Putting the BBC in charge of a project to arbitrate the accuracy of weather forecasting organisations in the UK is a bit like Josef Mengele running research into the science of eugenics. They (from the Trustees down) long since made their collective mind up that man-made global warming is definitely happening, and that the warmist fanatics at the Meteorological Office are therefore to be believed in their fantasist modelling. Nevetheless, Roger Harrabin persuaded his bosses to shell out a bucket-load of our cash on such a project, no doubt spurred on by the corporate missionary zeal to prove wrong the hated “denialists” who dare to question warmist weather orthodoxy. Last month, as the linked report shows, Mr Harrabin announced that his pet scheme was on the verge of going ahead, and he listed an impressive array of weather organisations and forecasters who were poised to take part.
But, as the Mail reports today, they aren’t. If the report is accurate, all of the forecasters on Mr Harrabin’s list who might reasonably called sceptical about warmist zeal – including the impressive but deeply sceptical Jo Bastardi and Piers Corbyn – are instead turning their fire on the BBC for their pre-determined political views on the topic. Independent forecaster David King is quoted as saying the BBC organisation is “factional”.
Irrespective of what actually happens, it does not take a genius to work out that the project will struggle to persuade anyone that it is objective or valid. The BBC has been outrageously partisan on the subject of the weather so systematically and for so long that the corporation’s credibility in this arena is entirely shot. Andrew Montford’s masterful analysis of the warmist hijacking of the Royal Society emhpasises yet again the key role in the spreading of warmist propaganda played by Roger Harrabin – as does Autonomous Mind here. As you sow, so shall you reap.
Serves the green, ideological bastards right. Finally, it’s beginning to turn and bite them in the arse. I hope the teeth-marks fester, and their legs fall off.
“…As you sow, so shall you reap.”
Indeed, and it looks increasingly like climate alarmists everywhere are now being visited with the consequences of their past sins. Skeptics like myself might want to hold off on the celebrations for a while, though: climate zealots won’t go down without a very messy, spiteful fight. The vested interests at stake are huge and worth a great deal of taxpayer money annually.
But it is heartening to see, daily now, more and more stories referencing the Great Climate Climb Down as inceasing numbers of so-called ‘experts’ slowly realise the game is up; probably best to bail out now before things get too rough. And whilst I do not ever wish to go down the same absolutist path the shrieking, accusatory climate alarmists embarked upon, I do think when this is finally over we need to hold a few of the key players up to public scrutiny. Major figures in the discredited ‘green’ movement, cowardly (and ignorant) politicians and more than a few key (alleged) journalists all have very, very serious questions to answer about the role they willingly played in promoting this absolute tragedy.
Meanwhile, my best guess is that the BBC, like so many wilfully misleading, agenda-led organisations (especially with regard to anthropogenic global warming), will subtly alter it’s coverage, drawing back from the ‘consensus’ in the face of undeniable scientific evidence (now there’s a novelty) of no significant climate waming in the past 15 years, growing sea ice, perfectly healthy glaciers, non-rising tides, healthy coral reefs and an exploding Polar Bear population, etc. But it will be a shifty, mealy-mouthed retrenchment on the BBC’s part: Aunty is never wrong, after all; it’s just that the science is always changing, innit?
Who knows; they might try and hold out until the IPCC delivers it’s next Climate Assessment Report in 2014. Always a worry – a cornered rat is dangerous beast.
Did you forget? Scientists! They have to answer for their role in this scam.
and whoever commissioned this nu-liebour family viewing
The sad thing about this scam and the hue ha that has followed it for the last few years is that it has taken the world’s focus off of the real environmental issues.
The overdevelopment of poor land for agriculture in many countries, even in Britain, has led to the increase in regions of unfertile land and across the world even more deserts. Land that supported forests for millions of years has been stripped bare to produce crops that after a few short years need thousands of tons of fertiliser to sustain any growth at all. In turn the land, streams and rivers become toxic.
Wetlands have been drained so that crops can be grown but after a few years, when the goodness has gone and the land sinks, that too has to be fed with tons of artificial fertilisers.
There are now measures gradually being put in place to control pollution but there are still thousands of acres of land buried or covered with waste heaps that will be poisonous for hundreds of years and seas that have huge islands of plastic waste floating in them, killing and maiming sea life.
