Bishop Hill The headless chickens
Feb 1, 2014 Prince Charles has been sounding off about us dissenters from the climate "consensus", describing us as being like "headless chickens". It's funny to be on the end of such criticism from a man who talks to his house plants, but nobody takes his views seriously anyway, so it's easy enough to shrug off.
I was invited onto the Stephen Nolan show last night to discuss the royal views, but mercifully the conversation was more about the nuts and bolts of the climate than any of the guff emerging from Clarence House. I was up against Paul Williams, a climatologist from Reading. I had taken a quick look at Dr Williams' web page before we went on air and he looked like a real scientist rather than one of the scientivists who normally get picked for these things. This impression was confirmed in the programme itself and, with the presenter letting us bounce things off each other, I think the we produced a pretty informative segment for the listeners.
The audio file is attached.
Reader Comments (156)
The Telegraph has not allowed comments on the Prince Charles sounding off, but the Mail has. I wonder if HRH reads the Mail.
The Prince might be in a dilemma if it's ever proved that talking to plants works because of the carbon dioxide exhaled?!
I would have thought that he's going to get quite an earful from his plants when he gets home.
I imagine they were quite looking forward to high CO2 levels. Perhaps they'll refuse to speak to him....?
Excellent interview Bish. You didn't put a foot wrong. Anything less like a chicken I can't imagine. Naughty of Paul Williams falling back on the 'warmest decade in human history' argument. Even ignoring the plateau, it's not even a true statement. It has been warmer for periods of time in human recorded history, it just hasn't been warmer in thermometer history. In mankind's physical existence it's a long way from being true as modern man emerged 209000 years ago, which encompasses the Holocene Optimum and the last interglacial.
Well done Stephen Nolan for his pertinent questions and letting you both go off topic. No headless chicken at all.
LOL. Since when?
That thought is late coming to HRH Prince of Wales. The last pronouncement of his on science that can remember was him waffling on about "grey goo", aka "nano-technology". And, AFAIK, he has always been on the Greenpeace side of the 'franken-foods' debate (even the BBC is slowly catching up with molecular biology).
An acceptor of science, he is not, and he is in the process of proving it again.
But it says a lot, that the first in line as heir to the throne (how many are there now?, they're breeding like rabbits), who is supposed to keep his nose, and other appendages, out of politics, is emboldened to say this. He seems to think it is another free-hit, a bit like architects.
On the positive side, it all has a certain fin de siècle feel about it. When Charlie is clambering on board this argument in this manner, we must be approaching a dénouement.
It takes one (headless chicken) to know one.....
I'm flattered to know that my presence at Tuesday's soiree in The Gloucester, Sloane Street, SW1 was part of a 'powerful group of deniers'.
And no doubt my conversation with Ruth about my Goldfinches and her Mother-in-Law's smuggled plant contributed greatly to the fear and loathing that cause climatologists to hide beneath the bedclothes at the mention of the word 'sceptic'.
I admire Charles in some ways - he does good work with young adults and is undoubtedly sincere. But in this case he's about as wrong as he can be.
Good interview Bish.
Did anyone else notice how Dr. Williams side stepped the important questions instead of giving an honest scientific answer. I think he is a closet skeptic !. I cannot accept that any true scientist can believe that a computer (no matter how super) can successfully model such a chaotic system as the earth’s climate. How can any objective scientist fail to notice that the central values of the models are way higher than the empirical measurement and still believe they are any way valid. As for HRH Prince Charles anyone who believes in Homeopathy loses all credibility as far as I am concerned. He also seems unable to examine a scientific argument objectively unlike his father.
"Headless chickens:" surely not more 'projection' from a greenie.
Well played Bish! - a "blinder" even.
You controlled the discussion nicely and brought out the key points.
Williams even sounded wistfully attracted to your view at the end.
Charles...chicken...science...trust...homeopathy...
"but nobody takes his views seriously anyway"
That's the knighthood gone then!
I'm getting 'File corrupted' message when trying to play the MP3. Any clues?
He is not called the plonker prince for nothing. He earned it well.
Interesting that Williams started with sweeping claims to mountains of evidence but in very little time basically conceded that there is no evidence that the models actually work.
And does he really believe that polar ice is down as the models predicted? Shocking that he would be unaware of the ice in Antarctica and recovery in the Arctic last year.
A good debate Andrew.
