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Bishop Hill EU Referendum: Why would the Telegraph report a heatwave that killed 19 people in Australia, but not an ice storm that killed 42 in the USA?
The BBC and the WMO seem to have missed the ice storm too. Funny that.
There was also a snowstorm in the United Arab Emirates, which I haven't seen reported over here.
Bishop Hill European Union invites tenders for the creation of a news aggregator service. It will have full editorial independence apparently, "as long as it respects the journalistic ethic and its public mission."
Fair to say that Eurosceptics should not apply then.
Bishop Hill Apr 13, 2008 Media The media regulator is standing in the way of a vibrant media sector.
And yet... there's nothing worth watching on TV. There's a yawning absence of formal channels to tell us stuff we didn't know, or join the dots. This, concludes Ofcom, leaves our children, and those provincials who still point at aeroplanes (I paraphrase) - in grave peril. It couldn't quite bring itself to go all the way, and suggest that we're all in peril (or not) if this mythical thing called Public Service Broadcasting disappears.
Bishop Hill Mar 9, 2008 Media Will Hutton writes in the Observer: the best telly is coming from commercial outfits in the US. State-owned BBC and Channel 4 are moribund and won't take risks.
And his conclusion?
Don't even think about privatising it.
Numpty.
Bishop Hill Feb 19, 2008 Media Ellee Seymour notes a couple of MPs interacting online. The thoroughly "with it" representatives are John Redwood and Tom Watson, and Ellee reckons they may be the first to do so.
Ellee's commenters reckon that plaudits are due to the two technoMPs, although I can't help feeling that to congratulate Messrs Redwood and Watson for interacting using a technology which is at least ten years old now is a tad unnecessary. To misquote Chris Rock
MPs always want credit for some shit they're supposed to do....Whaddya want? A cookie? You're supposed to interact on blogs you low-expectation-having m*th*rf*ck*r!
Still, we can hope that this is the start of something beautiful. Maybe parliamentarians will actually start to debate the laws they are about to enact online. Who knows maybe some of them will even read the bills before they make their way to the lobbies.
Bishop Hill Feb 17, 2008 Media The Guardian appoints a new travel blogger. Max Gogarty's going to write about his gap year. Oh yes, and he's the son of a sometime Guardian staff member. Cue much ridicule in the comments.
Meanwhile commenters at Tim W's place wonder how India Knight's writing justifies a Sunday Times column. The answer's in Wikipedia:
The media magnate, journalist, former editor of The Economist and News Corporation Director Andrew Knight is her stepfather..
Bishop Hill Dec 28, 2007 Climate: CA Journals Media Some time ago I wrote a piece in which I questioned the wisdom of Nature's approach to blogging, and in particular to the way their climate science site, Nature Climate Feedback, seemed to be turning into something of an advocacy site. I questioned the commercial wisdom of being seen to side so publicly in one side of a politicised debate.
The article picked up a lot of traffic from an internal blog within the Nature organisation, but my impression has been that there has been little change in the way Climate Feedback operates in the six months since I attempted to highlight the problem.
Today, I'm going to point to a further example of how Nature has set its stall out as an environmentalist advocacy site - who do they link to? Apart from a list of official sites, Climate Feedback has a standard blogroll which I reproduce below:
Most readers of this site will know many of these blogs. Anyone who follows the global warming debate will be aware of Real Climate. Some may even be aware that it seems to be linked with green advocacy groups. But it is unarguably written by climate scientists, so there can be no reasonable objection to its inclusion.
The Heat is Online, however, is the webpage of Ross Gelbspan, whose Wikipedia entry refers to him as an author and activist. A Few Things Ill Considered is a "Layman's take on the science of global warming" and features "a guide on how to speak to a climate skeptic". Gristmill is part of an environmentalist publishing organisation. Clearly then, Nature Climate Feedback has no issue in linking to people whose only role in the global warming debate is one of advocacy. They also don't think that their blogroll should be restricted to qualified climate scientists. In fact, they seem quite happy to link to people who are not scientists at all.
How then can we explain the failure to link to any sites which might be considered somewhat sceptical of the AGW (alleged) consensus? Roger Pielke for example, or Climate Audit?
Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit is the only site which can rival Real Climate for traffic, and it is streets ahead on the quality of the scientific discussion. It also has a very good standard of comments from a range of highly-qualified visitors. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of people who I have been able to identify as people with relevant qualifications who have contributed to the CA conversation:
By the way, I am an avid reader of Climate Audit, so from me you receive a proper response. In fact, I download the articles to my cell phone and read them with great interest every day. Many thanks for so relentlessly contributing these articles to Climate Audit.
Whichever way you look at it, there is every shade of opinion in the list, from the firm skepticism of say, Tim Ball, to the out and out enviropmentalism of Martin Juckes (who allegedly manages to combine dispassionate climate science research with his campaigning for the Green party). Climate Audit is indisputably the place where people go to have free debate on climate science. And in passing, we can compare this unfavourably with Real Climate, where the "canon" is recited to those willing to listen and straw men are cast down to the applause of the assembled faithful.
It's therefore pretty hard to explain Climate Feedback's failure to link to Climate Audit, until you look at who they do link to, at which point you wonder if Nature, once powerhouse in the advancement of scientific knowledge, is now just a rather insignificant part of the worldwide green advocacy industry. How the mighty are fallen.
