a panel discussion involving three climate change scientists representing a range of views and an internal discussion about the editorial implications for our output. We think this made a substantial contribution to balanced and proportionate coverage of the IPCC report.
So, again we see the BBC taking advice on its editorial content from unnamed third parties in secret. Despite the fact that attendees at similar meetings mentioned in the report are identified, the BBC seems strangely reluctant to mention the ones responsible for climate change coverage.
Funny that.
I think, given previous experience, that we should assume that the Trust are pulling the wool over our eyes again.
My guess is that the senior members of the IPCC would be Pachauri, van Ypersele, and somebody like Trenberth. The three climate change scientists, probably Bob Ward, Caroline Lucas, and Johnny Porritt.
What do readers think?
Reader Comments (97)
Richard Betts
Do you think it would be fair to characterise you, Myles and Mike as activists rather than scientists?
Richard Betts finds it useful to talk to sceptics. Did he advise the BBC to do the same?
Jul 5, 2014 at 8:24 AM | Registered Commentergeoffchambers
What on earth makes you think that ?
'problem' requiring a 'solution' is out-of-date and not useful
Not useful for what ? Re-educating the plebs, the citizen scientist or the real scientists.??
Three people advising the BBC all three of whomm depend entirely on the continuation of the scam. Like having executioners voting against the death sentence.
Climate change has and is occurring. We're currently going into a new Little Ice Age. Empirical data show there is near zero CO2-AGW. The AGW we did have was probably from change of cloud albedo as Asia industrialised. The IPCC 'consensus' is based on provably incorrect physics.
The BBC wants the above facts to be hidden; I wonder why?
The problem with the BBC is that they are biased right across the spectrum of environment, energy and Global warming. They interviewed soemone about the efficacy of solar panels yesterday. I just caught the back end of the conversation with the guy saying you should all put them on your roofs. All houses, all comercial buildings etc because they are efficient and could supply all our energy needs.
Nothing about night and day.
BETTS. You are no Judith Curry that's for sure !!! Your opinions don't even come close to being as useful as la fumier that I use for my garden. !!!!
'Three climate change scientists representing a range of views '
Is that in the same way three catholic priests have a 'range of views ' ?
Jul 5, 2014 at 7:17 AM | Unregistered CommenterKNR
I agree with KNR. The very use of the term "climate change scientists" indicates a bias and preconception that there must be climate change or why would these people exist? I have to ask the same question. Suppose our three favorite "climate scientists" were to admit that the change in temperature from the 1850's was only 0.7 degrees. Suppose they were to admit that the period they start the temperature count from was called the "mini ice age" because it was abnormally cold. Suppose they were to admit that half the warming happened before the so called effect of CO2 kicked in. Suppose they were to say that the late 20th century warmed at the same rate as the early 20th century before CO2 kicked in. Suppose they were to say that for the entire lives of current school leavers there has been no warming. Suppose they were to say that their computer models did not predict this and that if they now use fudge factors to change it it changes the hindcast into garbage as well. Suppose they were to say that the heat that CO2 traps in the atmosphere does not appear on any balloon or satellite record but magically appears at the bottom of the ocean where there are few temperature observations. Suppose they were to say that the Antarctic sea ice is at an all time observational high. Suppose they were to say that the Arctic ice is reducing yet ancient settlements keep being exposed showing that the reduction has happened before in human history. Suppose they were to say that there is little if any trend in rainfall. Suppose they were to say there is little trend in, cyclonic activity, tornado activity, and an actual reduction in Atlantic hurricane activity. Suppose they were to say that the sea level has risen at a more or less constant rate of 1.5 to 3mm since the end of the little ice age, commensurate with the natural warming. Suppose they were to say that the world is 4.5 billion years old and we do not even have accurate measurements for 100 years. Suppose they were to say that we are in an interglacial and the world has been cooling with a few bumps. Suppose they were to say that humanity was born in the tropics, thrives in high temperatures and succumbs to quite moderate cold if unprotected.
Just imagine if our erstwhile "climate change" scientists went to the BBC and said these things. No more prime jobs. No more expenses paid paid trips with meals and hotels. No more funding for back water Uni's riding the climate train. Why the funding might go back to cancer research, to alleviating poverty and hunger in Africa. It might even go into nuclear research to catch up with the Chinese and Indians on the next generation of power provision.
