Pointman on the infowars

Pointman has written another of his incisive analyses of the climate debate, this time looking at the failures of the alarmist public relations strategy.

On one side you had the alarmists, who had all the politicians in their pocket, a massive PR budget which was usually and still is replenished by governments grants, all the mainstream media including the crypto-state television channels like ABC, CBC, PBS and BBC, pretty much the whole of the journalistic establishment, all the activist prominenti of climate science, the EU, NASA, NOAA, BOM, EPA, IPCC, pretty much anything you can think of which has an acronym, the seamier side of the investment industry, every environmental organisation right down to the smallest fruit loop loony tune outfit, all the major science journals, presidents, prime ministers, the world, his brother, his sister, their dawg and even the frigging cat, never mind their bloody hamster.

On the other side you had us and we had, umm, well, as a matter of fact we’d bugger all beyond the wit to point out the teensy-weensy cracks, nay yawning crevasses, in the science, and in a political sense, sound the alarm bell about the sort of Armageddon the hysterical bandwagon was slouching towards.

Given that match up, the obvious question has to be – how the hell did they ever manage to lose and why are we doing so well, while their once soaring ambitions now lay in smoking ruins?

More critical science journalism required

Jalees Rehman, a medical professor from the US, reckons we need more critical science journalism.

Critical science journalism takes a different approach and focuses on providing a balanced assessment of the work, one that highlights specific strengths but also emphasises specific limitations or flaws. It is no big secret that the majority of research findings published in peer-reviewed scientific journals will probably not hold up when other groups attempt to replicate them. This lack of replicability can be due to research misconduct, systematic errors or other cognitive biases, which commonly occur even in the most conscientious and meticulous scientists.

Therefore, critical science journalism requires a careful analysis of all the data presented in a paper and is likely to uncover key limitations and flaws that scientific researchers themselves do not readily divulge. This form of science journalism can also encompass some degree of investigative journalism. Journalists lack the resources to check the validity of scientific data by performing experiments themselves, but they can track scientific research in a certain area over the course of months and years as multiple research groups attempt to replicate published scientific findings.

In the climate debate, critical commentary is of course par for the course, at least among the blogs. It's the newspapers that feel they have to act as cheerleaders, usually because the journalists have no scientific background and therefore struggle with any kind of critique.

The word spreads

In the current edition of The Field (not online), motoring correspondent (and occasional BH commenter) Charlie Flindt is reviewing the latest Chelsea tractor from Mazda:

It’s funny how the world goes round. Not many years ago, four-wheel-drives were the most evil machines on the road, the spawn of the devil. The once-powerful Global Warming fraternity made it clear that such machines were redundant. Snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”, Dr David Viner, of the  University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, told the Independent. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” So to own a four-wheel-drive was to invite scorn, ridicule or worse from Prius-owning, yoghurt-wearing, muesli-knitters. How things have changed. Snow is regular, as well as crisp and even. The supplements bulge with adverts for fourwheel-drive cars – a well-known German car maker, famous for its obsession with rear-wheeldrive, ran a series of ads over the winter pointing out that many of its models had four-wheel-drive. Small comfort for those who may have spent 60 grand on a machine that spins impotently at the bottom of a snowy slope – a sign of the meteorological times.

Thin Ice

H/T to Rob Wilson for pointing us to Thin Ice, a documentary movie about climate scientists. 

The aim from the outset was to give people from all walks of the life the chance to see the astonishing range of human activity as well as scientific endeavour that is required to help us understand our changing climate. Our idea was then we would all be better able to decide both individually and collectively how we might deal with it.

There's a website here, where you can pay a modest sum to watch the movie. The trailer is below:

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Marcott in freefall

It has only taken days for some serious question marks to be raised about the Marcott hockey stick. McIntyre has posted here about the mystery surrounding the methodology and here about the curious lack of a similar 20th century uptick in Marcott's PhD thesis on which the Science paper appears to have been based. Willis Eschenbach notes that many of the proxies used fail the paper's own criteria for inclusion, David Middleton has raised further questions based on examination of individual proxies. Don Easterbrook has further concerns here.

I was struck by Rob Wilson's comments about the paper a couple of days ago. He had only given it a brief read and alarm bells were already sounding. Rob is an expert in the area, but even for me, the paper did not pass the sniff test.

What does it say about Science that it would publish such a paper?

Organised astroturfing

Barry Woods alerts us to Al Gore's organised astroturfing organisation, in which people are encouraged to copy text from the Reality Drop website and paste it into climate-related comments threads.

