Compare and contrast the way that Richard Black – the current BBC so-called environment correspondent- and David Whitehouse, a former BBC science reporter who, unlike Richard, actually has a science degree, handle a report which shows that – despite all the fanatical outpourings of greenies – there has been little significant warming since 1998. Mr Black is red hot keen at the very beginning of his report to savage sceptics who have “denied” global warming, because actually, he asserts, it’s all an illusion: the lull was caused by Chinese coal burning, which emitted sulphur particles that, in turn, reflected heat back into space. Mr Whitehouse, for his part focuses on the science, and concentrates instead on the devsatating impact the report has – and I’m going to quote him almost in full to show just how partisan Mr Black is and to convey what the real story is:
It is good news that the authors recognise that there has been no global temperature increase since 1998. Even after the standstill appears time and again in peer-reviewed scientific studies, many commentators still deny its reality. We live in the warmest decade since thermometer records began about 150 years ago, but it hasn’t gotten any warmer for at least a decade.
The researchers tweak an out-of-date climate computer model and cherry-pick the outcome to get their desired result. They do not use the latest data on the sun’s influence on the Earth, rendering their results of academic interest only.
They blame China’s increasing coal consumption that they say is adding particles into the atmosphere that reflect sunlight and therefore cool the planet. The effect of aerosols and their interplay with other agents of combustion is a major uncertainty in climate models. Moreover, despite China’s coal burning, data indicate that in the past decade the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere has not increased.
The researchers seek to explain the temperature standstill between 1998 and 2008. They say that the global temperature has increased since then.
This is misleading. There was an El Nino in 2010 (natural cyclic warming) but even that did not raise temperatures above 1998. In fact the standstill has continued to 2010 and 2011 appears to be on course to be a cooler year than any of the preceding ten years.
Tweaking computer models like this proves nothing. The real test is in the real world data. The temperature hasn’t increased for over a decade. For there to be any faith in the underlying scientific assumptions the world has to start warming soon, at an enhanced rate to compensate for it being held back for a decade.
Despite what the authors of this paper state after their tinkering with an out of date climate computer model, there is as yet no convincing explanation for the global temperature standstill of the past decade.
As usual, Richard Black, by contrast, goes on to give acres of space to the alarmists he habitually speaks to, in the way he usually speaks to them, and bends over backwards to convey that – without question – the report shows that we are all going to fry.
Heh, “Mr Black is red hot …” 😀
It must be all that warming…or maybe it’s the hot air he generates!
It is a shame that post is ‘broadcast only’, as it may have been productive to develop the story further with the author.
I wonder why it was not?
Hey, control the edit, and you control the message…
The BBC is not responsible for the content
As soon as I read this article from the BBC i thought “here we go again”. Lately it feels like the BBC are spoon-feeding us what they want us to hear. I feel the reporting to be very one sided and libralised and that we are not getting all the facts from both sides. The BBC are quick to give us the details of the NATO’s offensive in Libya yet fail to report on the massive pro Gaddafi demonstrations fairly. Even when they do report on what was said they made out it was an all out threat to the west – when I saw the full transcript of what was actually said by Gaddafi it had been completly misconstrued by the BBC and the other mainstream media outlets. I’m becomming VERY disillusioned with the BBC and cannot even feel I trust the news souces via Google News anymore.
I think David Whitehouse is getting on a roll about all the Black-style nonsense.
Maybe if Whitehouse had remained the BBC’s correspondent, we would not have had all the hysteria that Black, Harrabin et all have stirred up.
I’d love to see Whitehouse and Black debate this – on the BBC. It would make an excellent Newsnight item, for example. Fat chance.
Two things…
1) Is it my imignation or does Richard Black look like Michael E. Mann of Mann-Made Global Warming fame?
2) So wait…. if the halt in warming was caused by China burning coal… doesn’t that mean the answer is to burn MORE coal not less?
Climate Alarmists would like to have their cake, eat it and put it on display it seems.
— Richard
Yes, Black IS similar in appearance to Mann – I made that observation a week or so ago. (They are probably one and the same article!).
They are both like little fucking puppies, incessantly yapping, and cocking their little legs against reality and common sense, and really having little or no effect.
I listen less and less to radio 4 these days, because apart from the bloody obvious left-wing bias thrust down our throats, practically EVERY sodding programme has an overt biodiversity/ecological/green message – to distraction, in fact. I’m sick to fucking death of it all (as I’m sure are most sensible folk).
They seem to be redoubling their efforts lately. Why? Do they realise they’re onto a loser, and are just kicking up in their death throes, or are they possibly aware of some information to their detriment, that’s on the verge of coming to light?