On, the not so bonnie pratfall Charlie - on his many travels and throughout the reign of his mother the emphasis on speeches given to the Empire - now Commonwealth of nations and from all of his extended family has always been fully inclusive "we're all such
obedientluverly subjects". Honestly! were they lying all the time - are some people's views so much more important than others and anyway who the 'eck does he think he is - ponce without portfolio.Bring on the Republic, viva la revolucion!
Well done to the Bishop, one of his best interviews, very impressive. What a shame it was the middle of the night.
The thing about Monarchy is that one likes to think that respect flows in both directions. In my life I have had (gladly) to swear allegiance to my Queen, her heirs and descendants and be prepared to fight for her. As a quid-pro-quo I expect her and my future King to respect my freedom of thought and opinion. I certainly don't accept his idea that I am a headless chicken and a denier just because I don't agree with HRH about the - to me - questionable science. I think he owes an apology to us.
Who wrote those words ? Who is is Charles puppetmaster
- the media quote him to legitimise the word DENIER ..which is still an unacceptable defamation
"All of a sudden, and with a barrage of sheer intimidation, we are told by powerful groups of deniers that the scientists are wrong and we must abandon all our faith in so much overwhelming scientific evidence."
barrage ? sheer intimidation ? powerful groups ?
.... I call that a .. PARANOID .. CONSPIRACY .. FANTASY
@AlanReed basically said Thank God that Charles is on that side of the debate, that proves we are on the true side of science
No Bishop wasn't great on the radio
He wasn't bad, but the average 5 Live listener would have fallen asleep, they are used to lively activists making punchpoints
instead a lot of considered um, err, um ,err,
..however maybe Bishops slow tone was helpful in slowing down the debate
- Nolan was quite toned down from his normal hysteria as if he is coming round
wonder what the callers said afterwards ?
.. ignored until minute 50-56 then
- 2 politicos "yes, he's absolutely right" both chorused
Callers :
- Jonathon from Swansea caller -skeptic spoke well
- Politico Mohammed quoted Sommerset weather
- Connor in London : "I agree with PC he's a man of the people"
(that's it ,,they judge that their audience is not that interested in beleievers vs deners anymore)
Forget the vaporings [of] Charlie boy, a patently well-intentioned man but like so many of his forebears essentially rather dim. What seems to me properly significant is that, however slowly and however fitfully, little by little a debate about CAWG is beginning to happen. Aware of this, of course the likes of Walport and Nurse are doing everything in their power to shut it down,inevitably using the same transparently untrue arguments that are the hallmarks of alarmists everywhere. But the fact remains that at the height of CAGW scare four or five years ago, even the merest suggestion of such a debate, the science after all having been definitively settled, would have been unthinkable.
This is progress. Not a great deal, it is true. But progress nonetheless. And for that we should be grateful.
Whoops, shd. read: Forget the vapourings of Charlie boy.
Williams struggled trying to defend the climate models, claiming the Navier-Stokes equations described the climate "a couple of centuries ago". Well George Stokes was 3yo when Navier wrote his part. His embarrassment was palpable when he asked Andrew "What part of the models were wrong" and was promptly answered. He pointed out that many models remained static for longish periods but omitted "just not at the same time". Thus he falls to the "Morecombe and Wise" refutation.
Eric ( to Andre Previn): "I am playing all the right notes - but not necessarily in the right order"
Great performance, Bish. It was also a great performance by Stephen Nolan. The dismantling of the "mountain of evidence" took no more than a few seconds. Brilliant.
Well done Bish, level headed, factual and focussed on some of the key pillars supporting the sceptic view. Shame there wasn't the time for a more detailed, point by point examination of the "mountain of scientific evidence" for human caused climate change.
Benny Peiser pointed out, in the Mail article, that the Crown estate benefits greatly from income generated by offshore wind farms. I vaguely recall some sort of deal being done, early on in this parliament, between the Chancellor and the Crown to use such income as a quid pro quo for cutting down direct support from the Treasury. In effect, the cost would no longer appear in public expenditure but be buried inside our electricity bills.
That would help explain (a) why Prince Charles has opposed on shore wind farms in the past and (b) yesterday`s intemperate and ill-considered remarks. In effect the Crown is being supported, in part, not directly out of the public purse but out of subsidies provided to operators of grossly inefficient off shore wind farms who pass the costs on to long suffering consumers.
So my questions are:
(1) how much does all this add up to, which is being added to our electricity bills? and
(2) should we conclude that Prince Charles has an undeclared conflict of interest and thus speaks with forked tongue when he launches himself into such remarks?