Bishop Hill Jul 2, 2007 Media In this YouTube clip of a TV report about the recent bombings, the address where one of the Mercedes cars was found - Cockspur Street - has been tweaked so that it comes out as "----spur Street"! (It's near the end, about 2 mins in).
Is this deliberate? Was it excised by whoever posted it to YouTube or was it on the original report? We need to know.
And given the state of that doctor chap, wouldn't Cockburn Street have been more suitable?
Bishop Hill Bishop Hill Jun 2, 2007 Media I'm not sure if I've ever come across an example of a corporate bigwig engaging in direct action on behalf of their company. Richard Charkin, the CEO of Macmillan Nature, was understandably annoyed at Google's approach to digitisation of publishers' intellectual property. Rather than engage some lawyers or write a letter of protest, Mr Charkin seized the bull by the horns and took a visit to Google's stand at Bookexpo America where he and a colleague half-inched a couple of laptops.
I confess that a colleague and I simply picked up two computers from the Google stand and waited in close proximity until someone noticed. This took more than an hour.
Our justification for this appalling piece of criminal behaviour? The owner of the computer had not specifically told us not to steal it. If s/he had, we would not have done so. When s/he asked for its return, we did so. It is exactly what Google expects publishers to expect and accept in respect to intellectual property.
'If you don't tell us we may not digitise something, we shall do so. But we do no evil. So if you tell us to desist we shall.'
I felt rather shabby playing this trick on Google. They should feel the same playing the same trick on authors and publishers.
Two wrongs don't make a right, of course, but one can't help but have a sneaking admiration for Mr Charkin. We might even quietly wish Macmillan well in its unlikely role as the David to Google's Goliath.
Bishop Hill Mar 13, 2007 Climate: WG2 Media It's said by many expert investors that the best way to read a set of annual accounts is backwards. This is because the bits that management don't want you to notice are tucked away right at the end. They hope that by the time you've read the three pages on pension schemes, you'll be fast asleep and will completely miss the contingent liability that's about to swallow the company.
It might well be advisable to read press reports on global warming in the same way. Here's a classic of the kind from the Associated Press on the subject of land loss on the east coast of England:
Climate change spurs coastal defense retreat yells the headline in the Courier News, reporting from Happisburgh in Norfolk. We're all doomed!! seems to be the subplot. There are lots of stories of houses falling into the sea, land no longer being protected because sea levels are going to rise, concerned villagers feeling cheated. It's all because of global warming you see! Cue interviews with European environment official, quote from Stern review and so on. Cause and effect duly insinuated into readers' heads (but no outright declaration of course)...
...and then right at the end the get out:
Happisburgh, on the East Anglia coast, always has been vulnerable, and accounts of houses, lighthouses or farmland collapsing into the sea date back to the early 19th century.
I call this dishonest, but then I'm just a heretic.
Bishop Hill Mar 13, 2007 Media Al Gore has launched a new internet TV channel to rival 18 Doughty Street, or as its opponents like to call it, Tory TV. Its called current.tv, and promises wall to wall hagiography of departed communists and hourly reminiscing for the days of the three day week.
Actually, I made that last bit up.
Personally I look on this as another nail in the coffin of the BBC so I'm quite happy to see the newcomer.
More details here.
Bishop Hill Mar 9, 2007 Climate: Sceptics Media ....before the truth has got its underpants on. Or something like that.
The Great Global Warming Swindle appears to be issue du jour on many blogs today, and there have been a lot of interesting contributions on both sides. Unoftunately a fairly blatant attempt to discredit some of the contributors has been wending its way round the LibDem blogs, and I have done what I can to nip it in the bud, but it may be too late now.
In a comment on Liberal Polemic, Thomas Papworth stated that some of the contributors to the programme were "not what they seemed". This appeared to be based on this comment at a blog called Ballots Balls & Bikes made by another LibDem blogger called Joe Otten.
Apparently they had fake academics from non-existent departments in that programme.
I left a comment at Joe's blog, asking where this had come from. The source was this thread at Bad Science. Comment 43 stated:
What I found most infuriating however, was the use of so-called experts with non-existing university affiliations. For example, Philip Stott is not a professor at the “Department of Biogeography ” at the “University of London”. No such department exists. He used to be a professor at the Geography Department at SOAS (an institution better know for its cultural studies than climate change research).
Equally, Tim Bell can’t be affiliated with the “Department of Climatology” at the University of Winnipeg, because this department does not exist, nor does he work at the University of Winnipeg. Apparently, he left in 1996 to become a consultant.
As far as Philip Stott goes, I knew this to be absolute nonsense. Professor Stott is well known to anyone who follows science in the UK, particularly bloggers, and he is a regular commenter on BBC programmes about science. To suggest that he is a "fake" in this way strikes me as potentially libellous. I would have thought BB&B would want to consider removing the comment. Philip Stott's Wikipedia page is here.Can anyone really suggest that labelling him as Professor in the Department of Biogeography is a misrepresentation?
Tim Ball (not Bell), I hadn't come across before, but he also has a Wikipedia page which is here. There seems to be some doubt as to whether he was the first Canadian PhD in climatology but it is undisputed that he was a professor at the University of Winnipeg and did research into the historic climate. He is clearly qualified to speak with some authoritaty on the subject of climate change. Again, calling him a fake appears somewhat risky, particularly as he appears to know his neighbourhood libel lawyer's telephone number.
This all looks to me like an attempt to play the man rather than the ball. Given that one of the central claims of the programme was that climate heretics were persecuted, this rather proves the point, doesn't it?
