“BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin wants us to feel sorry for his warmy friends”
My contacts at the CRU tell me the e-mails are being taken out of context and insist they are part of the normal hurly-burly of conversations between scientists working on some of the most complicated questions of our times.
They ask how many of us would feel completely comfortable if our own inboxes were emptied out for the world to see.One small issue with that: most peoples’ inboxes don’t concern the multi-billion dollar restructuring of international economies to counter predicted climate change. Harrabin’s contacts at the CRU are quite literally seeking to change our world, yet they whine about us looking through mere email.
Or as the The Devil’s Kitchen puts it “Ah, diddums…”
From Richard Black’s blog:
Because comments were posted quoting excerpts apparently from the hacked Climate Research Unit e-mails, and because there are potential legal issues connected with publishing this material, we have temporarily removed all comments until we can ensure that watertight oversight is in place.
As I pointed out in the previous post, in one of the leaked emails Michael Mann states that Richard Black “does a great job” and indicates his intent to contact the BBC correspondent to find out how an article titled “What happened to global warming?” by Paul Hudson was allowed to appear on the BBC website. Opposing views must be not be heard!
Bishop Hill has more goodies from the emails, or search them youself here.
Thanks to all in the comments for the tips.
Update 12.30. BBC to send 35 staff to cover Copenhagen. Nice quote from Conservative MP Philip Davies:
‘On the subject of climate change, the BBC seems to lose all its critical faculties and it will probably be just a fawning exercise over these environmentalists anyway.
‘It would be nice if one of these 35 people asked some pertinent and critical questions about climate change. But I suspect they will all be subscribers to the extreme environmental agenda.’
I suspect so too. They wouldn’t want to upset their friends on the CRU mailing list.
Can’t say the BBC going into bunker mode over this is helping their standing much, no matter what the legal weasel words. Loved this preceding bit in Mr. Black’s ‘explanation’:
As always, if you think I’ve missed something important in this weekly round-up, please post a comment.
Update 2309: Because comments were posted quoting excerpts apparently from the hacked Climate Research Unit e-mails, and because there are potential legal issues connected with publishing this material, we have temporarily removed all comments until we can ensure that watertight oversight is in place.
Guessing irony not a strong suit chez Aunty
After having read many of the emails I find it difficult for Harrabin to claim they are taken out of context.
A genuine question here.
Is it a BBC editor/reporter/whatever’s job to make excuses to the extent that seems to be happening already, especially as the facts are still rolling out?
Especially based on the opinion of ‘a contact’ at what now appears to be an organisation with which the BBC seems to have enjoyed, at the very least, ‘unique’ access in the past?
This is not new, Harrabin also had some emails leaked where a female lunatic greenie berated him for being too soft in an article Harrabin wrote on climate change. Harrabin then changed the article to make it more climate change friendly. When he got caught out it made him look a bigger tool than he already is.
Funny the BBC didn’t have a problem publishing or embarassing Tory MPs expenses for duck houses and moat cleaning did they? That data was also ‘stolen’
Good point Martin.
Perhaps they don’t want to report the allegations as they’re unsubstantiated? Ah, but that didn’t stop them reporting unsubstantiated allegations by Binyam Mohamed. Well, perhaps because the allegations are against specific people? Well, can’t they say “It is alleged that…”, followed by “x denies the allegations/declined to comment/was unavailable for comment”? There’s been enough time to ask.
Come to that, has anyone denied the veracity of the e-mails yet? It seems pretty telling if they haven’t.
The BBC are running scared, they must be very nervous about possible further damaging emails that incriminate the BBC science and enviroment reporters.
It looks bad for Harrabin/Shukman/Black because if there is an investigation it may well turn up some very grubby skeletons in the BBC closet.
The BBC have spent years and a great deal of money trying to peddle the warmist/alarmist ideology and propaganda, most of the supposed evidence coming from the very fraudsters at the heart of the scandal, a goodly portion of the BBC AAM propaganda is highly suspect now.
It is that serious and it could well be hugely damaging for the BBCs reputation, is it any wonder these beeboids are desperate to hide the story beneath an obviously fake legal excuse?