The good news is that carbon dioxide helps plants grow and we are producing more of it than ever. Removing all those mountains of coal and lakes of oil from deep underground will also help prevent world extinction events because, when those carbon deposits get deep enough to be ignited by the earth’s molten rock, they cause planet wide explosions. Explosions that have in the past and will, if the carbon is not removed by man, do more damage than just knocking over a few mugs of tea at the BBC.
As for it (CO2) being the cause of this planet to warm up with the resultant melting of the world’s ice and rising sea levels drowning all of our grandchildren, never mind those cuddly polar bears being sent into extinction, well we all knew, or at least those of us with proper shoes knew, that it was just a myth. The earth’s surface warms up every day and cools every night, always has and always will. The BBC will now have to find a new scam to try and frighten us with. I would suggest socialism but I may be a bit ahead of the times.
Wayne
believe me, if you saw the cost of fertilizer as a proportion of our income, us farmers really do not put on any more fertilizer than we have to and certainly do not want what we do use being washed into the water courses.
I asume you only use it because you have to, which is my point.
Hi Deborah
i am genuinely intregued. What do you farm? (And I do agree, no farmer wants to waste fertiliser given rocketing price of input costs)
Here is a graph that farmers should be taking a close look at, it would better prepare them for the reality of a cooling planet.
Its a graph that the BBC and its Lysenkoist droids are really terrified of.
LOOK AT THE GRAPH DAVID =-O LOOK AT THE REALITY >:o
OPEN YOUR EYES DAVID DONT BE AFRAID, THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
‘i am genuinely intregued. ‘
Deborah, a caution. Whilst exchange is always welcome, it can distract, drain your time and find silence again being golden if one’s intrigue extends back. Not to mention an accusation of insult borne of actually reading what is wanted vs. what is there.
And can start with words in this manner.. ‘I was honestly interested in what you said…’
Blimey. It was a polite enquiry born of genuine interest. Nothing more.
Golly gosh. So what?
You have tracked doen approached me asking for more inisght into what I write, and when answered we have had on occasion exchanges of value, but then it dawned on me mostly I was using my free time to be distracted by your paid (possibly).
And it has always kicked off with this innocent ‘I’m just trying to understand’ schtick’.
That.. I could tolerate. Though the fact that answering questions tends to be one way can frustrate.
However taking what I wrote about Diane Abbott and then trying to further martyr yourself in the cloth of an abusee… not so thrilled about..
Deborah is a big girl so she can decide whether to indulge. I simply share my experience. Nothing more.
MySite writes as a battle-hardened veteran of the Beeboid trenches and his aim is deadly: …if one’s intrigue extends back. Heh heh…
We can’t be doing with two-way intrigue!
Well said, Robin. It must surely be an act of desperation to list people who wouldn’t even want to be involved, without getting their consent first. One also has to wonder who the “scientific advisors” are.
Most amusingly, one also has to wonder if David Gregroy has anything to say about Harrabin’s choice to bring in Piers Corbyn, whom Dr. Gregory believes is a discredited joke due to some of his views on earthquakes.
Was this meant as a sop to unbelievers? Even though the BBC thinks Corbyn is a joke, they bring him in anyway because that’s the only way to convince the infidels?
I think for the purposes of this experiment you’d certainly want Piers on board. The great difficulty is pinning him and others down to exactly what a forecast means. I’m not surprised it’s proving difficult to keep everyone happy though.
You never know Piers could surprise us all. Anyone know what he’s predicting for February and March? Either weather or earthquakes.
Make up your mind, David. Either Corbyn’s climate change science is solid and he should be on the panel, or isn’t because of his thoughts on earthquakes. You can’t have it both ways, and then leave that get-out clause that he may surprise us all. Or should I also start dismissing Linus Pauling’s work on molecular structure because of his whacky ideas about Vitamin C?
And when you speak of the “great difficulty” being pinning them down on what a forecast means, can I assume that you dismiss entirely David King’s statement that he wants no part of something with Harrabin involved, due to Harrabin’s activism? Is King lying about why he wants out? Was Eden lying when he said he dropped out for personal reasons? Does that mean Corbyn will sign back on? Was Jonathan Powell lying when he said he was concerned about the project’s independence? Or are they all using these excuses as a smokescreen to hide their concerns about how to define a forecast?