Richard, as I understand it, under the terms of the resolution of UK Serious Fraud Office Investigation NFRC/NFK/101000240510 (2010 to 2013), Mike Hulme (and others at UEA/CRU and the UK Met Office) undertook to cease and desist from generally promoting the notion that humans are measurably and significantly changing the climate, specifically the notion that the change is warming and that the mechanism necessarily involves carbon dioxide created by human activity, especially industrial activity. In exchange for this the SFO undertook to suspend or drop allegations of fraud involving willful intent to obtain money by deception. The focus of the SFO investigation was the disclosure by UEA that the the surface temperature originally published by NASA/GISS was significantly at variance with reality and seriously affected the accuracy of all the climate models. In later stages the SFO investigated whether the variance was the result of inevitable human error, negligence, or deliberate tampering.
Is this understanding correct?
What was the detail of the briefing given to the BBC Trust by the three climate scientists (Myles Allen, Mike Hulme, Richard Betts, Jul 4, 2014 at 8:24 PM)?
In particular, at that briefing did Mike Hulme honour the undertaking with the Serious Fraud Office, such as by briefing the BBC Trust to the effect that the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis is not supported by empirical data, and has become, to all intents and purposes, a tenet of a minority religious sect?
Looking back at the two BBC climate scandals (the “high level seminar” and the Steve Jones report for the BBC Trust) it's shocking to see how feeble our collective response was. The 28 “best scientific experts” mentioned in the BBC's letter to Barry Woods weren't just activists – one was a student in environment studies whose only activism appeared to be a paper jointly written with the seminar's organiser. She's now a director of her uncle's chain of luxury Greek hotels. That's not activism. Pretending your mate is a top scientist and inviting her to a paid shindig is corruption.
The Jones report's section on climate scepticism consisted of a long rambling discussion of the difference between scepticism (good) and denialism (bad) with no definition offered. Five sceptics were mentioned by name. Lawson and Peiser got a false statement about them removed. Monckton was referred to simply as “adding to the gaiety of nations” (translation: he's a clown). Montford and Newbery were simply sneered at for seemingly thinking that it was important to know the identity of the BBC's experts. This was not some literary essay, but an official report whose findings would determine whether the five named individuals were the sort of people the BBC would listen to.
As we discovered in the business of the retracted paper by Lewandowsky and Cook, being named in a document which has some official status makes all the difference. The discovery of the names of the 28 by Maurizio Morabito made a few ripples in the media, but produced no reaction from the BBC. Is it too late for the five named individuals to take some joint action, for example to demand at least an apology from the BBC trust and Steve Jones?
I very much doubt that Mr. Betts will vouchsafe anything that his BBC masters would consider "food for the deniers", and he is merely making token comments, and stringing us all along. My experience of the BBC is that they are a a bunch of seedy, biased charlatans, who exist in a secret world of their own.
As a layperson, nothing I have seen, read, or been assured of by so-called "experts" has thus far convinced me that man-made global warming exists, is a problem, or is worth spending trillions on. In fact, my own observations strongly suggest that the converse is true, that climate change is ongoing and natural, that we have survived largely intact up to now, and will do into the future, despite all the unfounded (and constantly disproved) predictions of impending doom. I also personally believe that any change is likely, in time, to be towards the cooler end of the scale.
There's an argument for saying that the BBC's consultation of IPCC officials and scientists before reporting on AR5 is even more corrupt than the 28Gate seminar. They could have defended the seminar by saying they were consulting representatives of civil society, if they hadn't already lied about them being top scientists.
Here they are openly taking advice from an unelected body on how they'd like their views to be presented. Imagine if, before an OECD report on the British economy, the BBC summoned OECD officials and economists who worked for them to ask who they should talk to and what they wanted them to say.
No doubt the BBC's defence would be that science, unlike economics, is a neutral apolitical activity – another lie that needs nailing.
My complaint was in February 2010, before the names were known..
We should ask the BBC what is the object of the consensus. They need to define it..
I suspect that it would INCLUDE the majority of sceptics..
Andrew is NOT sceptical that the earth has warmed, nor that CO2 is a ghg,nor that CO2 has risen, nor that man contributes...
