Buy

Books
Click images for more details

The story behind the BBC's 28gate scandal
Displaying Slide 3 of 5

Twitter
Support

 

Recent comments
Why am I the only one that have any interest in this: "CO2 is all ...
Much of the complete bollocks that Phil Clarke has posted twice is just a rehash of ...
Much of the nonsense here is a rehash of what he presented in an interview with ...
Much of the nonsense here is a rehash of what he presented in an interview with ...
The Bish should sic the secular arm on GC: lese majeste'!
Recent posts
Links

A few sites I've stumbled across recently....

Powered by Squarespace

Entries in Media (268)

Thursday
May092019

Toby's eyes have been opened

The journalist Toby Young has been looking at yesterday’s rather lurid story about biodiversity, and the claim that a million species are going to be lost if we don’t become communists. Or something like that.

Young appears to have done some brief research and has shown that the underlying estimates, sponsored by the UN, are bunk. The authors of the report have taken some data from official “Red List” of threatened species and extrapolated it in precisely the way that the Red List authors say should not be done. They have then published a somewhat hysterical press release, but not the underlying report.

This is a familiar story for anyone who is interested in environmentalism, but Young has been rather taken aback, both at the shoddiness of the research and the way the press have dealt with it. After all, if some brief research has revealed to Young (with a degree in PPE) that some scientific research is nonsense, surely the massed ranks of science journalists would have been expected to find the problems too? But of course, as eco-nerds know, science journalists see themselves as part of the green movement and asking questions is therefore frowned upon. The science-page news articles are declarations of faith, not inquiries, or debates. So with the extinctions story, just as with everything else, science journalists have reprinted the press release or, more daringly, rewritten it in their own words. Nobody, but nobody, asks any questions.

To some extent, the problem can be blamed on a lack of scientific literacy among the press corps. Most people on the science-environment beat are humanities graduates, and would struggle to question the press releases that cross their desks, although Young of course has shown that an inquiring mind can take you a long way. But inquiring minds are not common among science journalists, most of whom are comfortable in their faith.

Sensible people should discount all science headlines, particularly the lurid ones about “new research” (today’s one is about future increases in floods in the UK). Your best bet is to find some contrarians on social media and see what they have to say. The wild headlines are usually shot down on the same day by some awkward customer, but not before the mainstream media have done their damage.

With that in mind, let us return briefly to today’s impending crisis and note that climate models are really, really bad at simulating current rainfall patterns (the IPCC says their ability in this area is “modest”), and thus are no more useful for predicting future floods than tea-leaf gazing. No journalist will mention this awkward fact, but at least Toby Young will not be surprised this time.

Friday
Apr292016

The liberal society and its publicly funded enemies

In my absence, readers will no doubt have been aware of the attempt by several noble peers of the realm to silence dissenting voices on climate change. Headed by Lord Krebs, they wrote to a letter to the Times with the normal mealy-mouthed line of "we are in favour of free speech but you shouldn't publish people who disagree with us".

Today, the Times publishes another letter from Lord Krebs:

 

Sir, Matt Ridley (”Climate change lobby wants to kill free speech”, Opinion, Apr 25) misses the point of the personal letter to the Editor of The Times that we signed with 11 other peers. The letter was not an attack on free speech and we clearly stated that a free press is essential for a healthy democracy.
Our point is that misleading stories on the science of climate change undermine the credibility of The Times. We expressed particular concern that the views of the Global Warming Policy Foundation appear to be unduly influential. That it was an adviser to GWPF who criticised us in your pages adds to our concern. 
The letter was discussed with several people, including the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, but it was from the 13 peers and not from anyone else. 
The admission of the involvement of the ECIU in the letter really does stink. Krebs is the chairman of the Adaptation Subcommittee of the Commmittee on Climate Change, and is therefore a paid government adviser. Lord Krebs and his gang of environmentalist chums are therefore doing their anti-liberal-society dirty work on the public payroll.
It seems to me that his position is entirely untenable. Amber Rudd should sack him.

 

Thursday
Feb182016

Investigative journalism isn't dead

Public domain

Left-wing investigative journalism site Political Scrapbook has been doing some, erm, investigation. This is the kind of stuff that only the sharpest minds can get their heads round. You will be amazed.

Snuffling round records of government expenditure they have come up with an extraordinary finding.

Despite floods, the government is paying 100 times more to chop a tree than plant one

The British government is willing to pay people £144 per tree to chop it down and dispose of it.

Meanwhile, how much do you get paid if you plant one? £1.28 per tree.

So big, dangerous jobs cost much more than small safe ones. Who would have guessed?

Friday
Feb122016

Squawk

Further to yesterday's post, it seems that the Independent will be ending its print editions in just a few weeks' time. Leo Hickman helpfully reminds us what we'll be missing.

Thursday
Feb112016

Talking of comedians

If you thought the antics of the greens at the Cuadrilla inquiry were silly, take a look at Bob the Blether's latest in the Independent, outlining a vast right-wing conspiracy centred on, erm, 55 Tufton Street, Westminster. 

And they call us conspiracy theorists!

In related news, the owners of the Independent are considering closing it down.

Wednesday
Feb032016

Monbiot's audit trail

What is that old saying about repeating a lie often enough? George Monbiot is having a bit of rant in the Guardian today on the subject of (alleged) fossil fuels subsidies. It's the usual nonsense that redefines everything that greens are against as a "subsidy".