I mean, four out of seven alleged participants have given entirely different reasons for wanting no part of this. All that’s left are the big boys, who are all on the same side of the argument. Am I to suspect that the “denialists” are just worried that they’ll be exposed as frauds? Or can’t you say that out loud here? Please explain.
But that’s why you want Piers in there. If you can actually get him to sit down a make clear weather predictions over a longer period we’d start to see if his system works.
Which lead me back to my question, anyone know what Piers is predicting for the next two months for weather and/or earthquakes?
David, I’d grant you that if only your colleagues took the same jaded view of the long-range predictions of those who said we’d be doomed by now. Or have you forgotten the “we have months to sort this out before it’s too late” Narrative? Where was this professional skepticism then?
Not to mention the one-eyed Scottish bogey-muncher’s proclamation that we had only 50 days to save the world (at least, I think it was him at Copenhagen – it might have been some other daft idiot, like the Prick of Wales, or someone…)
Aaah there you are David 😀
Here is a graph you might have missed it is the reality of global temperatures, it shows the CAGW fraud for what it is.
Have a look at the graph, dont be frightened, just have a look at the failed computer models for so long pimped by the BBC and look at the reality of global temperatures. And then look at the solar based predictions and how much closer to reality it is.
The search your conscience, you cant spell it without the word science, why not go to your comrade kommissar and ask if you can do a report based on that graph? The CAGW fraud and the BBC the former is has been found out and the latter is about to be.
Cassie; I think we’ve really done your “posting stuff off a blog on the net” approach to science haven’t we? Still Watt’s Up this time, that’s slightly less obscure than your usual “data” sources. Once again I do urge you to read up on “Dunning Kruger”
Ah the usual brush off from David Gregory?
NOAA and the met office and NASA are obsure are they?
In fact you have not yet answered any of my posts, not yet given any of the graphs any attention regardless of the source.
Oh my God Man “Dunning Kruger” I have and it is simply a CAGW fruadsters ABC and yet you peddle that one source again and again. You may as well ask me to visit Al Gores website.
Look at the graph, look at the graph. look at the graph. What are you so frightened of? Why do you still refuse to look at the evidence? Why are you so frightened of the facts? The met office have themselves quietly admitted that there has been no warming for fifteen years now.
You come out with the same old responses time after time, you will not accept any evidence if it interferes with your pre determined prejudices, in other words you exhibit all the hallmarks of a brainwashed cult victim. Every time I see a post from you I am going to place a graph below it, I dont care if you hate it, one day you will look at the evidence, you may hate me for it now but you will thank me later.
The search your conscience, you cant spell it without the word science…
Looked at it like that, Cassandra, which I never have before, and taking both constituent parts, you’d get con science. Apposite in one way, maybe (conscience corrupted); in another, not!
‘You never know Piers could surprise us all. ‘
Surprises can be the order of the day.
http://biasedbbc.tv/2011/06/open-thread_06.html
‘Piers Corbyn? Seriously? I thought now that Piers was predicting earthquakes (with the same success rate he has with weather*) I thought we should perhaps draw a veil over him and just leave him alone?’
Part of an exchange that saw some questions being asked that remain unanswered.
Go on, what are Piers’ weather/earthquake predictions for the next two months? Let’s test them out.
I am not here to defend or dismiss Mr. Corbyn’s predictions. Frankly I find much he comes out with as loose in one direction as the BBC and it’s glee club are the other way. But he can do what he wants and live or die by the outcome. At least I am not paying for him, and I don’t think he is trying to suppress many others in competition.
Oh, and on the ‘going on’ challenge… you are plain out of demands to put up or shut up from me. I am afraid the bunker-dash punt and run strawman cherry vulture thing is too tired to be credible any more.
David, I’ll happily test Corbyn’s earthquake predictions right after you test Linus Pauling’s predictions about Vitamic C and then summarily dismiss all of his work on chemical bonding.
‘..after you test..’
And….