Feb 1, 2014 at 10:48 AM stewgreen
You're being too harsh. It's very hard to be good at interviews without long practice. Even most politicians now make poor interviewees, despite the job attracting those with the gift of the gab. Those who talk most fluently are often those to whom lies come easily. But yes, most of the public has stopped listening to both sides. I can live wih that.
This is exactly what is needed: a grown-up debate, where the proponents of human-caused global warming can put their points and then be answered in layman’s terms. The more a few people hear these brief discussions and are made aware of the fact that the whole edifice is built on computer models, with hardly any observational data backing them up, the less sustainable the thing will be.
Lots of short, to the point, sessions like this in many different outlets will eventually get a few of the vast numbers of people out there (who could not care less) at least to realise that the so-called consensus is about as far from “settled science” as it is possible to be.
So in a strange way the exhortations from Prince Charles and his ilk are doing nothing but good, aiding the process of building understanding in the uninterested masses.
In the context of a debate that 90% of people are not interested in I thought the Bish did very well indeed. You're getting good at this.
I agree that "The mountain of evidence" soundbite is a good one to attack; so easy to say yet there's nothing to back it up. It makes the claimee look foolish I think. And I can't believe he also used the "Yeo gambit" of "warmest decade". That alone marks him out as a scientivist in my book.
The comment I have made in a few places regarding the latest from the Uber Greenie is: "Don't blame me: I never voted for him".
an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
stewgreen, TinyCO2
Yes, I regret the Bishop's performance was not impressive. Not bad either, though. But not up to the standard that Greenpeace, WWF and winners of tennis tournaments routinely produce. Why? Well, it's obvious. All the above have spent money getting themselves trained in what for most is a rarely wanted skill.
The difficulty is, of course, where is the money going to come from? Big oil? Surely the mediocrity of the Bishop's performance is testimony to the absence of rich backers because the first thing skeptics should and maybe would spend any largesse they receive on would be interview and PR techniques.
As a supporter of the medical power of 'magic shaken water ' he is hardly one who can be called a follower of the 'scientific method '
I think it was good. Bish sounds like a reasonable man giving matters serious thought. Williams came over as very glib at first but was soon sounding like he was having to think about things.
As a staunch Royalist, I believe Charles is a well meaning man but out of his depth. It saddened me that he leapt to the defence of the CRU at East Anglia, sympathising with their "harassment" and clearly not having paid any attention to the shoddy science and dubious practices exposed.
Only slightly off topic, did anyone see Question Time on Thursday night?
Every panel member chorused "Climate Change" and the 2 women quoted the "It is the greatest single danger to mankind" meme in strident tones. 3 of the 5 blamed the current weather, flooding and weather "extremes" on Climate Change and the others barely challenged them.
Prince Charles makes me ashamed to be British, along with 99 percent of the Government as they come across as completely brainwashed, that is assuming they actually have brains of course.
I forgot, well done Bish, it is a shame you didn't have an hour, you could have completely demolished Dr Williams arguments, as it was you forced him on to the back foot very quickly.
To be honest the only way to expose these cretins is to take the Delingpole and Marc Morano line which is to ridicule them and demand proof as to where evidence of AGW can be seen. Morano happens to be most expert in this regard. Watch him on youtube and witness his technique. As one poster put it above it needs punchy and precise points to be batted and lashings of ridicule.
You did not mention any ice core data all of which shows that it is temperature that drives CO2 not the reverse. You did not mention the fact that natural CO2 emitters are 30 times more productive than humans burning fossil fuels. There are volumes that could be mentioned but if you were serious you could have mentioned that the label ''greenhouse gas'' is oxymoronic. The atmosphere does not act like a greenhouse in any way because convection is not prevented as it is in a glass greenhouse. Heat cannot be stored in the atmosphere because atmospheric heat naturally radiates to space. So called GHG's reduce insolation reaching the surface by warming themselves, they react with radiation adsorbing SIR getting warm themselves and emitting LIR (which incidentally is what is being measured and claimed to be the famous ''backradiation''). The GHG theory requires a serious violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics to actually work.
Is there a rule of some sort that the royals should not express opinions on political matters?
Isn't it odd that we have a 'scientist' pushing the 'multiple lines of evidence' baloney but then when asked to provide support for such argument has to back pedal rapidly. So Williams is in fact just another activist banging the drum for more funding and an easy life. If I had a head I would peck the fecker.
