Tuesday
Jun232015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Is this a joke?
Jun 23, 2015 BBC Readers will enjoy this transcript of an interview between the BBC's Adrian Goldberg and Professor Hugh Montgomery of the Lancet's health and climate thingy.
"Tell us just how how bad things are Professor".
"Well it's really, really bad Adrian. We're probably all going to die".
"I think listeners would like to know just how painful their deaths are going to be, Professor, or can I call you `sir'."
"Well, Adrian, I think it's going to be like purgatory, only more so"...
Sheesh.
Reader Comments (70)
"One would need to blind not to observe that the climate literati are throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, into their attempts to get something out of what will almost certainly be a debacle in Paris.
I'm not a believer in conspiracy theories but in this case one has to wonder whose hand, or hands, are coordinating the media blitz? "
Said, Mike Singleton.
The ramp up ere Copenhagen was significantly more widespread on British TV stations - particularly on the beeb its docupropaganda and noos + 'world news 24' or whatever they named it then. True enough, we hear this stuff on the radio but who listens to radio 4 - barring R2 & 1 - or much to any other beeb radio channel?
Way back in 2009, there was considerably more 'traction' in the great alarmist myth - some even still believed in St Al Goracle - no shit, I kid you not!
I think that, here in the west the great majority of the 'thinking' public are sick to the back teeth of the cries from Chicken Little in the White House. Sensing this mood, hence even major news organ not including the Graun' are shy to make too much of the Alarmist sabre rattling. En Paris - the true believers will claim some great victory - but it will be all hot air.
Paris. The only real victim - Britain will continue on its kamikaze unilateral suicide emission's limitation mission, the US will promise loads and do nothing and the EU will make Britain go bust - through the green agenda or, via enforced demographic transition - either way, Britain is ****ed.
Bish,
Not coincidentally, the first UCL Lancet Commission Report," Managing the health effects of Climate Change" was launched in London on May 13, 2009, in advance of Copenhagen.The Report contained the same calamitous predictions of " major threats-both direct and indirect - to global health from climate change". These included changing patterns of disease , water and food security ( insecurity?), vulnerable shelter and human settlements, extreme climatic events and population migration.
It called for " a new advocacy and public health movement , needed urgently,to bring together governments, international agencies, NGOs ,communities and academics from all disciplines to adapt to the effects of climate change on health.
Presumably, the ' 40 health experts from Europe and China' answered the 2009 call !
The Lancet Report is covered in today's Melbourne Age, which reports that the review represents a " potentially catastrophic " risk to human health that threatens to undo 50 years of medical gains.
In support of the Review, The Age, in alarmist overdrive,reports that in 2014, " a heatwave that hit Melbourne was estimated to have killed 167 people. More than 2000 deaths have been attributed to a heatwave in India this year."
Frankly I find the whole reporting deeply depressing. Medical academia stands by and lets this drivel go, unchallenged.
@dfhunter, Project Genie is (or was?) an initiative with the aims of "Educating, engaging and empowering children to achieve rapid, measurable and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions", according to its Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Project-Genie/252446365960
There was a website, which is no longer there but which you can still find archived, via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071013110714/http://projectgenie.org.uk/
From the earliest snapshot (13 October 2007):
The last Wayback Machine snapshot was 18 December 2014, so the site must have been taken down at some point over the last 6 months.
Jun 24, 2015 at 1:04 AM Athelstan
Your vision is depressing but true.
Shouldn't FIFA and the IPCC merge and create Fantasy International Climate Change, for greedy fantasists everywhere?
They've been beaten to the punch by amateurs , witness this bolg and Oreskes & Conway's Daedalus novella,
So we are all going to die. There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with 40 health experts. ( With apologies to Woody Allen).
An adversarial interviewer would ask
"given that people live inside the arctic circle and on the equator, what is the optimum temperature for survival?"
"isn't it true more people die of cold than warm in the highly populous temperate zones? wouldn't warmer winters be a good thing over all?"
"given that since the last ice age temperatures have been increasing and so has life expectancy, at what point does earlier mortality kick in"
"do you have air conditioning and heating in your office? do you realise that keeping you comfortable is warming up the rest of the world and if your research is true you are murdering future generations?"
I don't think I'd hold down an interviewer job in the bbc for very long.
I'm stuck in a clinic in Germany. News in English is from F24 (French propaganda), CCTV (Chinese) and RT (Russian). They are all going all out on the climate scare. CCTV concentrates on renewables, RT is heavily anti-fracking, and F24 works hardest on using "deny" and "deniers" as much as possible. F24 recrutes comely redheads and utterly clueless male journalists.
The TV is as yet undamaged.
I just about managed to sit through the Sky News interview with Vivienne Westwood waxing forth about fracking, and all other nasty things which produce electricity, without committing Actual Bodily Harm on our poor defenceless telly...
Does this woman know anything about anything..? Because, let's face it, she knows absolutely bugger-all about fashion...
If you listen to the audio direct link the tone is that of a cultist living outside the real world. Prof Hugh Montgomery sounds like a Climate ScientoLOGIST in L.Ron Hubbard brainwasher mode.
Especially the bit :CC will wipe out the last 50 years of achievements of modern medicine. Reuters, Telegraph
* DO NOT question if they pulled that 50 year number out of their A
* DO NOT question : if they really believe that in 30 years time across the planet average human lifespan will be the same as in 1965
It's apparent he's kind of cultist, cos he's always coming out with this CERTAINTY beyond evidence about his doomsday theories Ban Fracking : March 2015, Divest ! June 2014, 2011, 2009
"The transcript read like an early draft of the dialogue from Ghostbusters:
Jun 23, 2015 at 5:06 PM | CharlesB"
One of my favourites. Along with the look on the Mayor's face when the prospect of grateful registered voters is raised.
