According to this report:
“Global warming could cut the world’s annual economic output by as much as 20%, an influential report by Sir Nicholas Stern is expected to say.”
Call it debasement of the English language, call it wishfulfillment journalism, but surely the “influence” of a report can only be estimated after the effects of its publication are known? Still, it makes for a nice consistency: a hypothetically gloomy report on an unproven hypothesis is said, hypothetically one supposes, to be influential- all by a hypothetically unbiased news organisation.
Pete –
Some people say “we can never be sure about climate change!”. No, really??? If you want total 100% certainty about everything you should become a mathematician and retreat from the outside world.
When a two-bob thieving politician tells me that I have to be taxed more, I want certainty that it benefits me and I’m getting value for money. If they can’t convince me with any certainty, they can keep their thieving commie hands to themselves.
You’re mistaking this debate for a scientific/environmental/climate-change debate when it’s a political debate. Facts are irrelevent. The same people tried it on in the 60s and 70s with claims of an impending ice-age, they tried it on with claims that we’ll fry under the hole in the ozone layer, they tried it on with global warming, which has morphed into climate-change.
If you can’t hear a politician state that it’s vital for a few thousand Britons to get out of 4x4s without thinking that politician is out of their tiny mind, you aren’t getting it. They want people out of their 4x4s because they are envious, thieving, commie bastards.
Pete
You miss the point. There is no strong, uncontroversial evidence that there is any significant human element to climate change. There is no evidence that whatever we do will help. This fact is unlikely to have been presented to you, due to the distortion of the evidence by the media and politicians.
And of course, we shouldn’t require certainty over stuff that might cause us to change policy – just enough to show that action probably gives a better outcome than inaction. Computer models are fun, but untested (except against each other, and they aren’t very good at agreeing).
Physical chemistry suggests that the rise so far is worth maybe 0.3K, at a 0th order, if everything else were to have remained unchanged.
History tell us the earth had CO2 levels perhaps 6x current levels when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (RA Berner, 2001).
Biology tells us plants grow quicker with more CO2 – thus, as a 1st approx, on this factor it’s positive.
Astrophysics tells us there is a big driver of the whole thing 93mil miles away, and it’s been running fairly hot recently, and has some esoteric (but massively important) effects we haven’t even noticed until recently (http://greenspin.blogspot.com/2006/10/do-i-detect-first-tiny-rumblings-of.html).
Experience tells me that there’s a limited pot of research funding and fighting gets bitter. Turkeys/Christmas anyone? And with computers – BS in->BS out. FMD anyone – should be simple right? infection, island, farms. Oh ho, a few dodgy assumptions on infectivity and armies of livestock are marching through the black gates unnecessarily. And the world is a teensy bit more complex, and action on the scale the flagellants want would cost us all rather a lot, even if it would appease the consciences of bleeding heart liberals who despise the sheer complexity and unfairness of the world.
I have submitted several criticisms to the BBC’s pretence of a “feedback” but never had any published so better luck here that someone from the useless BBC might read it?.
Dear BBC… Your climate animation at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/greenhouse.stm
Is biased, inaccurate and misleading. It does not illustrate any form of “greenhouse” effect. Such effect is caused by restraining convection within a contained subset of an atmosphere. What is illustrated is reflection and dissipation of heat energy from gases within the atmosphere. The most predominate gas which produces such an effect on radiated heat being water vapour. Something which all people are already aware of on either a cold or hot night depending on the level of cloud cover. You have sufficient experts on board at the BBC to know this so I can only conclude that it is your intent to deceive for ulterior political motives. You may wish to consider extending the Precautionary Principle to the anticipated 4bn deaths required in order to comply with UN global population limits or would that be too radical?
