The Canonbie mystery

Updated on Nov 23, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Nov 23, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Here's another of those stories I got from my visit to Dart Energy.

Back in April a story appeared in the Glasgow Herald reporting claims that some of Dart's coalbed methane wells at Canonbie in Dumfriesshire were leaking. Written by veteran very green reporter Rob Edwards, the story was rather exciteable, but a bit reticent about explaining who the main protagonists were:

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is launching an investigation into claims that methane is "bubbling up" in wells drilled to test for the gas in coal seams near Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway. The claim is denied by the company that owns the wells.

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The IBT: the same, but different

The International Broadcasting Trust is an environmentalist-funded group that has tried, mostly successfully, to encourage broadcasters to become advocates for the green movement. It is best known as one of the co-hosts of the 28gate seminar. It recently issued a report on the state of green TV which can be seen here. Along the way they interviewed a number of people involved in the climate debate, including many of the usual suspects - Joe Smith, Nick Pigeon, Steve Jones, John Beddington. However, in what looks to me like a change in tack, they have also included a couple of sceptics - David Whitehouse of GWPF and Martin Durkin of Great Global Warming Swindle Fame - although the impact of the latter two is hard to discern.

They seem to be worried:

..most concerning, in the light of the importance of non-news TV in helping to inform and educate the audience, is the fact that during our year’s research we found no factual long form programme dealing head on with the issue of climate change or the growing debate about how to mitigate or adapt to it, and none dealing with another major issue, population growth. This finding raises serious questions about broadcasters’ will or ability to reflect some of the most important scientific research and policy decisions we face today.

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Making mileage

Photo by Giro555 on Flickr. Click for link.The number of articles discussing possible links between Haiyan and global warming is something to behold given that, at least as far as I can see, most are correctly concluding that this particular beast of a storm cannot be attributed in this way.

• Time Magazine has Did Climate Change Cause Supertyphoon Haiyan?
• Scientific American has Did Climate Change Cause Typhoon Haiyan? and Did Climate Change Intensify Supertyphoon Haiyan?
• Nature News has Did climate change cause Typhoon Haiyan?

• The BBC's Newsnight show was pretty good on the subject too, making a fairly clear statement on attribution (video here if you are in the UK), followed up with someone from the Met Office making the same statement

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Time Out can't find the place

This is a guest post by Katabasis.

Time Out published an online article yesterday entitled 'Err, Thames Barrier not really working as barrier'.

Some mild flooding took place at various places along the Thames on Monday, as it so often does. The article depicts numerous  pictures from somewhere on the Thames that it describes as looking "pretty scary". A picture of rising water 'at the gates' is sure to have a psychological impact on many of us, myself included:

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Transparency and culpability

I return to the blogging saddle to find little changed. The Guardian's campaign to put the lights out continues apace, promoting a campaign to get universities to divest from fossil fuel companies and trying to pin the blame for power system chaos on the big six energy firms.

Looking on the bright side, there are at least the hint of some changes in the government line:

Some green charges will be scrapped while others will be taken off bills and instead funded by Government directly. If extra public money is needed to pay for this, that will be provided by additional spending cuts.

I imagine that no charges will be scrapped, although at least we might get some transparency over costs if they become direct rather than hidden in power bills. If so, it would be interesting to see if the Guardian's campaign against the energy companies holds water.

He's off

Long time BH sparring partner Leo Hickman has announced that he's leaving the Guardian and heading for pastures new. He is to take up the role of chief climate change advisor to WWF. I'm sure we all wish him well.

Obviously the Guardian is in pretty dire financial straits, so shedding of staff is no great surprise, but it may also be symptomatic of the continued demise of the environmental journalist, a profession that should never have existed in the first place.

Miranda and Climategate

The Guardian has got itself into a bit of a pickle over the Miranda affair, with editor Alan Rusbridger trying to justify his newspaper's possession of the leaked Snowden intelligence material on public interest grounds. He does seem to have resiled from this position, however: in an article yesterday he explained how he was persuaded to destroy some PCs containing the illicit material. Evan Davis and Malcolm Rifkind discussed these issues on the Today programme this morning, and a transcript appears at the Guardian:

MR: I think Mr Rusbridger, in the article he wrote yesterday about the destruction of his hard disk, is on relatively weak ground. He clearly did not dispute that he had no legal right to possess the files or the documents that were being discussed.

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Post-truth media

In this morning's Telegraph, David Cameron has issued another call for the country to get behind shale gas.

...my message to the country is clear – we cannot afford to miss out on fracking. For centuries, Britain has led the way in technological endeavour: an industrial revolution ahead of its time, many of the most vital scientific discoveries known to mankind, and a spirit of enterprise and innovation that has served us well down the decades. Fracking is part of this tradition, so let’s seize it.

That's all fine and dandy, but take a look at what the BBC has to say in its coverage of the PM (H/T Ron).

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No objection

In an interesting article in the Independent yesterday, it was revealed that Balcombe Parish Council didn't object to Cuadrilla's application for planning permission to drill for oil.