So how can the BBC say he is against that scientific consensus (or Lawson)
The issue under debate scientifically is how much.. And how much more due to agw
E Uncle
Re pressure groups, aren't The WWF, Greenpeace pressure groups? Should we form a charity using their model and get airtime that way? A nice confusing name using the SkepticalScience nomenclature?
I have just read the well researched and footnoted paper in PDF: "Christopher Booker: The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal", linked from the GWPF website. After reading this nothing surprises me about the lengths to which the BBC will go to maintain the groupthink of the organisation in this case about Climate Change. They fervently believe in the cause and will do anything to prove they are right.
"I am afraid there is little I can add to my previous response other than assuring you that ensuring the impartiality of the BBC is a key priority for the Trust"
The BBC telling a complainant that the BBC believes the BBC is incapable of anything but honesty and integrity (though a key priority vs. actual achievement may provide a semantic get-out) kicks in early in the complaints process and simply gets repeated by more expensive titles until they pull the plug because they feel the BBC's deflect and distraction process has cranked up enough hours for the BBC to justify the BBC issuing a termination order.
Try and get past that and you risk being expedited. Try and get past that... and they can and will refuse to explain internal, in-secret deliberations and investigations of a private complaint exchange using the BBC 'purposes of' FOI exemption.
This is of interest to such as the ICO, especially when the BBC breaches data protection laws but seeks to set itself above them to even needing to answer for doing so.
It is the kind of droite de seigneur arrogance and government-supported immunity that has seen them get in hot water more and more on more and more different issues. Unaccountable fiefdoms running propaganda backed by censorship has dubious echoes from the past.
This may be changing.
The head of the NAO has publicly damned them only recently.
One other hope was/is the 'Future of the BBC' Parliamentary inquiry. However it has yet to realise much promise, spending most time 'investigating' just how to load the BBC's £4.5Bpa cost on the public in ways they can't avoid or even see, away from a legally avoidable licence fee to a tithe on internet use or council tax.
Very little as yet on what the BBC does with the money handed it, and the oversight supposedly in place via the interest-conflicted senior management and/or Trust. These variously described... by MPs (who may recognise more than most on this)... as 'astounding uncurious' to 'a sack of rats'.
This... is what is in charge of how the public gets informed and educated.
The committee so far seems worryingly stacked as much as any BBC inquiry.
Only one MP, Angie Bray, has really tried to go to actual impartial performance, and has been intercepted by the Chairman twice now on the basis of 'not enough time'. She tried to raise 28Gate in an early meeting, but the whole thing was spun to a time-out by 'independent expert witness' Steve Hewlett... of the BBC's Media Show, who started off by saying he knew little about the event, but then filled all the time the Chair was minded to allow explaining how it was all just fine and the BBC would never... etc...
'Tell it often enough' runs deep with this one, too.
When temperatures start to drop, as I'm sure they will, who will hold the BBC to account? The Corporation's campaign to gag sceptical scientific views and general debate will have served to reinforce unnecessary and misguided policies.
The relentless, one sided propaganda from the BBC has done much to further the CAGW scare, together with the madness of the resulting energy policies and hugely expensive and pointless green initiatives.
A significant period of cooling will expose the bogus nature of the "settled science", the consensus and the wrongheaded approach adopted by the establishment and learned institutions. However, the failings of these bodies should not excuse the BBC for its clear failure to be impartial and the disgraceful policies imposed by the BBC Trust.
The Trust will hopefully be dismissed and the end of the BBC as currently configured will be hastened. I live in hope.
As the meeting was about discussing the BBC's policy on how to report the output of the IPCC and, I guess, other climate change reporting, I just wonder if Allen/Betts/Hulme ever got round to discussing how they should report the fact of the near 20-year pause in AGW. Or did they just refuse to believe this is happening, Richard? Did you offer any input on that little hiccup in the on-going scare?
BTW: You post that you're off to the O2 to watch the Monty Python oldies. I wonder sometimes whether you can ever tell the difference between the bunch of comedians at the O2 and talking CO2 with a bunch of BBC comedians.