"Who wrote those words ? Who is is Charles puppetmaster"
Quite. Who makes up his coterie of advisers these days? Do we know? How many? 28? So many questions - it really is appalling ...
So Much For Subtlety:
When you are in a hole stop digging!
Or perhaps you are prepared to affirm that Karelia and Koenigsberg should be returned to their former owners?
So many passionate arguments justifying plain vanilla jew hatred.
Ecclesiastical Uncle, Paul.
Morano and Delingpole are good at what they do because they do it professionally and regularly. They even went into those fields because they have an aptitude for it. One of the techniques the other side regularly use is exaggeration and stretching the truth… and we hate it. Many of us were attracted to scepticism because we sensed we were being lied to. We knew that a consensus on such a new science was cr@p. It’s very hard to tread the line between total honesty and getting the message across.
One of the reasons I always try to engage with warmists (troll or not) is because I like to practice my arguments at a pace I can think about it. Then I hope those answers will pop into my head when I’m asked in real life. Even then, if I was in front of a camera or committee I fear I’d freeze and then ask ‘is it on the trolley?’
We will not win by giving a polished but evasive performance on tv or radio. The people we need to convince are like us. They know when they’re not being told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Gordon Walker - are you in the wrong place?
Charles is the best reason for a republic that could be provided; Then again over the pond Obama is the best reason to have a Monarchy......Support anarchy perhaps.
That, from someone who believes in homeopathy...
Says it all, really...
IMHO Bish blundered somewhat by accepting the influence of CO2 and then in the next breath questioning "man's influence", since the former necessarily entails the latter. Obviously the debate is about magnitudes but it sounded contradictory.
PW's performance was risible - someone like Morano would have destroyed him.
Like all woolly-minded bs the case for CAGW falls apart in the details. The fundamental weakness is that the science/evidence does not justify the professed certainty (much less the idiotic policies). Targeted requests for clarification are a surefire way to win any debate as it exposes this weakness. PW's overstatements started to show even in response to the gentle requests for clarification from the host.
'what new evidence?' + 'no warming for ~15 years' = win
An excellent discussion, well done Bishop.
Clear, to the point and well paced. IMO you focussed on the right things and didn't make the mistake of overloading the listener with a barrage of facts in the allotted time.
Better to drip the information rather than drown with it. You'll get plenty of opportunities to have your say again and bring other factoids to the attention of those who pass by.
I was impressed with the reaction of the BBC man who gave me the impression that he was not entirely convinced by the consensus. And, as it clearly incensed Fast-Fingered, Climatatourettic Bob Ward, it hurt the establishment too and that's no bad thing.
One thing that saddens me, above all, is that the day Charles mum dies I will cease to become a life-long Monarchist and become a Parliamentarian:(
Athelstan (Feb 1, 2014 at 10:32 AM): for all its faults, I do think that a monarchy is an excellent form of government: as an Australian politician once pointed out, a constitutional monarchy seems to be the most stable form of government. Most of its detractors can only work on that most poisonous of all human emotions – envy – seeing those in the monarch’s family as leeches of wealth, etc (you’ve no doubt heard it all), yet seem unable to see the similar situation for presidents. Every head of state requires stately surroundings, be it the White House and a country retreat at Camp David (and others) or Buckingham Palace and Sandringham (and others), and pomp and circumstance. I understand that the president of Italy (who he?) actually costs far more than our Royal family, yet offers little in return. Look at some of the advantages of a monarchy: a head of state who has been trained for the role throughout their life; who is apolitical; and whom you can mock and ridicule with impunity, yet can stand in the presence of with pride. You cannot deny that most of the Royal family have been superb ambassadors for the country, and it is highly likely that the many Royal tours around the world have had significant benefits to our trade.
On a more serious note, however, I have noticed that boiling an egg now takes even longer; while boiling for 3 mins used to give a soft-boiled egg, now 5 mins is required. Obviously CAGW is the culprit, here (though second-hand smoke may also contribute). How can we wangle a grant to investigate this?
Really nice debate. Well done Andrew!
Hang on RR your timer is obviously suffering a hiatus.
There is a possibility it is battery problems but an advanced 35 million pound super computer will be needed for precise comfirmation probably by 2035 or if we can string the grants out, maybe 2350.
On the whole I think the Bish did a fine job. My disappointment centres on William's comment towards the end when he said " the warming of the last decade was the warmest in HUMAN HISTORY".
I still can't believe someone who works in the field of climate science meant that but sadly it will resonate loudly for the faithful.