Harrabin again

The attitude of the establishment to the sceptics shines through the succession of inquiries into controversial science at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

When at the launch of the Sir Muir Russell inquiry I asked about the credibility of the review panel in the blogosphere, Sir Muir dismissed the enquiry with the flick of a wrist - he had been a senior civil servant and he had run a university, his bona fides were beyond question.

But the blogosphere does not respect past reputations, only current performance. And some of the top performers in the blogosphere are critics of the establishment.

Read the whole thing.

It's going to get even hotter

That's the headline in the Times, reporting on the recent spell of hot weather.

But wait, what's this? They actually seem to be talking about tomorrow's weather rather than climate change. In fact the whole article doesn't seem to mention climate at all.

A miracle just happened!

More from Heartland

Another Roger Harrabin report from the Heartland Conference, this time looking at the question of whether sceptics are all right-wingers.

Audio stream here. MP3 below.

Harrabin on Heartland 2

Harrabin on Heartland

Roger Harrabin has posted a short report from the Heartland Conference which is actually not too bad. There are a couple of irrelevant asides about tobacco funding, but there is a definite change in tone.

I wonder why?

There's an MP3 attached below.

Harrabin on Heartland

Ferman on Oxburgh

Joe Farman, the scientist who discovered the hole in the ozone layer was interviewed on BBC radio's Today programme this morning and made some trenchant remarks that will be of great interest to readers here.

Farman seems to have a pretty low opinion of climatology and how it spends its money..

Too much too much money is going into expensive climate modelling computers, and not enough into basic observational science, he says.

and he thinks sceptics have been ritually ignored...

Dr Farman also blamed the science establishment for "brushing aside" specific criticisms of climate science.

Farman seems similarly underwhelmed by Lord Oxburgh's review of the probity of CRU's work.

He said the teams investigating the controversy at the University of East Anglia should have invited some climate sceptics on board. "Lord Oxburgh's review (which cleared researchers at the Climatic Research Unit of any wrong-doing) was not convincing, he said.

Lord Oxburgh has been criticised for completing his review too quickly. But he stressed at the time that his remit was to determine whether the researchers had conducted their work honestly, not to make judgements on the quality of their science.

He told me he had not chosen to put a climate sceptic on his review team because their meetings would have degenerated into polar arguments on the science, rather than concentrating on the key issue of probity.

It's remarkable to compare these remarks with the way Lord Oxburgh's report was relayed to the public by the media, who portrayed the report as complete exoneration for Jones et al. Scientists know the Oxburgh report was a farce. Why not environment correspondents?

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BBC science coverage

An interesting programme on the BBC's science coverage, in which we learn that Richard Black and Roger Harrabin have been central to the push to sideline sceptic opinion.

Does this explain why they avoid reporting the facts over Climategate and its associated inquiries?

More radio

I've just returned from Edinburgh where I did an interview for the Newshour show on the World Service. Listeners in the UK should be able to hear it again on the iPlayer shortly. They are also going to use a clip on the 1800 news too (presumably Radio 4).

The interview went much better than the last time. I made the point that the scope of the panel missed key allegations and cited Ross McKitrick's point that Jones had inserted baseless statements into the IPCC reports.

The interviewer came back asking whether sceptics would ever be satisified. I said that we would, if presented with evidence that the allegations were false. For example I pointed out that Ross McK had listed the evidence that would have to be produced to disprove the allegation that Jones had fabricated parts of the IPCC report.

At this point they cut me off, which was a pity, because I wanted to point out that the panel's point that the IPCC had misrepresented CRU science was risible, the IPCC authors in question being CRU people anyway.

Still, all in all, I'm not too unhappy with my performance.

Questions for David Shukman

The Royal Geographical Society blog is asking if anyone has any questions for the BBC's Environment Correspondent, David Shukman who they will be interviewing next week. Details here.

I'm sure everyone will be polite...please.

BBC presenter can't question AGW

I'm grateful to Charles Crawford for this item, in which BBC Radio Five Live's Peter Allen tells a listener that he is not allowed to question manmade global warming. The programme will soon disappear from the BBC website so an excerpt is attached below.

Peter Allen on AGW

How to report climate change after Climategate?

These are notes taken from a discussion meeting at Oxford University on 26^th February 2010 and sent to me by reader, Simon Anthony. I think they are extremely interesting.

Question and answer format featuring environmental correspondents Richard Black (BBC), Fiona Harvey (FT), David Adam (Guardian) and Ben Jackson (Sun) and chaired by Fiona Fox, director of the Science Media Centre.

(Abbreviations: CG = Climategate; CC = Climate change; CH = Copenhagen meeting)

FF: Has the press done a disservice to the public in reporting CG?  Has media a responsibility to make the public “think the right way”?

Click to read more ...

Academic sceptics

Roger Harrabin emails to ask if I know any UK-based physical scientists who are sceptics. Not many is the answer, but then I don't know who the vast majority of my readers are anyway.

I do serve a lot of pages to readers at .ac.uk web domains, and I can see that at least some of these are from physical science departments, so it's fair to say that such people exist, although they are perhaps few in number. If so, Roger H would like to hear from you, in confidence, if necessary. He also welcomes evidence that putting one's head above the parapet in this way is a career-ending move.

Commenters have already noted Paul Dennis's remarks at WUWT to the effect that he responded to Roger H's earlier call and didn't get any reply worth the mentioning, but I would suggest that this could reasonably be interpreted as an oversight. Best to make the effort I would say.

A comment from Roger Harrabin

Roger Harrabin, writing in the comments to this thread, has clarified the arrangements for his interview with Phil Jones. You may remember that there was a rumour that although the interview appeared to have been undertaken in writing, there was in fact a recording as well but that this had been squashed by the BBC bigwigs because Jones didn't come over well.

Roger H's comment is as follows:

Professor Jones agreed the interview with me on the strict condition that it was not broadcast. I pressed to do TV and radio but was refused. The university say he is not well enough to do a broadcast interview. The BBC kept the deal. For the BBC news website interview I sought questions from several prominent climate sceptics.

Make of it what you will.

Was there a recording of Phil Jones?

There are a few little stories floating around at the moment which I'll post here.

Cool Dude in the comments reports a rumour that Roger Harrabin recorded an interview with Phil Jones but decided not to run with it since Jones came over so badly.

Sources have told me there was a recorded interview and it was decided at high level not to use it because Jones didn't come across very well.

I hope someone from the BBC will comment here because if true this will smack strongly of the BBC playing at a PR service to the environmental movement rather than news reporting on behalf of the licence fee payer. The BBC Trust is soon going to begin a review of the corporation's perceived lack of neutrality on the climate change issue, so a suppression of Jones' interview after the announcement of this review would look very bad and moreover positively reckless.

Perhaps Roger Harrabin could head off this kind of criticism by posting the raw footage on the BBC website.

Harrabin on the Jones interview

Hat tip to the reader who pointed out this Today Programme discussion with Roger Harrabin, in which he describes his email interview with Phil Jones. No startling new revelations, but there is apparently more to come soon.

And also, did Harrabin's voice crack at one point, or did I imagine that?

Ouch

Hans von Storch's comment, the first one in this thread about Phil Jones interview with Roger Harrabin, makes me wince rather.

Same as always - can we rely on Harrabin' report that the various quotes of Phil Jones are correct? I [once had dealings with Harrabin], and he had a somewhat liberal attitude in this respect, I remember. Any chance to verify independently the quotes?

Update: I've tweaked the language in the bracket slightly - see the comments for details.