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Bishop Hill Feb 4, 2012 Climate: other Media More from Imperial
There was a sort of cycle through the 2000s of stories saying "scientists say it's even worse than we thought"...and I think the media kind of cried wolf...and there's only so far that you can go with that kind of story because the public switched off.
James Randerson (at 31 mins)
Bishop Hill Feb 4, 2012 Climate: other Media This quote is taken from the Imperial discussion forum I linked to yesterday (audio here).
An abuse we saw from about 2005 or 2008/9 was a tactical lie by some in the science policy and research communities and associated institutions to suggest that somehow "the science is finished", "the debate is over"...
Joe Smith (at about 24 mins)
Bishop Hill Feb 3, 2012 Climate: other Media Lord Oxburgh chairs a discussion meeting at Imperial College, London. I ribbed Alice Bell about her earlier description of the event as a "debate", and you'll see why when I list the participants:
The audio is here.
Bishop Hill Feb 3, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Media Sometimes concurrent events can cause, if not cognitive dissonance, then at least a pause for thought. The news today brings two such events into focus.
Firstly, there is a petition to have Michael Mann disinvited as a speaker at a public lecture at his home university, Penn State, a kerfuffle reported in indignant terms by Andy Revkin here. (In passing I'm struggling to recall similar indignation from Revkin over all the disinvitations to sceptics -perhaps my memory is failing me, or perhaps it's the attempt to show public support for a disinvitation that is upsetting him).
Meanwhile, the Australian billionairess Gina Rinehart has bought major stakes in several media businesses, bringing with it access to Australian TV and the horrible possibility of sceptic voices being heard by ordinary law-abiding folk. The upshot is another petition, this time demanding that Australian media ownership rules be changed to prevent this kind of wickedness.
Bishop Hill Jan 21, 2012 Education Energy: wind Greens Media Wind turbines The opera house at Glyndebourne has installed a new wind turbine, a story covered in gratuitous detail by the Guardian.
"That is just so beautiful," sighed Brenda Sherrard, as Sir David Attenborough and Verity Cannings, deputy head girl at Ringmer community college, wrestled with the green ribbon wrapped around the 44-metre mast of the first wind turbine to power a major UK arts institution.
I was struck by this quote from the aforementioned deputy head girl at the local college.
I don't get how anyone can object to it. In a few years' time they won't even notice it. In another few years, if we don't do something about climate change, this view won't be here anyway because we'll all be under water.
It would be inappropriate, I think, to criticise Ms Cannings, who is, after all, rather young. But what do her extraordinary ideas tell us about the education system in this country? And should we be concerned that the Guardian reports this nonsense?
Bishop Hill Jan 12, 2012 Climate: Jones Media Overseas readers may or may not be aware of the Leveson inquiry into media ethics which is currently gripping the metropolitan elite in the UK. One submission of evidence to the inquiry is of interest - from the Science Media Centre, who were involved in PR efforts on behalf of the Oxburgh and Russell inquiries.
Their submission makes the extraordinary claim that the inquiries into CRU were "independent" and that Phil Jones was exonerated. Given that even Harrabin and Fred Pearce have said that the inquiries were inadequate, this claim seems to me to be more spin than truth. Fox also seems to want the Leveson inquiry to believe that Jones was cleared of misleading policymakers over climate change. Given that the Russell inquiry found the "hide the decline" graph to be misleading, this seems to me to be a case of spinning oneself into the realms of falsehood.
The Leveson Inquiry has heard much from big names whose reputation has been damaged by inaccurate reporting. But this problem does not just affect celebrities. While it is thankfully rare, there are scientists who have suffered serious damage to their scientific standing after being misreported in the press...
There is...the case of Professor Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia who was widely accused by the media of fraudulently doctoring data to mislead the public and policy makers about climate change. Even after four independent inquiries cleared Professor Jones of any scientific malpractice some journalists continue to make the same false allegations (see separate submission from UEA). The SMC recommends that Phil Jones be called to the Inquiry to provide evidence. His evidence would be every bit as harrowing as that given by many of those in the media spotlight and would serve as a reminder that scientists are human beings and can also suffer enormously.
I like the idea of Jones being called to give evidence though. I think yet another inquiry that heard from CRU but not their principal critics would rather prove the point.
Bishop Hill George Monbiot is upset that nobody has criticised the private weather forecasting firms for getting the long-range forecasts wrong.
The Met Office, like the BBC, is the subject of intense tabloid hostility, because it refuses to accept the consensus in the rightwing press that man-made climate change is a myth. Perversely, it prefers to rely on data. The incompetence of the Met Office and the superior skills of other forecasters are now part of the litany of climate change denial. Weather forecasting, in the hands of the press, has become a political science.
This has prompted a must-read analysis of Monbiot's history of politicisation of the weather from Climate Resistance's Ben Pile, including a timely reminder of Monbiot's hilarious argument that last winter's freeze was caused by global warming.
It's hard not to recall Monbiot's fulminations about libertarian astroturfing, an argument he advanced while helping to run the Campaign Against Climate Change - an astroturfing organisation.
He's some guy, that Monbiot.
Bishop Hill
Barry Woods notes that Monbiot's article uses the d-word:
That sleighbell winter? It's all part of climate change denial
Which is unfortunate, as they had said they were no longer going to use this offensive terminology.