If I may offer a complement that also sprang to mind, from the brilliant and sorely missed Douglas Adams on the topic of marketing briefs:
"Kill-O-Zap is a deadly silver brand of handheld weaponry. The designer was clearly not instructed to beat about the bush. “Make it evil,” they’ve been told. “Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sorts of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, this is a gun for going out and making people miserable with.”
Jun 23, 2015 at 7:43 PM | Unregistered Commenter Rob Burton
Jun 23, 2015 at 9:24 PM | Unregistered Commenter Nic Lewis
imho, there are 2 transcripts referred, an interview with Hugh Montgomery, and an interview with Anthony Costello ... see "2015" on the left ...
I only checked Hugh Montgomery's ... and that is absolutely literal ! ... including even the "ems" ...
Jun 24, 2015 at 10:11 AM | Unregistered Commenter Clovis Marcus ..
LOL !
well, I've just checked Paddy Power, and your odds of becoming a BBC journalist atm are 100000 to 1 ! ... at those odds I normally would venture 10£, but in this case I will just keep them in my pocket ... :-)
Hmmmm. The last time I checked the human mortality rate was 100%. The only question is when will a single individual shuffle off this mortal coil?
OK the words the Bish quotes are sarcastic NOT literal of course but are not far off ..If you listen to the audio direct link the garbling tone is that of a cultist living outside the real world. It is like a panicking 5 year old failing to understand PERSPECTIVE & CONTEXT.
I paraphrase : 'The problem is huge & urgent ..whereas a zero CO2 fix is easy to implement'
Consider his point #7 "The first is: we've got to phase out the use of coal, quickly.. VERY SEVERELY damages human health, just from the particulate pollution it creates."
-- When you are not in a cult you understand the difference between real big problems and minor problems
People's health is affected by "coal power station" particles.
People's health is affected by Open fire indoor cooking.
.. It the second case we are talking we are talking about 5 million people/year dying many years earlier.
.. Whereas in the case of new scrubber fitted power stations the effect is hours off some peoples lives .. So tiny it's not going to appear on their death certificates. Lomborg explained on WUWT
Open fire indoor cooking is like "burning 400 cigarettes an hour", that is a problem worth tackling.. whereas stopping particulates by closing a modern coal power station isn't.
His next point #8 is that in imposing a huge carbon levy "countries don't get poorer by doing that" "they get to keep that money and redistribute it. So actually that nation doesn't become poorer - they can spend that money on reducing taxes" ... Doesn't that sound too romantic ?
Likewise he ends with his simplistic solutions :
"It is avoidable .. cut down a BIT on red meat consumption" "more active transport" ..is all that he mentions ..not disammebling the entire economy and lifestyle.
Some more detail on his points.
#1 "it's been largely ignored" No it hasn't ..we've spent $ billions
#2 Takes the extreme weather CO2 link as proven and happening. However it is still not proven, though possible.
#3 He talks like a 5 year old all drama queening ..he's not considered ANY POSITIVES.
#4 "the threat is immediate". No it isn't - There were no proven climate dead yesterday - So it is unlikely there'll be any tomorrow.
"Climate change" has not been written on any death certificates so far.
#5 "Is there a way of fixing it?" "we can fix this right now" "there's no shortage of money"
- So tomorrow we can magically change the planets CO2 footprint ? really
Let's look at past efforts ..we have made $billions worth of effort and made no noticeable global decline in CO2.
No cost/benefit analyses seem to be available for past CO2 saving measures.
All that SEEMS to have happened is western countries have moved big industry offshore
- "there's no shortage of money" - So you don't find that claim laughable ?
Mike Singleton said "investments in renewables in the EU have halved since 2012."
#6 "political will.. of 193 countries"
- They can't control movement of big humans IMMIGRATION, how can they agree on CO2 molecules?
#9 I paraphrase his breathless garbling as 'There is no debate ..No scientists say climate change is NOT .. due to humans producing greenhouse gases.. only debate is the solution'
Thats MISREPRESENTATION cos he needs the word 'partially' in there to make that true
If he puts the word 'entirely' in ..it would be by anyones measure untrue .. the IPCCC went for 50%
Anyway it's the Strawman fallacy ! The actual talk is 1) about how much sensitivity is the CO2 to extra heat relationship..and that it ISN'T LINEAR (If it was there would not have been a temperature pause whilst in the last 15 years CO2 emissions have been historically huge.)
The actual talk is 2) is whether a zero CO2 solution is needed right now, cos if sensitivity is low then it's not a priority.
#10 Presenter "Is this a clever way to change the narrative on climate change"
I paraphrase his breathless garbling as 'I want to say for human beings' .."that is a grave threat" 'NOW' 'not just icebergs way in the future'
#11 I paraphrase again : 'It is SIMPLY avoidable * (ha ha !)
a lot ofSOME CO2 lifestyle changes also happen to be very healthy in their own right.'" cut down a bit on red meat consumption and animal consumption", "more active transport"
"worth many tens of billions in savings in our health service".. That's easy to say BUT is that how it plays out ? If I don't die at 65 does the health service save money ? No I live longer and come into the health system for something else.
* Again his romantic simplicity is remarkable - Failing to context a few million westerners moving away from meat with the reality that a few billion new non-westerners moving towards western style high consumption.
They are indeed, "'avin a laugh"
"We're probably all going to die"
It's very encouraging to hear from such a reliable source that some of us may not!
As Woody Allen remarked, "I don't want to be immortal through my work, I want to be immortal through not dying!"
I thought this was a spoof at first!
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