In his support, our George cites the IMF:

Already, according to the International Monetary Fund, more money is spent, directly and indirectly, on subsidising fossil fuels than on funding health services. 

If you follow the trail through his link you end up at the IMF's website and a working paper by Coady et al. However, before you read it, it's hard not to notice the disclaimer, in bold, which reads:

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.

Thursday
Jan282016

Behind the scenes at the Guardian

Many thanks to reader Stewgreen for pointing me to this fascinating look behind the scenes at the Guardian...

Friday
Jan222016

What's up with El Reg?

A few days back The Conversation published a moderately dull article about paleoclimate, written by a couple of postdocs at Bristol. Its title kind of gave the game away up front:

The last time Earth was this hot hippos lived in Britain (that’s 130,000 years ago)

This introduced a temperature reconstruction that had been bodged together by an author at Wikimedia. It all seemed fairly pitiful to me, and hardly worth the bother, although I wondered for a time about whether I could get an easy laugh by noting that the authors had cited approvingly Michael Mann's 2008 carcrash paper:

Click to read more ...

Friday
Dec042015

Greens running scared of debate

Scaredy cat photo by Iris under CC. https://www.flickr.com/photos/irisphotos/8340124055Greens have never been keen on being challenged on their views and with the spotlight on Paris at the moment they are even more keen that they only get soft interviews. I did a BBC interview a while ago and was told when the booking was made that I was up against Lord Deben. However, shortly beforehand I was told that the great man was "no longer available", no doubt not wanting to have anything he'd said about his business interests to the Energy and Climate Change Commmittee mentioned on air.

Prince Charles is a case in point too. According to the Guardian he has said that he will only appear on Channel Four news if he is allowed to vet the questions beforehand and has full editorial control. Channel Four has told him where to go of course, although the article hints that Sky News may have agreed to the same terms in a recent interview with HRH.

Meanwhile Natalie Bennet, the leader of the Green party has refused to appear on the Week in Westminster opposite Nigel Lawson.

Not that this will make any difference. The greens have so many supporters in the mainstream media that they will always be able to line up some more soft interviews.

Thursday
Dec032015

Solving the Uruguay mystery

According to Wikipedia, in 2013, Uruguay had 10MW of wind power capacity out of a total electricity generating capacity of 2337MW. That's 0.4%. Fully 1538MW or 66% was hydro. It suggests wind as a percentage of generating capacity would hit 30% by 2016.

Six months ago, Bloomberg reported that wind capacity was due to hit 800MW this year.

But today, according Jonathan Watts in the Guardian, Uruguay has made a "dramatic shift to nearly 95% electricity from clean energy". The picture at the top of the article is, of course, of a wind turbine and we learn that:

Uruguay gets 94.5% of its electricity from renewables. In addition to old hydropower plants, a hefty investment in wind, biomass and solar in recent years has raised the share of these sources in the total energy mix to 55%, compared with a global average of 12%, and about 20% in Europe.

Click to read more ...

Monday
Nov302015

More science with Guardian characteristics

From today's business pages:

This week, as we near the end of a year expected to have been the warmest on record, more than 130 governments and 25,000 officials will meet in Paris to discuss how the rise in temperature can be limited to 2% above pre-industrial levels.

As Stern said, the risks of pushing past 2% to a roasting 4% or 5% are now that much greater and more needs to be done in the coming decades than he expected.

Coming so soon after last week's centrigrade/farenheit debacle, this seems to be turning into something of a specialism for Guardian hacks.

Sunday
Nov292015

Lean times for the green blob

Some years back I was discussing the state of environmental coverage in the media with someone from the Telegraph. I commented that I thought it was very strange that the Tele had taken Geoffrey Lean on as a correspondent given that his views were pretty much anathema to most of its readers.

"Ah, that's simple" I was told. "He's not there for the benefit of the readers but because green advertisers want him". This made perfect sense at the time.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Nov262015

Hugo's howler, Harrabin's howler

Updated on Nov 26, 2015 by Registered CommenterBishop Hill

The Spectator doesn't do a great deal on the climate front, but when it does, it does it very well. At the moment they have a long piece (£, but you may get a free look) by David Rose on Judy Curry, which although containing little that will be new to BH readers will be informative for many.

If it's pure entertainment you want, they also have a preview of Paris from Hugo Rifkind (£), a man with a wonderful facility for words, but also one who is just a moderately loud repeater of metroliberal certainties on the state of the climate. His effort this week is rather more thoughtful than usual, but he still retains some odd notions. Observing, quite correctly, that everyone in the UK is backing off green policy, he says that as a country we are starting to look a bit provincial:

Germany’s big push for renewables (which was admittedly predicated on an hysterical and frankly stupid post-Fukushima fear of nuclear) is surging ahead, in precisely the manner that Scotland’s could be if anybody still gave a damn.

Click to read more ...

Friday
Nov132015

Indy disappears legendary climate quote

Anthony Watts has the extraordinary information that the Independent has disappeared the now legendary "children won't know what snow is" article.

You've heard of something called a newspaper of record? I guess the Independent is whatever the opposite of that is.

Tuesday
Oct132015

Yeo sueshi

The BBC is reporting that Tim Yeo is going to sue the Sunday Times over its 2013 allegation that he was influence peddling for green companies.

I can't see this ending well.