Bishop Hill The British Medical Journal has reentered the climate fray, with a leader bemoaning the alleged "false balance" in science journalism. Steve Jones' "report" on the BBC's impartiality (ho, ho) is discussed.
I wrote a response, which hasn't appeared as yet. (Perhaps it would be "false balance" to publish it?) I pointed out that one of the results of denying dissenting voices an airing was that it leaves those promoting the majority view in a position where they no longer have to be honest and can exaggerate and scaremonger without challenge.
Bishop Hill David Whitehouse has an article in the HuffPo, reproduced at GWPF. It's about science journalism.
Science and science journalism are needed. Journalists should portray where the weight of evidence lies, but that is the least they should do, and they should not look to scientists for guidance anymore than an artist asks a bowl of cherries for advice about how to draw them! They should criticise, highlight errors, make a counterbalancing case if it will stand up, but don't censor, even by elimination, don't be complacent and say the science is settled in areas that are still contentious. The history of science and of journalism is full of those reduced to footnotes because they followed that doctrine.
Bishop Hill Astonishing stuff from the Independent (H/T Matthu in the comments), who have followed up on their piece about the BBC's links to environmentalists with a look at links between the Earth Institute at Columbia University - in particular its star economist Jeffrey Sachs - and a big palm oil company in Malaysia.
As far as I can tell, the Earth Institute gets lots of money from said palm oil company and Jeffrey Sachs turns up as a talking head on TV shows saying how great their environmental stewardship is. The TV shows appear to have been made by the same company that were funding the BBC's green output.
Bishop Hill Bishop Hill Oct 24, 2011 Climate: WG2 Media George Monbiot, Guardian 27 January 2000
The Himalayan glaciers are retreating so fast that the rivers may dry up in the summer by 2040. The results, if that happens, will be catastrophic.
Dr Bob Bradnock, geographer, Letter to the Guardian, 4 February 2000
Sadly, in seeking to make easy points about global warming [Monbiot] has got his "facts" wrong. Glaciers contribute virtually nothing to the flow of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Indus rivers, which depend primarily on monsoon rain and to a much lesser extent on snow melt (not glacier melt).
There has been no long term decline in precipitation in the Himalaya. The idea that the glaciers are retreating so fast that the rivers may dry up by the summer of 2040 displays an embarrassing ignorance of the normal hydrological cycle of all these rivers, whose low flow period is in the winter, and which in summer continue to pour water down from the Himalaya.
George Monbiot, The Guardian, 29 July 2009
India is finally lumbering into action on climate change.
Though this country is likely to be hit harder than almost anywhere else by the climate crash, not least because its food production is largely dependent on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers, which are rapidly retreating, it has almost been a point of pride in India not to respond to the requests of richer nations to limit its emissions.
Scientific American today
A growing number of studies based on satellite data and stream chemistry analyses have found that far less surface water comes from glacier melt than previously assumed. In Peru's Rio Santa, which drains the Cordilleras Blanca mountain range, glacier contribution appears to be between 10 and 20 percent. In the eastern Himalayas, it is less than 5 percent.
...
"There has been a lot of misinformation and confusion about it," said Peter Gleick, co-director of the California-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. "
Yes, indeed.
Bishop Hill Oct 18, 2011 Economics Energy: solar Media The Economist has long been a bastion of liberal economic thinking, with an honourable history of arguing for free markets and free trade dating right back to the Corn Laws. So it's perhaps not a surprise to read the magazine's argument that governments have wasted vast sums in subsidising solar "energy" companies.
Europe’s solar subsidies have proved not just expensive, but also unreliable. As so often happens with such regimes, their excessive generosity has led to a glut of output, and their cost has risen, leading governments to cut rates. Capacity will probably shrink as a result, discouraging innovation.
Bishop Hill Sep 22, 2011 Climate: other Media Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic reckons the problem with the whole climate change thing is just some nuances in the message. Polar bears are out and people are in:
The nugget of the argument here is the framing fighting climate change as a way to help nature is flawed. Even in a really clear example of climate-induced ecological change -- the loss of many species in the forests Thoreau explored near Walden Pond -- other species are doing just fine. We're changing the ecosystem, but life isn't leaving the forest. We're applying a very certain kind of filter on the forest (specifically, which plants can change their flowering time quickly) but life there survives because ecosystems, even those stressed by rising temperatures, are resilient.
Human-built environments, on the other hand, are very efficient and very brittle. They function best in a very narrow set of temperature and precipitation conditions. Witness what happens when it snows in Portland or it gets very hot in a cold place or it rains somewhere where it's always dry. A people as rich as Americans can deal with any climate, but only if we put the right infrastructure in place. People in Buffalo have snow plows. People in Phoenix have air conditioners.
This idea that the answer to the climate change problem is more media or different media is one that gets wheeled out every few weeks it seems, without anyone seeming to get it - it's not the way you are telling the story guys, it's the fact that the message is so obviously politicised that nobody trusts you.
Bishop Hill Aug 19, 2011 Media The news that David Leigh had admitted to involvement in phone hacking left the Guardian's reputation looking a little less white than they might have hoped. Today the colour is more black than grey, as Guido reports:
... today a 51 year old police officer, working on the phone-hacking inquiry named Operation Weeting, was arrested and suspended for leaking to the Guardian. Given that David Leigh has already confessed to phone-hacking, the Guardian’s squeaky clean reputation is collapsing at a rapid speed. Was this blatant police corruption of integrity sanctioned?