Either way, the whole bloody lot of them are a pain in the arse, and a waste of the licence-tax payers’ hard earned cash.
God rot them all
Does anyone else find it frustrating that, again and again, Richard Black’s articles fail to link to the actual studies he’s spinning? Robin and Watts Up With That can give us a link to take us straight to the report (not just a website homepage) so we can judge it for ourselves, but not Richard Black.
To add insult to injury, his latest article also looks as if it’s linking to other studies but when you click on them they just take you to other articles by Richard Black.
He seems to want keep us from seeing the original studies for ourselves.
I don’t generally read his articles (except sometimes those featured here) but in light of what you’ve posted, I’ve clicked on the first three links in the article and yes, that is frustrating and annoying.
It’s very poor communication not to link to the relevant paper or report.
It’s such a basic, obvious part of reporting, isn’t it? There’s no reason (or at least no good one) why he fails to do it.
Craig,
Because he hasn’t read them and, even if he had, he wouldn’t understand the science let alone the statistics involved.
It’s called “Hide the Decline”
“The BBC has revised its guidelines for linking to other websites in news articles. Reporters must now link to primary sources such as articles published in scientific journals, rather than simply linking to the homepage of the journal. The new guidelines also encourage reporters to “avoid [linking to] news stories”, in favour of linking to analysis.
BBC editorial staff have “long wrestled” with how and where to link to external websites, as the assistant editor of specialist journalism for the BBC News website, Richard Warry, said earlier this year. Ben Goldacre, doctor and Guardian columnist, has spearheaded the move to get the BBC to link directly to science journal articles, and it finally seems to have paid off.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/oct/08/bbc-link-guidelines
Except for Blacks alarmist clap trap from his friends at CRU and the Met Office
JHT,
If Black is in breach of BBC guidelines, severe punishment will follow swiftly.
‘Reporters must now ..’
This was written by Helen ‘Hugs’ Boaden, was it? If so, the heft with which the utterings of this market rate talent are treated by her subordinates is explained.
Comments verboten, I see.
It’s been said before, but just what results would warmists require before considering that maybe, just maybe, they could be wrong?
Nice piece by Reuters… http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/05/us-climate-sulphur-idUSTRE7634IQ20110705?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews
Evil capitalism has caused “global warming” to halt. Oh no, that will send the BBC into a tailspin!
Actually, looking at the headline linked, blaming anything/one for halting Global Warming is a neat journalistic trick.
They will never admit they are wrong. Not even when old people are freezing to death and the only people allowed to fly are Greenpeace executives on conference business.
The warmists are like Rapture. When the earth didn’t end on the chosen date, they merely set another date. They could not give up on the apocalypse and just get on with their lives.
No warming in the last ten years, but CO2 output up year on year on the back of economic activity. Still they plough on, churning out scare stories for the media to frighten us with. The Metro yesterday tells us Arizona U’s Jonathan Overpeck study declares London will be underwater in 100 years time.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article694819.ece
However that nonsense was written in 2006. They never give up.
As soon as I read this I knew there would be an article here, it amuses me that Black has twisted the mid-90’s Greenhouse warming scenario so that it becomes the reason we are not warming up as fast.
His logic dictates that we should now burn more coal to avoid global warming.
Has the hockey stick turned into a rollercoaster?
I’ve identified one error (lie?) in the paper.
It talks about the rapid doubling of Chinese coal consumption, but of course it is total world consumption that matters, about which the report states
For example, global coal consumption increases only 27% in the
twenty two years between 1980 and 2002.
This is not true. Using the US Energy Information database used in the report, I find that world consumption increased by very nearly 28% in the period 1980-1989, after which it fell slightly and then remained roughly constant until the Chinese boom in consumption starting at the beginning of this century.
A cynic would think that the paper’s authors might not wish to explain
why the 28% 1980-1989 increase in coal consumption failed to flatten out Mann’s hockey stick.
did anyone see, m. philips put an eco-spanner in the works
on question time in 2009 (re huffing & puffing-pantomime boos-& much shaking of heads) on the farce of the global warming debate
just as she got, when see mentioed scrapping our insane aid agenda 🙂 …i believe her blog will, have a good report, couldn t find it on
youtube
Good catch, Robin. Since it turns out the China’s coal burning actually prevented warming, does this mean coal is no longer evil and the Warmists will stop protesting against the opening of coal plants? I probably shouldn’t hold my breath….