This goes well beyond a gaggle of fraudsters and crooks, the government has squandered billions of pounds over the last decade for NOTHING, the evidence they used to squander money on windmills, renewables,carbon capture and research has been utterly wasted, every household pays at least a third more gas/electricity/water/sewage/council tax for NO reason, the landfill levies and the crippling red tape strangling industry and our farmers, all a damn waste of money and effort.
The government has based its multi billion pound strategy on fiddled figures made up by cheap fraudsters, a strategy that has cost the UK so dearly in terms of lost competitiveness alone, hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs and a looming energy crisis that may kill tens of thousands of our most vulnerable people, oooh yes folks, the scandal will reach far into the dark corners of Westminster.
A mere handful of selfish and arrogant non entities have brought the UK to its knees and cost the taxpayer many billions of pounds, no oversight, no quality control, no double checking of facts and statistics, the government took the word of a gaggle of fraudsters at face value and we all must bear the crippling costs of that failure for years!
I like BBBC, and agree with most articles here. However, Global Warming is not one of them.
I was trained as an Engineer and worked nearly 40 years as such. Get a technical issue wrong and the consequences bite you hard. I am not interested in emails, conspiracy theories or arguments on Global Warming – I am only interested in the Science, and it is clear and consensual, except for a small minority of scientists, few, if any of whom are active climate scientists. Some will remember how foolish the popular botanist David Bellamy looked when he had to admit he was looking at the wrong data.
The issue that overrides all others is the extreme sensitivity of the climate to external forcing, be it from solar insolation, volcanism or the activities of life. The Ice Ages of the last 3 million years were caused by fractional changes in differential insolation of the northern hemisphere. The change in thermal insulation due to a 30% increase in CO2 causes a far greater net forcing than the Milankovic cycles that drove the ice ages.
If I thought that all this chatter were of any consequence, I might get a bit heated about it, but it isn’t. We are not going to stop all this consumption, so Nature will take its course, and our coastal cities and agriculture will reap the consequences.
The human race will learn a hard lesson like no other, but this generation will not see much of it. In the meantime, we had better look to protecting the food and energy sources of this country, and considering its demographics and defence.
Alcium,
When did science become all about concensus?
This is the problem with global warming ™, its NOT about the science but about the concensus. When did scientific enquiry die? I must have missed the memo.
Also, you talk about an increase in CO2, yet the world has cooled over the last 10 years AND the hottest year last century WASNT 1998, but 1932 (once all the “tricks” were removed from the NASA measurements!).
Mailman
The figures and statistics you are using are based on fraudulant research, “the change in thermal insulation due to a 30% increase in CO2” excuse me but where did you get that information from? There has been no change in earths thermal insulation that is directly linked to atmospheric CO2 variations, the change you speak of IS directly related to water vapour/cloud cover/the Milankovich cycle and last but not least solar forcing variations and earth solar magnetic field flux.
Atmospheric CO2 makes up a mere 0.038% of the atmosphere and it is not even a major greenhouse gas, by definition it cannot affect the other 99.62% of the atmosphere while the other forcing agents just stand idly by apparently doing nothing.
Lets be clear here, a combination of greenhouse gasses work in conjunction with a myriad of interconnected systems to produce a remarkable layer of insulation of which CO2 is but a very small part.
Your comment about a 30% increase in CO2 is quite frankly specious at best, the carbon dioxide cycle has risen and fallen hugely in the geological past, it may well increase and decrease in cycles following warm periods and may be directly linked to a warming and cooling ocean, the scandal is that estimating past CO2 levels by proxy is part of the problem, think of Briffa and his Yamal proxies fraud.
The scandal is that much of evidence peddled by the AAM fanatics is at best cherry picked and partial and at worst fraudulant.
I have to tell you that your pompous attempt to advertise yourself as somehow superior because you are an engineer cuts no ice here, on this forum we are all equal and our opinions carry equal weight. You may believe whatever you want to believe and that is your right, the majority believe differently and we have just as much right to express our opinons.