Richard Betts, Myles Allen, Mike Hulme,
Each of you secretly met with the BBC Trust to aid them in their effort to try and regain the public trust and to provide fodder and the illusion that the BBC presents a diverse unbiased representation of the current state of climate 'science' & the IPCC. Below is a bulleted somewhat representation of Ivor Ward's previous comment. IMO the summary represents a portion of the consensus opinion that is not only expressed in IPCC AR4/AR5 but more importantly shared by scientists, researchers & members of the public not affiliated with the Global Warming movement. While some i's, t's, & semantics/tone might need finer points, I would like to know from each of you(Richard Betts, Myles Allen, Mike Hulme) why the below bullet items were not clearly outlined and explained in the IPCC AR5 Summary by Policy Makers?
These items IMO represent some of the widespread misunderstandings/bias in BBC reporting & by BBC guests on the topic of the IPCC & Climate 'science'. Were those items hammered upon and corrected as part of your effort to help the BBC Trust stop bias and regain the public trust in BBC reporting? It does not seem that this was done as it is not reflected in BBC reporting. This leads me to the conclusion that your trip to the BBC Trust was a failure as specific examples are posted here at BH of the continued Bias and misrepresentations/exaggerations of IPCC AR5 topics (specifically the mentioned bullet points) are made and unchallenged by guests and sources of the BBC regularly.
- the change in temperature from the 1850's was only 0.7 degrees.
-Suppose they were to admit that the period they start the temperature count from was called the "mini ice age" because it was abnormally cold.
-Suppose they were to admit that half the warming happened before the so called effect of CO2 kicked in.
-Suppose they were to say that the late 20th century warmed at the same rate as the early 20th century before CO2 kicked in.
-Suppose they were to say that for the entire lives of current school leavers there has been no warming.
-Suppose they were to say that their computer models did not predict this and that if they now use fudge factors to change it it changes the hindcast into garbage as well.
-Suppose they were to say that the heat that CO2 traps in the atmosphere does not appear on any balloon or satellite record but magically appears at the bottom of the ocean where there are few temperature observations.
-Suppose they were to say that the Antarctic sea ice is at an all time observational high.
-Suppose they were to say that the Arctic ice is reducing yet ancient settlements keep being exposed showing that the reduction has happened before in human history.
-Suppose they were to say that there is little if any trend in rainfall.
-Suppose they were to say there is little trend in, cyclonic activity, tornado activity, and an actual reduction in Atlantic hurricane activity.
-Suppose they were to say that the sea level has risen at a more or less constant rate of 1.5 to 3mm since the end of the little ice age, commensurate with the natural warming. Suppose they were to say that the world is 4.5 billion years old and we do not even have accurate measurements for 100 years.
-Suppose they were to say that we are in an interglacial and the world has been cooling with a few bumps.
-Suppose they were to say that humanity was born in the tropics, thrives in high temperatures and succumbs to quite moderate cold if unprotected.
Jul 5, 2014 at 9:43 AM | ivor Ward
What's more absurd than a Ministry of Silly walks? The Ministry of Energy and Climate Change.
Mr Betts
As you are here how do you feel about the fact that at one time UKMO use to deal solely with forecasting and then at sometime from the late nineties /early noughties it became 50% climate change 20% NHS spin (to cover up for the ill treatment of the elderly, the horrendous infection rates and the deaths by neglect?) with the remaining 30% given over to weather.
Now this 30% for weather isn't very good either , is it. The website is absolute rubbish constantly headlined by elf& Safety OTT weather warnings for such life threatening rain and such. The website is a clanky lump of software tripe that serves the UKMO 'purpose statement ' propaganda tosh and is so wrong all of the time that its a joke amongst those who love all things weather. In fact the only part of your website worth visiting was the OLD radar pages which as from yesterday are now unavailable .
I would also like to know whereas with say the USA are meteorologist who take an openly sceptical view of AGW there is not one peep of dissent from anyone at UKMO? Is that because they are all on board or is there a 'political officer' watching what people say.
Just a few questions if you would be so kind.
Thanks
Junkkmale
"repeat it often enough"
I notice that most of Don's replies from the Beeb contain the same boilerplated paragraph:
"I can assure you that ensuring the impartiality of the BBC is a key priority for the Trust; it is essential to its independence that the BBC retains the public’s trust as an impartial purveyor of news and programming. The BBC is required to deliver duly impartial news by the Royal Charter and Agreement and to treat controversial subjects with due impartiality. The Trust is committed to making sure that the BBC fulfils this obligation."