“…One also has to wonder who the “scientific advisors” are. …”
Oh, probably a handful of puppets from the Royal Society…
The encouraging thing about Mr Harrabin’s project is that he even attempted to get it going in the first place.
A few years ago warmists were always keen to point out the difference between climate and weather to explain anything, usually unexpected cold weather, which they couldn’t fit in with their madcap theories or computer models.
Of course, any hot weather was always a sure sign of AGW.
Now, an arch warmist like Mr Harrabin is keen to bring weather into the equation, presumably to make it fit the scam.
Panic seems to be setting in.
The LeftLib elite have truly put a brain rotting earworm into what remains of the mind of the progressive great and good with this one.
Yes-they got a few turbines and alot of easy publicity…they bullied and browbeat a few scientists who buckled.
Yet-they`re left with bankrupt incredible(in its literal sense) social sciences in place of the benchmarks of Western rational thought that Aristotle, Popper, Kuhn and the greats left for them.
Too much passive inhalation of dope and acid in their parents dens perhaps…but to scotch 1000 years of another belief system to compare with Christianity was some achievement.
Well done UEA!…looks like the Judeo-Christians will have only Islam to deal with soon.
Hollowed out green grant grubbing where Einstein and Newton once stood. No wonder it`s not being taught in schools with any point anymore.
When a Dawkins, Hawking or Nutt presume to be Newton or Faraday, they don`t even match Bunty James or Fred Dineage…Steve Jones the Sex Pistol will prove to have had more meaning to his lifes work!
You should read Tom Chivers in the Telegraph. Always interesting on this topic. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100136417/hows-that-global-climate-change-conspiracy-going-again/
So tell me what is the significance of scientists discovering the error?
It was a scientsit who produced the “error” except that it was not an error.
“Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.
‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/23/breaking-news-scientist-admits-ipcc-used-fake-data-to-pressure-policy-makers/
Also who found the “Hockey Stick” error? Now tell me that the science is settled and there is no need to question it.
Shame you cannot use honest journalism at the BBC. But that is never going to happen – read the Climategate emails you may find that there is also some “research” based on activism and not real science
Also its strange that some “scientists” are still saying that the Himalayan glaciers have lost 1/5th of thier ice and causing massive lakes.
“A three-year Sweden-funded research project led by ICIMOD showed 10 glaciers surveyed in the region all are shrinking, with a marked acceleration in loss of ice between 2002 and 2005.
Another study found a significant reduction in snow cover across the region in the last decade.
“These reports provide a new baseline and location-specific information for understanding climate change in one of the most vulnerable ecosystems in the world,” Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said.”[Dec 4, 2011]
Yet scientist have found:
“Mountain glaciers in Asia in particular are having a much smaller effect than thought, with a “neglible mass loss” from the Himalayas over the last ten years. “[09 Feb 2012]
Now that is science – it is not settled, there is no consensus in science only at the activist BBC.
By the way what happened to Dr Lal because of his dishonesty? Nothing.
http://www.unep.org/experts/default.asp?Page=profiles&ExpertID=235&ShowList=no&eName=Murari%20Lal
David Gregory
I am surprised that you should push an article that argues that there is no “conspiracy” in the climate world., Have you ever read all the ClimateGate I and II emails ? If so – how can you have the gall to suggest to us that there has not been a lot of skullduggery going on, for many years? Some of it involving the BBC and its attempts to bloody well brainwash us.
You can stick to the Warmism cult if you like. But don’t treat the rest of us as idiots.
He has to push it John – the BBCs policies on AGW are made at the UEA.
Dear Mike
We are writing to some alumni of the University of Cambridge Media andEnvironment seminars gathering ideas for the BBC’s coverage of the Rio+1 ???
Earth Summit in a year’s time. Before the Rio summit, the BBC held the One World festival, which included some memorable broadcasting – particularly a feature drama on refugees. Some broadcasting is already in the pipeline that will relate to the themes of Rio+ 10, but this is an open opportunity for
you to put forward ideas that will be collated and circulated amongst
relevant BBC decision-makers.
* What should the BBC be doing this time in terms of news, current affairs, drama, documentaries, game shows, music etc?
* How can the BBC convey the theme of sustainable development to viewers and listeners who have probably seen all the issues raised before?
* Is there any scope for a global broadcasting initiative?