Please go right ahead and believe in your doomsday appocalypse, the armageddon you peddle is nothing more than a crisis of confidence brought on by a mass hysteria, BTW you may want to look up mass delusions/crowd behaviour and mob delusions, it bears a striking resemblance to the current AAM fixation.
The argument is not over warming but causes of this warming – if you see data that shows CO2 levels rising yet temperatures falling do you automatically conclude that CO2 is the cause – of course not.
http://mensnewsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/temp.jpg
You look for other explanations. Maybe Ferenc M. Miskolczi is right
Click to access vol111001_01.pdf
or Linzen, Soon, Carter et al. Why do you favour one set of scientists over another? Is it because you want to believe it?
If the science was settled how can other scientists bring out research which refutes the “consensus” – it would not be possible. I do not know the anser – maybe Jones and his lot are right, but if you have to hide and delete data in case it is released to some other scientist then this sounds as if their case is weak.
All this leaves a very bad taste – I really never thought that real scientists could sink so low. I expected the BBC to do so but scientists!!
The “scientific method” states
“Another common mistake is to ignore or rule out data which do not support the hypothesis. Ideally, the experimenter is open to the possibility that the hypothesis is correct or incorrect. Sometimes, however, a scientist may have a strong belief that the hypothesis is true (or false), or feels internal or external pressure to get a specific result. In that case, there may be a psychological tendency to find “something wrong”, such as systematic effects, with data which do not support the scientist’s expectations, while data which do agree with those expectations may not be checked as carefully. The lesson is that all data must be handled in the same way.”
http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/PHY_LABS/AppendixE/AppendixE.html
It really is sad that a buch of politicaly motivated scientists were ever allowed to hoodwink the public and hide behind their scientific credentials. The damage done to science by these people will be with us for a long time to come.
I, for one look forward to a new era of ‘watertight oversight’ across all aspects of the BBC’s journalistic output.
Until it doesn’t suit the narrative to do so. Give it a day, then.
“watertight oversight” the BBC dont appear to get the concept of irony do they?
The leaked emails of republicans and conservatives appear to be..er..different in some way and different rules apply, leaked texts of royals are OK too and of course it seems if the BBC dont approve of someone then its print and be damned isnt it?
The BBC seem to live in a state of being where two sets of standards apply, one for its friends and one for its enemies, you will remember that the BBC had no hesitation in publishing leaked Palin private details both real and faked, I dont remember the BBC being so very careful when Bush/McCain/Thatcher/Cameron etc were in the frame.
When Osbourne had his secret meetings with a crooked Russian and his friend Mandelson then it was a case of going on air so fast without checking the facts it made your head spin to watch the coverage and I dont remember the BBC holding back for ‘legal reasons’ then.
this is a turning point……the agenda is being exposed….this environmental nazism is crumbling…..the MSM cannot keep it hidden for much longer…..the truth will out
Hope the same hackers are busy penetrating Pravdacasting House.
Wouldn’t you love to see the emails, from say the extremist warm monger and Warmist Truther Roger Harrabin Laden?
<i>One small issue with that: most peoples’ inboxes don’t concern the multi-billion dollar restructuring of international economies to counter predicted climate change.</i>
Not multi-billion but multi-trillion.
As The American Thinker writes, “As this mock-science serves as justification for trillions of dollars in imposed and proposed new taxes, liens, fees, and rate hikes — not to mention the absurd wealth-redistribution premise of international climate debt “reparations” — such manipulation of evidence should be treated as exactly what it is: larceny on the grandest scale in history”.
In a sane and just world , these pseudo-scientists would be shamed and fired. But as the government is involved in a task that they consider noble, that is, raising revenue by any and all means whatever, it wont surprise me that a huge effort is going to be made to muddy the waters. The money involved is too huge – it makes ENRON look like peanuts.
I wonder which the side the BBC will be on.
Looks like the real bombshells are going to be contained in the Code that was also hacked. McIntyre’s just getting his teeth into it and you’d have to have a heart of stone not to pity the poor wretch(es) responsible for such shoddy workmanship – McIntyre will have them for breakfast.
http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/these-will-be-artificially-adjusted/