Vaclav Klaus video

This is the video of Vaclav Klaus's GWPF lecture last week.

Santer's claws

Ben Santer is interviewed at the Climate Sight blog, and he remains something of a catfighter, aiming his claws at, among others, sceptical bloggers:

These fringe voices now have megaphones,” he continues, “and have means of amplifying their voices and trumpeting shoddy, incorrect science. We’ve seen the rise of the blogs, we’ve seen the rise of these “independent public auditors” who believe that they have carte blanche to investigate anyone who produces results they don’t agree with, and if that individual doesn’t comply with their every request, they indulge in this persecution campaign on their blogs and make your life very uncomfortable. I’ve had direct personal experience with that.

Does he sound slightly hysterical to you?

ClimateSight article

Update on Oct 26, 2010 by Bishop Hill

Commenters note that the Santer article has been taken down. I've retrieved it from Google cache and posted it at the bottom of the header post as a PDF.

Nature on sceptics

Nature has published an opinion piece on the subject of the BBC's science review and in particular the way it handles global warming sceptics.

In reality, perhaps the most common complaint from scientists about the corporation's coverage of global warming is the exposure handed to sceptical non-scientists, such as former UK chancellor Nigel Lawson. This is the source of the long-standing 'false balance' problem. The BBC Trust, which is running the review, should take a stricter line here. If BBC staff want to use non-experts to criticize widely accepted science, they must explain this lack of expertise to the audience, and why the BBC has invited them to participate.

The London trip

I'm now back home, having had an interesting couple of days in London.

The talk at the Energy Institute went reasonably well, although numbers were apparently down considerably on normal because the invitations had been sent out rather late in the day. I also suffered from some technical problems, which meant that I had to speak without notes. I think, however, that I gained as much in fluency as I lost in completeness, so this was not the end of the day. One disappointment was that (from the tenor of the questions at least) most of the audience were probably already on the right side of the debate, so I'm not sure how many were persuaded by my words. Nevertheless, having not spoken in public for the best part of twenty years, I was quite pleased with the way the whole thing went.

The Vaclav Klaus lecture yesterday was excellent - a very unpolitician-like politician, I thought, quietly spoken and with a complete lack of histrionics. This made him a very persuasive speaker I thought, and I would recommend you read what he has to say if you haven't already.

Thanks are certainly due to my hosts - Peter Gill and Josh - for their hospitality and to Benny and everyone at the GWPF for inviting me to the Vaclav Klaus talk.

Hegerl on stupidity

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about Gabriele Hegerl's lecture in Edinburgh and said that she said that sceptics were "stupid". The video of the lecture is now available here and my recollection of what was said was not quite right. The exact quote is as follows:

...What is frustrating to me as a scientist is that the objections raised by the skeptics groups are scientifically so stupid often...it would be really much more fun to fight really interesting assertions.  But it's often things that often ring reasonable to people who have not background in this but that are scientifically totally with out value. I would find it more interesting to discuss if the sceptics would raise better questions.

So Prof Hegerl was quite correct to say that she didn't call anyone stupid. It was the questions asked by sceptics that she said were stupid. 

(H/T to Rob Schneider and also thanks for the transcript of this excerpt)

More Bob bashing

In the wake of Delingpole's wading into Ward, Jo Nova has picked up on the LSE man's (ahem) critique of Bob Carter on ABC in Australia the other day.

Ward produces a file of typos and inanities so long, hardly anyone will read it. It allows him to make vague claims about “inaccurate data” and hidden in the fine print it turns out the inaccurate data was made by someone else, not Bob Carter, and when corrected, it doesn’t change the meaning of Carter’s message anyway.

BBC will stop being biased

New editorial guidelines have been issued by the BBC and the Telegraph is reporting that these are likely to force the corporation to take a more balanced approach to scientific issues, presumably including global warming climate change disruption.

But the BBC’s new editorial guidelines, published yesterday after an extensive consultation that considered over 1,600 submissions by members of the public, say expressly for the first time that scientific issues fall within the corporation’s obligation to be impartial.

“The BBC must be inclusive, consider the broad perspective, and ensure that the existence of a range of views is appropriately reflected,” said BBC trustee Alison Hastings.

I feel certain that the head of factual programming will be telephoning to commission a miniseries based on The Hockey Stick Illusion, so I'll wait by the phone today...

Hal Lewis sightings

A few MSM outlets have picked up the Hal Lewis resignation story.

• The Daily Express
• The Register
• The Telegraph (blog only)
  
• The San Francisco Chronicle (blog only)
  
• The Star-Ledger (NJ)
• Las Vegas Review-Journal

(Updated to make clear which sites are blog only)

Update on Oct 12, 2010 by Bishop Hill

The Spectator is another (blog-only).

Victory for Kiwi sceptics

John O'Sullivan, via GWPF and Retephslaw.

In the climate controversy dubbed Kiwigate New Zealand skeptics inflict shock courtroom defeat on climatologists implicated in temperature data fraud.

New Zealand’s government via its National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has announced it has nothing to do with the country’s “official” climate record in what commentators are calling a capitulation from the tainted climate reconstruction.

As the story makes clear, there are interesting parallels to Climategate, with government scientists resisting requests for data and then claiming the data was lost. With the raw data apparently showing no warming trend, something that only appears once these scientists have homogenised and adjusted the figures, it does look suspiciously as if books may have been cooked.

How long can this continue?

Bob Ward's efforts to smear absolutely everyone who disagrees with his position on climate change continues apace, with a shameful attack on Bob Carter on ABC radio in Australia.

Anthony Watts notes that there are a few people who might like to hear if you think this is unacceptable behaviour by ABC.

Chairman of the Board (Maurice Newman - via his personal assistant who is Angela Peters:  Peters.Angela (at) abc.net.au

Robyn Williams:  Williams.Robyn (at) abc.net.au

Lindzen on the BBC

Richard Lindzen is interviewed on the BBC. Haven't had a chance to listen myself yet.

(H/T Lubos)

Ernst Georg Beck

Benny Peiser emails to inform me that Ernst Georg Beck has passed away. Beck was best known for his work questioning the Mauna Loa carbon dioxide measurements. There is an obituary attached below.

Enclosure

BBC science review

David Colquhoun, Professor of Pharmacology at University College London, discusses the BBC's science coverage here, particularly in relation to coverage of minority views, including global warming scepticism. He also helpfully points to an opportunity for the public to make their views know to the BBC's ongoing review of scientific coverage.

Delingpole on Heartland

James Delingpole reports on his appearance at the Heartland conference.

Wow! Finally in my life I get to experience what it’s like to be a rock star and I’m loving every moment. OK, so the drugs are in pretty short supply. As too is the meaningless sex with nubile groupies. But what do I care, the crowd love me and I love them. God bless America! God bless the Heartland Institute’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change!

Read the whole thing.

Clive Hamilton in Oxford

This is a guest post by "DR".

This is my report of a talk by Clive Hamilton in Blackwell’s bookshop Oxford on 10 May 2010, on themes from his recent book Requiem for a Species. This is a write-up of my hand-written notes. I hope I’ve represented what Hamilton said accurately.  I’ve not read his book.

Hamilton started by describing the upsurge in ‘climate denial’ – describing deliberate attempts in the 1990s by US Republicans to link climate change and left-wing beliefs, he said that climate denial has been absorbed by right-wing populism. However, despite efforts from deniers such as Sarah Palin, Christopher Monckton, the American Tea-Party, and the UK’s BNP, it has become clear that if anything the IPCC AR4 understated the risks, for instance of sea-level rise.

Click to read more ...