* What are the strongest themes and specific issues that should appear in the media in the months and years following the conference?
If you have thoughts, please send your reply both to this email and copy to
???@aol.com. We will also draw on the information gathered in planning
a new three year programme of media seminars.
Best wishes
Joe and Roger
Joe Smith and Roger Harrabin
University of Cambridge Media and Environment Programme
Tel Joe: ???
Tel. Roger: ???
—————————————————————-
From: Mike Hulme
Sent: 25 February 2002 12:35
To: tyn.all
Subject: sceptics
Did anyone hear Stott vs. Houghton on Today, radio 4 this morning? Woeful stuff really. This is one reason why Tyndall is sponsoring the Cambridge Media/Environment Programme to starve this type of reporting at source.
No bias there eh Dr Gregory?
Here is the graph again David just in case you missed it 😉
Hows the CAGW fraud going then?
‘You should read Tom Chivers in the Telegraph. Always interesting on this topic.http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100136417/hows-that-global-climate-change-conspiracy-going-again/‘
There are many who should be read on many topics, and across all views.
Which is why it seems intriguing how often some, especially from the media industry (or, more, their fan bases) are often rather proud of what they restrict themselves to or, rather more worrying, keen on advocacy that certain views need to be not seen, heard or held… if necessary by censorship… or worse.
Mr. Chivers is a writer well worth keeping on one’s reading list, and for me gains extra kudos for responding on his blog, but again he rather suffers from making claims, launching stout defences of counters and then disolving away if it is not some silly troll baiting him but serious questions from folk who are genuinely interested in developing what he has initiated if it veers from the comfort zone.
I do read Tom Chivers, and think him a sad, misinformed individual, and regularly hammered by his commenters. I have to say, if someone like him, (and Lean, and the Gray woman) are so consistently blasted by their readers (some of whom have more scienctific credibility in their little fingers, than do those ‘reporters’ added together), then perhaps their readers and commenters are rather more switched on to the actual facts involved, than the green, watermelony ‘reprters’ themselves.
Thanks for the info. Once again I have reason to be glad I’ve stuck to my rule and saved myself having to wade through something in order to find out it wasn’t worth my while.
Pity Mr Bean never gave a climate change lecture…imagine upside-down graphs, patio heaters melting the icecaps…..
Tomorrow on BBC Radio 4, Material World will look at Global Warming and Cold Winters. 200 years ago William Herschel found that Cold Winters came with low Sunspot numbers. Astronomers have come a long way since then to explain why this causes Cold Winters, but somehow I do not think the BBC have discovered this yet. I suspect they will only talk to the discredited scientists who predicted milder winters, who have now manufactured computer models predicting colder winters due to global warming. The winters got milder in the last quarter of the 20th century when global warming was really happening, so history confirms common sense, but the fact that there are no historical records that show CO2 causing the warming until the present day computer model assumptions, then I suppose this scam can roll on indefinitely. Helped by the BBC only talking to the scientists who wipe the slate clean and start again every time the historical records show they got it wrong.
Yes – you never hear on the BBC questions like “You said x was going to happen, now youy are saying the opposite. How can we believe you now?” It just does not happen.
‘You said x was going to happen, now you are saying the opposite. How can we believe you now?”
A question well worth asking.
However, it seems some sources only get to ask them; not answer if, with justification, directed back.
All these science-jobsworths jobs depend on toeing the warming line, as do the bBC drones. None are going to go back to their bosses to say “we got it wrong”. Embarrasment, career, end.
It has nothing to do with scientific “truth” and everything to do with having mouths to feed. Not even enjoying luxury like the uberwarmists Gore and 8-houses-Huhne enjoy, just daily bread, in return for peddling like a hamster in a wheel. You would almost feel sorry for them, but it is the rest of us who suffer and pay for the resulting energy pricing policies and our brain-washed children.
The unforgivable one is Ben (Bad Science) Goldacre, The Guardian’s pet demolisher of corrupt corporate Bad Science. Big Pharma, yes, Tobacco, yes, but on so-called Climate Change? – Greenpeace, WWF, UAE, DECC, BBC, – complete silence. Utter cowardice, such is fear of dissent from the green “Establishment”