George Monbiot has been very vocal against this sort of thing. It will be interesting to see how he responds, particularly since the Guardian's own pages are being targeted.

Incidentally, the Met Office are thanked on Reality Drop's "About" page. I wonder what their involvement is?

Update on Mar 5, 2013 by Bishop Hill

The flaw in Al Gore's cunning plan is that there are going to be a series of identical comments posted on each thread. I think this is going to mightily annoy website owners.

Update on Mar 5, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Dave Britton, the press officer at the Met Office, writes to say that they have no idea why Al Gore's people think the Met Office is involved.

Revkin on the publication process

Updated on Jan 29, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Here is Andy Revkin on the BEST results, 29 Jul 2012

BEST corroboration of temps is great (Rohde genius).

And here is Andy Revkin on the Skeie et al (low) climate sensitivity results:

Troubling details on @forskningsradet promoting unreviewed study of limited warming from 2x CO2.

I queried this with him and he has kindly sent this response:

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Quality, quantity, both or neither

Climate Central reviews the extent of media coverage of global warming in 2012. As part of their article, they list the most prolific environmental journalists. Here they are:

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1984 and all that

Here's Bob Ward speaking at the Help Rescue the Planet green gobfest. It's hard to summon up enthusiasm when the lighting is so unflattering, but for you, gentle reader, I make the effort. Think 1984 and you are along the right lines.

Leveson

Lord Leveson's report is out. I'm afraid I'm not going to have time to say much tonight, but suffice it to say that he has ignored everything Tony N and I had to say. In fact he has even gone as far as to repeat the incorrect statements made by Fiona Fox.

Ho hum.

David Whitehouse has more considered thoughts here.

Broken Filter seminar

The Frontline Club recently held a discussion about whether the media is up to the job of covering the energy and climate change debate. Chaired by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, the evening featured many familiar names to those in the blogosphere and twittersphere.

Video streaming by Ustream, who have included some deeply, deeply irritating adverts, with completely inappropriate placing within the video.

Update on Oct 3, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Ben Webster's comments at 37min are interesting

• there is a problem with environment correspondents going native
• some environmental correspondents sleep with environmentalists.

Ridley prize winner

The Spectator has announced the winner of the inaugural Matt Ridley prize for environmental heresy (on which I was one of the judges). The winner is Pippa Cuckson, whose uncovering of the environmental disaster of in-river hydro power was an eye-opener to all of the judging panel. Fraser Nelson's eulogy is here.

Unfortunately the essay itself is paywalled, but was undoubtedly a worthy winner.

Lewandowsky's conspiracy paper goes mainstream

Hilariously, the Telegraph has published an article promoting Stephan Lewandowsky's "conspiracy theorist" paper - you know, the one that surveyed readers at all the main non-sceptic blogs and discovered that sceptics were all conspiracy theorists (see first comment here).

The article is written by one Jonathan Pearlman. Bad journalist or green activist? Anyone know?

Turning the blind Eye

Apparently the hitherto entirely unquestioning Private Eye has published a letter that is supportive of the sceptic position (H/T Philip Foster).

Warming signs

Sir,

Whatever the shortcomings of the parliamentary commission on banking standards (Eye 1320), it's outrageous to claim that the presence of climate change sceptics, such as Lord Lawson, gives it a 'bonkers' feel.

Like or dislike him as a politician, Lawson's book on global warming like that penned by former Eye writer Christopher Booker is well researched, pointing out that the climate change debate is not over and that the "remedies" for global warming may well cause more damage than the condition itself. Given such factors as the other side's doctoring of emails, the flawed "hockey stick" graph, and the wild inaccuracies of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, it doesn't seem bonkers to request an informed, open, calm discussion of the whole subject.

This is all that Lawson has done, and Private Eye, with its usual healthy cynicism, should do the same, instead of toeing the current trendy orthodox line.

Whether this represents a gentle shift in the magazine's position or just an attempt to drum up a bit of an argument is unclear. Interesting, nevertheless.

Abraham and Leveson

Leo Hickman pointed me to John Abraham's submission to the Leveson Inquiry and somewhat jokingly suggested I should be fact-checking it. Always seeking to oblige, I took a look. It's rather interesting.

The general theme is the wickedness of right-wing people in general and of right wing journalists in particular. Singled out for particular mention are David Rose, who writes at the Mail, and Christopher Booker.

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