If you are interested in Conservative politics you’ve got to see THE CARPETBAGGERS – it is an account of two undercover reporters who joined election campaign in Richmond. They’ve not posted much yet, but it looks like its going to be funny/ revealing. Definately worth a look.
http://www.torycarpetbaggers.blogspot.com/
And if we’re going to disdain a requirement for 100% certainty bfore doing something useful then why for the love of God, REACH? And why aren’t the BBC running on the number of puir little animals to die unnecessarily to satisfy the C+C instincts of Brussels bureaucrats, and Dave’s enviro credentials.
It’s obviously different when the cost’s on private business.
So, while out today, and mildly intrigued by John Reith’s claim that Matthew D’Ancona endorses the importance of this much-trumpeted report by Stern & co, I cave-in and buy a Sunday Telegraph for the first time in weeks, to see for myself.
And what do I find? Nothing less than the admission that d’Ancona’s wife works for David Milliband!
And we are supposed to be impressed by the signficance he affords this twaddle?
All of which is further confirmation (as if confirmation were needed) that ‘John Reith’ is well versed in the BBC school of selective reporting aimed at producing a desired result!
Above and beyond Reith’s duplicitous use of facts (see above), what is really interesting about the promotion of the Stern report by the BBC to advance its ‘Green’ agenda, is that it is now perfectly clear that the Corporation was being used by the boy Milliband as a platform to launch his proposed ‘Green’ taxes.
Nice to have an insightful media, probing and testing the background to the stories it features every day, isn’t it?
The BBC – a press office for ZaNuLabour and its chums in the NGOs.
GCooper:
Brilliant stuff. But the fact is, within a generation or so there won’t be any of us left who haven’t been indoctrinated who will be able to mount a challenge.
Pass the Victory Gin…..
Mr Hunt
I wouldn’t be so sure – the flame is passed in every “hard science” department in the country, places where opinion masquerading as fact and unprovable “research” backing it up are deplored and disagreements over fact can be sorted by further research (at least, yet, until you get to string theory). Behind those doors lie a sleeping army who don’t voice opinion ‘cos their area of expertise lies elsewhere, and their views on the issue lie between equanimity and shock at the wholesale twisting of sense.
Chem Ed:
My website’s been online since May 2001. It’s elecited much positive reponse, but clearly nothing like enough to take out Big Brother (i.e. The Guardian and he Beeb)
Johnathan Boyd Hunt writes:
“My website’s been online since May 2001. It’s elecited much positive reponse, but clearly nothing like enough to take out Big Brother (i.e. The Guardian and he Beeb)”
Cutting the BBC down to size (or, perhaps, just down) is a big operation. It’s hardly to be wondered at that a single website – even a score of websites – haven’t achieved it yet.
But anyone who can’t detect hysteria in the frantic bleatings of BBC supporters over the past week or so must be utterly deaf.
We just need to keep on adding pressure till the whole edifice begins to slide.
Pete
Read this and it will make it clear.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
UPDATE
Eco-onanist Andrew Simms given a soundbite on the BBC television ten o’clock news.
John Reith:
“Heron, here’s another:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/s…ech/ 4074911.stm
John Reith | 29.10.06 – 2:20 pm” | #
——————————————————————————–
Balanced? One article against the hysteria and four, or was it five,
with dire warnings
Does anybody remember the last “Climate Change” scam. It was in the early seventies when scientists predicted that an ice-age was iminent – this just happened to coincide with the energy crises of the same period and massive prise rises in the costs of fuel.
I’m sure this is no coincidence.
Pete – I would suggest you read this about the 0.28% I quoted.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Hi all,
Pete London: I admit that the finer points of climate science are a bit off topic, and that taxation may not be the solution but I’m intrigued that you say that “facts are irrelevant” to a political debate. Waht do you base your politics on if not your understanding of the pertinent facts?
Richard: You can set the “strong, uncontroversial evidence” bar high enough to exclude anything you like. But CO2 increases since around when the industrial revolution was really swinging in to action COULD just be a concidence. Given that we understand the C cycle reasonably well and can have good stab at our own C emissions, and that we know without doubt that CO2 is rising, I’d say thats pretty good. But yes, I do take media stories with a large pinch of salt, but I also look at more reliable sources too.