You'd think they'd at least attempt to make their replies look sincere...
Why would a professional attend a meeting that purports to receive a range of views and subsequently does not object when it is clear there was no range of opinions?
I am not an expert in climate science thankfully however based on the increase in Antartica sea ice I carried out an experiment.
1 Place a large block of ice in a bowl of water. You will need some weights to hold it down.
2 Surround the block with ice cubes to cover the surface.
3 Place the bowl of water in the sun at the hottest part of the day.
4 Return four hours later.
5 Note that the ice cubes have grown in thickness and now form a solid plate around the ever expanding block of ice.
This proves that global warming causes sea and land ice to increase.
Only just read this but thanks Geoff Chambers:
All very important points. Note to others: laying into Richard Betts doesn't add anything to the key issues Geoff raises. Indeed, it detracts from them. This is our one mole from this important meeting - albeit a diffident one - and we treat him like dirt. Well, I suppose moles have to be willing for that. :)
Hilary's earlier contribution also took in the wider picture by introducing The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, a body of which I'd not before heard. More such meat please. There's every reason not to be petty, or be seen to be petty, with such important issues at stake.
But on the witty edge of petty, I'm going to have to take your word for that, Hilarious, my grasp of Finnish idioms being well behind your familiarity with Monty Python. But hilarious it sounds. I hope I never think of Jean-Pascal van Ypersele the same way again.
One cannot help but consider that the BBC's position is misguided.
The BBC are aware that there are serious questions regarding the partiality of their reporting. If there were no such issues, there would be no such meetings. Accordingly, the fact that the meeting took place is proof of partiality.
It seems to me that this is a matter of risk managment. The BBC seek to obtain reasons supporting why they are partial in their reporting, ie., they are seeking to obtain evidence that supports their partiallity. To this end, they seek to explain their position by involing consensus.
However, this does not adequately deal with the risk management issue.
The crux being, what if in the coming years the 'consensus' position is found to be incorrect, and in the coming years it is seen that the science was always not settled, and the claims of certainty overhyped. In this scenario, will the fact that the BBC discussed presentation policy with scientists and/or activists from one side of the debate, only, provide them with a legitimate defence to the claim that their reporting of the issue in the 1990s and the first decade or two of the 2000s was partial and not objective. It is difficult to see how it would.
So the BBC's internal discussions are all but irrelevant. A man hears what he wants to hear, but acts at his peril if he covers his ears and/or fails to consider what others (that are contraian) are saying. I doubt that they have got themselves a get out of jail card should the cAGW conjecture come crashing down.
Because of its severe implication on de-industrialisation and loss of jobs in that sector, and the ever rising and unaffordable price of energy, there will almost certainly be an investigation into what has come to pass and why, should it, subsequently, be found that there was nothing of substance in cAGW and/or that governmental response towards mitigation (rather than adaption) was misconceived and the drive towards green renewable energy generation does not achieve and never would achieve a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. This is not something that will be brushed under the carpet and the BBC will rightly receive much critism for its role in this (should the forementioned come to pass).
What do you think will happen if temps go in the wrong direction? the bbc will circle the wagons and blame their misreporting on Betts. If Richard will still be at the MetOffice, this will circle its own wagons and blame it on us, as we were too stupid to understand hot meant cold.
But on the witty side of petty, Hilarious: I'm going to have to take your word for that, my grasp of Finnish idioms being well behind your familiarity with Monty Python. But hilarious it sounds. I hope I never think of Jean-Pascal van Ypersele the same way again.
Jul 5, 2014 at 12:29 PM | Richard Drake
My Swedish wife of Finnish descent confirms. She says that if the name Jean-Pascal van Ypersele were pronounced by a Finnish person as if the name were Finnish, it would be one of the most undesirable names.
In electronic circuits, there can be a condtion called latch-up where the circuit gets into a self-perpetuating non-working state from which it can't recover. It afflicted some early integrated circuit op-amps.
The BBC has undergone climate change latch-up.
MartinA (Jul 5, 2014 at 8:28 AM), there are many large sticks with which we can beat the BBC but Savile and Harris are not them. For a start Savile has never been convicted of anything and all the 'evidence' is hearsay with nothing that would stand up to true scrutiny. Both of them have been tried by the media as bogeymen - in fact there is a parallel between that and the way those of us that question the consensus are viewed by the church of CAGW.