The two-week protest against potential fracking in Balcombe took a dramatic twist today as it emerged that the local parish council had lodged "no objection" to the planning application, without consulting the West Sussex village - a decision the council chair said she was now "gutted" about.

Alison Stevenson, a member of the parish council when the matter was dismissed without discussion in 2010 and now its chair, said no-one at the meeting had any reason to suspect an application by Cuadrilla, the fracking company chaired by former BP chief executive Lord Browne, would have any repercussions for the village.

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Environmentalist journalist

Louise Gray has adopted the role of recruiting sergeant for the Balcombe protest camp, offering up helpful advice on what aspirant participants should bring along:

At the moment there are around 40 protesters on the site, but this is expected to swell as word spreads about the camp. Groups involved include Frack Off, backed by Lush, UKUncut and the Occupy movement.

The ‘climate camp’ or ‘peace camp’ will include compost lavatories, a ‘kid’s space, communal kitchen and possibly solar and wind power. Larger tents will host workshops on direct action.

It is expected the camp will ‘occupy’ a field by the site. Campers are advised to bring a tent, a sleeping bag, warm clothes, toothbrush/paste, loo roll, sunblock, waterproofs, a torch, and “a desire to change the world”.

I think this probably kills off any suggestion that Gray is a reputable truth-seeking journalist.

Update on Aug 7, 2013 by Bishop Hill

There are some more, rather intriguing details on Louise Gray and the demonstrators here.

Ben Pile on Nucc and the consensus

Ben Pile has a must-read guest post at the Making Science Public blog, covering l'affaire @afneil and the attempts to keep sceptical arguments off the airwaves. Here are a couple of quotes by way of a taster.

The emphasis on expertise is intended to permit only the expression of authorised opinion: not even the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is allowed to speak. Because when he does, the public debate is revealed to be merely a battle of received wisdoms. Can we imagine this in any other discussion about public life? Should Andrew Neil be allowed to challenge ministers on unemployment figures or other economic metrics? After all, he’s just a journalist.

In spite of all the criticism levelled against him, then, Andrew Neil, in just one show, has done more to promote an active understanding of climate science and its controversies than has been done by the Carbon Brief blog, academics at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and elsewhere, Bad Science warriors, and a legion of Tweeters who claim to speak for science have done in their entire existences.

The warmist's MO

Andrew Neil has been getting a hard time on Twitter, with Nuccitelli et al shouting that he is misrepresenting things but as usual presenting very little actual evidence to support his case.

There was another delicious example of this kind of thing overnight. Readers will of course remember the Economist's minor scoope about what WGIII were going to say about climate sensitivity. The article was heavily caveated as to the draft nature of the IPCC table concerned:

There are several caveats. The table comes from a draft version of the report, and could thus change. It was put together by the IPCC working group on mitigating climate change, rather than the group looking at physical sciences. It derives from a relatively simple model of the climate, rather than the big complex ones usually used by the IPCC. And the literature to back it up has not yet been published.

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PCC throws out complaint against David Rose

The Press Complaints Commission has thrown out a complaint about David Rose's Mail on Sunday article about climate sensitivity. This is the text of their ruling.

The complainant, an environmentalist and the author of greenerblog.blogspot.com, was concerned that the newspaper had published an article on the subject of climate change – both in print and online – which contained a number of alleged inaccuracies, misleading statements and distortions in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

Under the terms of Clause 1, “the press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading, or distorted information”; “a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected promptly and with due prominence”; and “the press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact”.

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It woz the Sun wot'll win it

The super soaraway Sun has come out in favour of shale gas - big time:

In years to come, yesterday’s announcement of the mind-boggling amounts of shale gas beneath our feet may be seen as a game-changer for Britain.

It is almost impossible to exaggerate how important it could prove for us over the next century.

Just one site has an estimated 1,300 trillion cubic feet of the stuff. That could theoretically supply us for 433 years. Even if we can only extract ten per cent it’ll last half a century.

It would be the biggest site in Europe. Alone it would make the UK a world leader in shale production.

Experts believe there will be other sites too — and far greater reserves off our coasts.

Depending on how much we can extract, shale is potentially bigger for us than North Sea oil.

Greenpeace's desperate smear

It's an article of faith among the green fraternity that the correct response to anyone who questions the climate change orthodoxy is the argumentum ad hominem. Or to be more precise to issue a barrage of ad hominems. Or to be even more precise issue a barrage consisting of any old logical fallacy so long as the truth and facts of the issue at hand are avoided. These accusations can be anything from "this bad person has right-wing political opinions" to "this bad person once said something that turned out to be incorrect" to "this evil spawn of Satan once spoke at an oil company-funded seminar".

There is a good example at Greenpeace's blog today, where David Rose is taken to task because, in a sidebar article making the point that in the 1970s we were all told that we were facing an imminent ice age, he used a graphic of a Time magazine cover that subsequently turned out to a spoof. The blog post's author, Graham Thompson, pretends that this is tantamount to drowning puppies, but even a cursory examination of the details suggests that handwaving and shouting and smearing are all he has got: what Rose said about the 1970s is indisputably true.