Chem Ed: You’re right, we can’t predict weather very well. But climate is the average of weather, and averages can be more predictable. You can’t predict a coin toss but you can predict the outcome of 100 coin tosses.
Jon: Thanks for the link. Its 22.45 so I think I’ll have a detailed look another day! However, I put the site authors name – Monte Hieb – into an academic search engine and it produced 3 papers by an M Hieb – 2 about “web services” and 1 about “human quadriceps”, so it probably ain’t the guy. So, why is this guy better informed than the authors of pretty much any paper you’d care to look up in a proper journal? He may be of course, but its a long shot.
Anyway, I know this isn’t about BBC bias but if that is what this is supposed to be about then people shouldn’t just casually dismiss huge mounds of scientific data and interpretation with throwaway comments! I guess i’m saying… y’all started it!
Cheers,
Pete
Jon | 29.10.06 – 10:55 pm
See the link below for support for the idea that water vapour is the most important component of greenhouse warming.
It’s a BEEB report!!!!!!!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/gases_watervapour.shtml
Paradoxically, the “gas” which is most important to greenhouse warming is one not normally thought of as a gas at all: water (H2O).
Cheers gorden-bennett – it is also interesting to read reports on Global Warming and how many of them don’t even mention water vapour at all.
I have no doubt that there is global warming I just can’t see how taxing everything to the hilt is going to stop it.
“Climate change”, “global warming” are all based on feelings and not much else. If one subscribes to the religion of the environmental movement they should be up front about it.
Go ahead and carry on about your feelings. The facts don’t bear out your feeling no matter how blue the envro fascists go in the face as they whinge on about it.
The BBC same olde transnational socialist movement crap different day. It’s all about attacking “anglo saxon economics” and not much else.
Banned in Britain | Homepage | 30.10.06 – 12:21 am
This environmental stuff reminds me of the “common enemy” thesis (faeces?) from Orwell’s 1984.
Another example is the way the nazis set up the Jews as the common enemy to distract the population at large and bind them to the Party. It’s an old left-wing trick.
Another similarity between the nazis and nulab?
Ed Thomas writes:
“surely the “influence” of a report can only be estimated after the effects of its publication are known? ”
Tony Blair has an article under his own byline in the Sun this morning saying the Stern report is ‘a wake-up call’.
If the Prime Minister is puffing a report in the tabs even before it’s published, you can bet it’s ‘influential’.
B-BBC wrong again.
Jon seems to have got it right. .28% of gas from man, not counting al-beeb hot air. So, keeping in mind that this is an ECONOMIC report, where is the science? Granted it would be nice to clean up all the man-made filth, but just how is that going to stop global warming? It’s a planet thing –maybe linked to solar flares, volcanic eruptions, wobbling of the earth’s axis, etc. Humans play no part in any of this, so why all of a sudden? Where’s the SCIENCE?
John Reith
The Stern report is ‘influential’ because it reaches the conclusions that the environmental lobby welcome.
Bjorn Lomborg published an equally learned appraisal of eco-economics some while ago that came to very different conclusions. His book ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’ is, when it is mentioned by the BBC, usually referred to as ‘contoversial’.
@ Pete | 29.10.06 – 10:58 pm
Actually Pete AIUI the data on atmospheric carbon is far from convincing on many counts, but here are three quite specific ones.
1/ Ecosocialists argue that higher CO2 emissions = higher atmospheric CO2. This is false. At least 2 or 3 times in the last dozen years, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has fallen, even though we have carried on emitting the stuff.
2/ CO2’s contribution to global warming is supposedly evident in the historical data. In fact, while ice cores suggest there is a connection, it’s the other way around – global warming causes more CO2, and not, as we are so often told, the reverse.
3/ There is no ‘global’ warming. The southern hemisphere is getting colder. Unless man-made activity is somehow confined to one hemisphere then this cannot be a man-made effect. And if it is, then it is beneficial compared to letting the planet get colder.