"funnily enough I'm off up to London to see the Monty Python show tomorrow"
Very funnily enough. I guess the climate crisis is on hold till you get back.
Andrew
Southern Girl twice referenced C Booker's paper on 'The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal' without including a link.
Here is a link:
http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/booker-bbc.pdf
"When temperatures start to drop"
I wonder which temperature set will be first to produce that little gem after all the years of wheedling and squeezing in the upward direction. Don't hold your breath Schrodinger's cat. After 17, 20 or even 30 years of their so called pause the temperature will only be allowed to go up.
[snip- unnecessary]
Unless skeptics put strong pressure on careerist scientists by exposing their complicity in fraud, the faux "debate" will linger on with only temperature to slowly correct it with a soft landing for scammers and their enablers after the economy of the West suffers greatly and the third world fails to industrialize. Even adopting the word "debate" is counterproductive since it does not even apply to the simple act of whistleblowing. Since all of the relevant scientific bodies and institutions still loudly proclaim skeptics to be flat out wrong, mere policy makers and laypersons alike are merely being responsible in actually *listening* to those voices of established authority. Attacking politicians and left leaning voters merely alienates them further. Debating itself is a losing game against sophisticated foes since they can always drag the debate into arcane statistics where only the voice of real authority wins. The fraud is trivial to expose so it's very confusing why it hasn't been, in public and to policy makers. I can distill it down to a mere two undeniable and thus undebatable facts.
(1) The world average of tide gauges (Church & White 2011) going back 150 years shows utterly no enhanced rate of rise, just a perfectly linear trend in utter defiance of nearly every alarmist headline and especially in defiance of recent claims of heat hiding in the deep ocean since thermometers themselves are based on liquid expansion. When plots of virtual sea level are labeled "sea level" that constitutes scientific fraud that flies in the face of the scientific practice of adjusting biased data to better reflect reality.
(2) The latest hockey stick sensation (Marcott 2013) widely promoted by Michael Mann had an utterly fraudulent blade obtained by spurious data drop-off due to proxy re-dating. This means that claims that the hockey stick controversy amount to ancient history are now untenable.
And you're done, damn it. The most important metric of all, sea level on the ground that acts as a liquid expansion thermometer falsifies climate alarm and the latest hockey stick is a fraud that appeared in top journal Science. I made infographics for these:
http://s22.postimg.org/ulr1dg7jl/Sea_Level_Two.jpg
http://s6.postimg.org/jb6qe15rl/Marcott_2013_Eye_Candy.jpg
Anything involving statistics hurts the skeptical cause, destroys our ability to expose fraud, and further marginalizes our voices.
Richard D
"laying into Richard Betts doesn't add anything"
Agreed. RB doesn't have to come here, and it would probably smooth his career if he didn't. We may not agree with everything he says (which is also true of everyone else) but I, for one, appreciate his input. I'm not sure we have many other friends at the MO.
James Evans , I'm an engineer with a little legal knowledge.
I assume you do not accept the hype put out by the IPCC and others but examine what you are told before making a decision, if so go over to annaraccoon and have a little browse to see beyond the hype on this.
All together, everybody from the same song sheet :-
@NikfromNYC: I suspect that the Man on the Clapham Omnibus, to choose a UK-based analogy, has decided that anyone involved in climate alchemy is a lying, cheating bastard. However, only a very few deserve this epithet.
The reality is that the likes of Betts have been indoctrinated with fake fizzicks so can't break out of their programming until the real data show the models are wrong.
This is why we have had a desperate rear-guard action by the Marxists to pretend the World is still warming. This scam is identical to the Phlogiston Theory of the 18th Century, directed by Houghton, as dedicated a religious fundamentalist as Priestley.
Jul 5, 2014 at 9:43 AM | ivor Ward
I cannot speak for any of the three climate scientists involved in this meeting and all three will probably have varying opinions but having conversed with Richard Betts over a few years IMHO his views would not differ greatly from the comments made in your post.
Others who expect a few individuals to change the editorial policy of a megalithic organisation such as the BBC are possibly wishing for too much too soon.