Apologies if this has been posted before, but it’s very relevant to the topic of this thread, and bears repeating:
The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change
Abstract:
The conventional explanation for controversy over climate change emphasizes impediments to public understanding: Limited popular knowledge of science, the inability of ordinary citizens to assess technical information, and the resulting widespread use of unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. A large survey of U.S. adults (N = 1540) found little support for this account. On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones. More importantly, greater scientific literacy and numeracy were associated with greater cultural polarization: Respondents predisposed by their values to dismiss climate change evidence became more dismissive, and those predisposed by their values to credit such evidence more concerned, as science literacy and numeracy increased. We suggest that this evidence reflects a conflict between two levels of rationality: The individual level, which is characterized by citizens’ effective use of their knowledge and reasoning capacities to form risk perceptions that express their cultural commitments; and the collective level, which is characterized by citizens’ failure to converge on the best available scientific evidence on how to promote their common welfare. Dispelling this, “tragedy of the risk-perception commons,” we argue, should be understood as the central aim of the science of science communication.
In other words, nearly everything the BBC says or does regarding “Climate Change” is wrong.
I just get the feeling that people like Black and co have dug their hole so deep that they now cant get out of it. So they now do everything possible to convince the unwashed masses that Mann Made Global Warming ™ is man made…instead of Mann made!
Sadly for people like Black, they are living on borrowed time.
Mailman
Exactly. It’s a religious belief, nothing more, and quesitoning their beliefs means questioning their very identities and self worth.
If AGW is a religious belief, then there must be complete separation between the church of AGW and the state.
“Solar power is coming to China – but coal-burning grew amazingly quickly a few years back”
“A few years back”?? Is that the accuracy we must now expect from the BBC?
If Kaufman the economist is right, then Lockwood who was another of Blacks favourites is wrong.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/05/study-solar-activity-lull-increases-chances-of-cold-uk-winters/
Either particles are “blocking” the sun or it is part of a natural cycle which will make us all colder.
I must add that both of these research papers are guesses and not facts, yet Black goes for the one written by Kaufman “whose research interests span climate change and world oil markets”.
Black is getting more desperate as the years go by.
As Robin has said before Black is an activist and not a journalist. There are probably thosands of research papers in journals which give different explanations for climate change, yet Black only sees the ones written by a select few and all with the same line of reasoning. To me Black is the epitamy of the BBCs bias. Blacks postion is indefensable.
I would like to see Gregory comment on Blacks activism, but he only seems to pop up when discussing other biases and not the area which he should be qualified to contribute.
DG has said that he will not get into criticisms or defenses of specific individual colleagues. So don’t expect him to ever say a word about Black one way or another. He will comment only on general newsgathering issues or if he can shed light on BBC protocol that we may have gotten wrong.
I think that, in itself, is evidence that David Gregory knows that Warmism is baloney and that if he said this he would lose his job at the BBC.
No, DG is a committed Warmist. He knows something is going on and something must be done to stop it. There’s no question there.
That looks like a cop-out. If there is an important new paper on climate – why cannot David Gregory comment on the paper itself. Obviously we do not expect him to make explicit criticisms of BBC staff.
I read Chris Patten is going to clamp down on BBC toxic salaries. (ha ha ha)
He could do worse than start with that smug “imprtiality is in our genes” dyke-hairdo BBC News Head Helen Boaden and her £350,000 a year.
I reckon £13,500 a year is probably generous, but I could sign that off. She is the one responsible for what happens on her watch, She has taken the money, but not the responsibility, for the destruction of news journnalism in our national £3bn broadcaster.
Pass the piano-wire.
Can’t condone the musical accompaniment, but this is interesting, topically, in terms of senior, female editors with distinctive tresses at media monopolies , who can’t control their staff and the organisation’s actions and output:
‘She is the one responsible for what happens on her watch’
‘
Read the Abstract
It is clear that authors start from the assumption that AGW is proved beyond doubt, and thus the only research that is reasonable, is to find reasons why AGW is not leading to increasing temperatures.
This is bad science. But why should I be surprised – the authors are not scientists. One is from the department of the Environment, and the rest hail from the sound scientific discipline of Economics.
It is that man again.
Also, the first cited reference in the linked paper, is a paper by Jones PD, Osborne, Briffa etal.
Bah. Anything coming out of this stable should be rejected as lacking any credibility.
Lest get them both on Newsnight for a debate. Chaired by Nigal Lawson.
Johnny,
Or, better still, Nigella !
“As climate alarmists struggle to understand the ‘travesty’ of no global warming since 1998, a new warmist paper claims it has the answer: a sharp rise in China’s coal use has spewed sulfur emissions into the atmosphere to cool the planet. One glaring problem with this theory is that figure 1 of the paper shows that there has been no change – zero – in the effect of sulfur emissions on global temperature since 1998. ”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/07/warmist-paper-sulfur-emissions-have_05.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100010739/why-politicians-should-not-be-naive-about-green-taxes/
Or, indeed, some selectively uncurious media types.