The relevance of all this to al-BBC is that if it were doing its job properly impartially, it would realise that there is a story to be covered here. Why is there so much noise being made about alleged global warming, when there is so much evidence that the warming theory is fatally flawed?
The BBC would probably argue to the effect that the consensus is that the theory is not flawed. That will not wash.
First off, we don’t rely on a consensus in favour of the existence of gravity; we don’t rely on a consensus that if you put your hand into boiling water you’ll burn yourself. We rely on hard facts, and the reason consensus gets invoked all the time in connection with global warming is that the facts don’t add up. The day that we all get to vote on what science we believe is the day that two plus two equals five.
And second, the only reason there is any consensus is because of the determination of socialist bodies such as the BBC to make sure that theirs is the only point of view heard.
Here’s another report from the beeb on global warming
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/gases_carbondioxide.shtml
The close relationship between carbon dioxide concentrations and estimated global mean temperature is striking. Whether the relationship is a causal one, however is still uncertain. It is tempting to conclude that fluctuations in CO2 cause temperature changes – but it could be the other way round.
My emphasis added.
Is it an exaggeration to say that these 3 links below together form a complete demolition of the global warming crisis as promulgated by zanulab and all their hair-shirted fellow travellors who want to raise taxes on the gullible public?
The fact that the beeb hype in the political area of the beeb website is totally undermined by the reports in the science section of the same website is particularly satisfying to those of us with a sceptical and/or cynical attitude.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/gases_watervapour.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/gases_carbondioxide.shtml
I intend to splatter this triplet of links anywhere and everywhere where global warming is hyped up on the net.
“Is it an exaggeration to say that these 3 links below together form a complete demolition of the global warming crisis”
Yes
“Is it an exaggeration to say that these 3 links below together form a complete demolition of the global warming crisis”
No
Cockney | 30.10.06 – 11:56 am
Do me the courtesy of explaining why I am wrong.
Oh yeah John Reith- how the BBC is renowned for taking Tony Blair’s word for it.
That’s what we’re after- consistency!
It’s laughably disingenous for the BBC to claim it is simply following a lead set by politicians. The plain truth is that the process worked the other way around.
In thrall to ‘Green’ pressure groups and fringe watermelon ideas, it is actually the BBC that has brought about climate change – it has changed the climate of British politics so that such rubbish has become common currency.
The BBC has been promoting an eco-loonie agenda for nearly a decade and such is the power of its incessant doom-laden nannying, that politicians
have finally caved-in.
The best we can hope for is that the draconian tax regime brought about by this nonsense will result in the whole lot of them being thrown out of work: politicians and BBC staffers alike!
“it is actually the BBC that has brought about climate change – it has changed the climate of British politics so that such rubbish has become common currency.”
So, if it wasn’t for the BBC, climate change wouldn’t be an issue? Is that what you are saying?
MisterMinit writes:
“So, if it wasn’t for the BBC, climate change wouldn’t be an issue? Is that what you are saying?”
It would not be such an issue, the case would not be regarded as proven beyond reasonable doubt and a statist liar like David Miliband would not be able to get away with claiming that “99 per cent of scientists” believe in manmade global warming (Newsnight this evening), without being laughed to scorn.
Got it? Or are you trying to pretend that the BBC has not played a major role in advancing the ‘global warming’ cause?
You have got to hand it to New Labour – what a fantastic way to get more tax! Frighten the poor voters to death with unproven climate change ballyhoo and tell them the only way out is to pay more tax! brilliant
GCooper – what percentage of scientists would you say believe in global warming then, ’cause reading B-BBC you’d think it was a 50/50 clash heading into extra time (probably to be settled by a screamer from reknowned scientific expert Melanie Phillips). Not quite the truth IMHO.