I am not a UKMO groupie and those who have witnessed past posts will understand that I hold no quarter when answers are required, but I do have a total respect for Richard Betts and his penchant for coming here and talking to us even with the grief that some will dish out to him. He has readily spoken out about bad reporting of climate science in the media and as far as placing a tag on his position, I think you may find that he is as much in the grey middle ground as quite a few of us are.
Those who wish to bear bait that is your prerogative but if you were offered the chance to sit down in a pub with a pint and discuss issues in a civil manner with a climate scientist would you take it?
I suspect that it may be more productive to consider the potential influence of Patten's replacement - and indeed the choice of that individual. That Sajid Javid uttered the idea that the licence fee might halve or disappear suggests there is discontent in quarters that matter.
There is also a nice question about progressively bypassing the BBC Trust. I am starting to lobby for the ability of outside bodies such as UKSA to issue public rebukes of BBC inaccuracies. There is also a question as to why Ofcom don't regulate them the same as the other broadcasters - and a further question about how well Ofcom does in tackling issues at other broadcasters.
Who still listens to or looks at the BBC?
"if you were offered the chance to sit down in a pub with a pint and discuss issues in a civil manner with a climate scientist would you take it"?
Unfortunately Lord B that would be like discussing issues with Kikazaru.
Green Sand
Actually this one seems more appropriate somehow….
(both rooms 12 and 12A)
No it's not.
Those who wish to bear bate(sic) that is your prerogative but if you were offered the chance to sit down in a pub with a pint and discuss issues in a civil manner with a climate scientist would you take it?
Jul 5, 2014 at 10:34 PM | Unregistered CommenterLord Beaverbrook
No. I most certainly would not. Pubs are for talking about football, Darts and Pamela Anderson.
We have a multi billion dollar house of cards built around poor data, totally inadequate computer games, theories which have no empirical indicators in their favour let alone proof. We have people in the Met Office and in 2nd rate Universities milking it for all they are worth, terrified that if a hint of truth sneaks out the bounty will go to someone else. So why would you think a pub is the place to discuss that? There should be a House of Commons select committee, or a Royal Commission or Judicial Inquiry staffed by people who are not riding the gravy train if any can be found. Certainly not run by Deben the gravy train driver or Yeo, the guard, or Ed Davey, the hot air duct or Cameron and Clegg busily collecting subsidy tickets for their establishment passengers.
I don't have television or broadband or a phone line in my English house. So I do not have to contribute to BBC seminars called to find excuses to exclude me from the discussion.
I feel increasingly sorry for Richard Betts. As a Met Office employee, he inevitably treads a careful line through what's acceptable back at Mill, what he might want to say, playing nice with us and deflecting often ghastly commentary.
The access he gives is commendable and I, for one, am grateful for his participation here.
Richard Betts
Ah, the Spam Club!
Still a few spam sources available:-
Live Spam (a)
Live Spam (b)
Live Spam (c)
Dead Spam (?)
......always look on the bright side of life.....
and have fun! At least another 42 before +4!
Richard Betts,
Meeting in person would probably be a great time for all.
Sadly, we are not in person. Instead, media and academia pretend that there is no question of the most extreme interpretations of the science and that past failures of prediction (no more snow for the UK, etc. etc. etc. rings a bell?) are not cause to even review the interpretations. In the age of CO2 obsession a "range of opinion" is like a meeting of commies in the old days and claiming a range of opinion was having a Leninist, a Trotskyite and a Stalinist in to discuss the failings of capitalism.
You seem more open than most CO2 obsessed insiders. Demonstrate it.
Well done Dr Keiller. You got stonewalled but this is nothing unusual. I had similar problems complaining about Lucie Siegle on the BBC's magazine prog The One Show a couple of years back, when I complained several timesw at her Guardianista posture & presentations regarding AGW, etc, always with the authority of an appeal to some august body, RS/UNIPCC etc. She has been toned down it would appear as she hasn't done a "We're all going to die if you don't listen to me" for some time, at least I haven't seen one as a regular but not constant viewer! I also complained about a comment made by presenter Matt Baker after a Windscale piece about a nuclear accident & a fire, in which he said "& that could explain up to 260 cancer deaths in the region!" I pointed out to BBC Complaints that the term "up to" also by default had to include the number "0"! I got nowhere after two efforts!