The Beeb certainly needs to bring in dissenting views and discussion on whether vast tax hikes and beard growing really are the best reasponse but to suggest that impartiality requires huge amounts of skepticism and wild accusations of anti-capitalist motives is waaay off the mark.
Cockney, scientists need funding to do their work, so it depends whether they were funded by Greenpeace, Gordon Brown or Texaco as to whether they believe in man-made global warming or not. The whole issue seems to have become so polarised that no-one appears interested in a totally objective scientific opinion. From what I can gather scientists agree that the Earth is currently getting warmer, but the reasons for that are strongly disputed. I have no idea what percentage of scientists believe in global warming. I have 4 friends who might know – one scientist, three meteorologists. Of those four, three are skeptical of the climate change theories we hear about in the news. So using Lancet-like extrapolation, 75% of scientists are skeptical.
What I can be absolutely certain about is that it is not 99% agreed amongst scientists – and allowing that comment from Milliband to pass without challenge (together with his obsequious remark about Nigel Lawson being a bad neighbour to Thatcher) were my main complaint on what was a surprisingly good Newsnight last night. I am also sure that the 50-50 that Cockney so derides is also much closer to the truth than Millipede’s 99-1. Though like you, I have no idea of the scientific consensus as everything is biased, both their research and the reporting from the media.
We should not be surprised to hear accusations that this government is using this report to extort more money from the taxpayer – this sort of thing would be true to form after all. We should not be surprised that this is unpopular amongst the public outside Islington. The Newsnight review brought all this out (is the BBC responding to our pressure?) and I felt that the Government came out of it very badly, and Stern hardly impressed either. Maybe this feeling (that the Government is using climate change as a way to get more money off us) could open up a more honest debate on the science of climate change, and signal an end to the MSM’s consensus on the issue.
It is to be hoped, and, on this occasion, I feel the BBC and Paxman deserve some praise.
Cockney writes:
“GCooper – what percentage of scientists would you say believe in global warming then, ’cause reading B-BBC you’d think it was a 50/50 clash heading into extra time (probably to be settled by a screamer from reknowned scientific expert Melanie Phillips). Not quite the truth IMHO.
”
I do wish you’d try to get over this Melanie Phillips problem – I see you invoked her name in another thread today.
As for the rest, Heron has made most of the points I’d have made in response to you, so for the sake of brevity, I’ll leave it at that.
OPEC’s influential Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo says that the controversial Stern report is ‘unfounded’:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-10-31T101400Z_01_L31174050_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-STERN-OPEC.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
(See Beeboids, others can play that game also).
Cockney
“Not quite the truth IMHO”
Well what is the basis for your opinion? Do you actually have any way of judging, except the mass media who are biased? The issue is not helped by disgraceful, anti-scientific proclamations from the top of the Royal Society.
We cannot get a good idea of the level of scientific concensus, but as far as I have been able to judge the case is far closer to 50/50 than many people seem to think. The case for anthropogenic climate change also shows many of the characteristics of classic scientific errors. That is not to say that it is necessarily wrong, just that the political/media environment do not allow a balanced judgement.
The anti-capitalist motive should be pointed out, and the “accusations” are certainly not wild. Many of the people advancing the global warming agenda are anti-capitalists, and would be deeply offended by you using hrte wored “accusation” about something of which they are proud. What is objectionable to you about suggestions that the BBC should tell the truth, and report accurately and fully?
Attacking Mellanie Phillips’ view because she holds it certainly is a fallacy, an attack ad hominem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Hominem#Ad_hominem_as_logical_fallacy
She is not a scientist, but then neither is Stern, nor are most of the people advancing the global-warming arguments. Even the Royal Society has given up its scientific credentials. The BBC news editors wouldn’t know science if it bit them on the arse.
“Got it? Or are you trying to pretend that the BBC has not played a major role in advancing the ‘global warming’ cause?”
I can’t see how the BBC operates any differently to the rest of the media in this regard.
Well, we’ll just single the BBC out in that case. God knows it deserves to be singled out.