It’s not a good week if Richard Black does not gain the interest of our commentariat and so it is that B-BBC contributor Alan observes;
“Richard Black hassurfaced again having gone to ground to give himself thinking time in order towrack his brains to find a line of defence for the person who stole documentsfrom Heartland Institute.
(Should you want some real world science facts listen to this….21 minutes and39 seconds that speaks more common sense than Black has done in his entirecarrer…http://audioboo.fm/boos/679624-matt-ridley-on-why-the-cure-for-climate-change-may-be-worse-than-the-disease?playlist_direction=reversed)
Forced into writing something by the amount of criticism his non-reportinggenerated:
‘I don’t normally do requests, as they say – but I’ve a lot of messages viaemails, blog comments and Twitter asking for a follow-up post on the HeartlandInstitute, and am happy to oblige.’ (as ‘Watts up with That’ reports….UPDATE28: 11:40AM James Evans in commentsreports that “the BBC has finally weighed in, and it’s lame”. It only tookRichard Black 36 hours to be convinced by an onslaught of emails. Whatta guy!The article makeup leaves no question now that Black is biased beyond allhope.’)
This is the best he could do:
‘Firstly, what’s wrong with the Heartland Institute preparing curriculummaterial for use in schools, you’ve asked. “Green groups do it all thetime,” is the allegation.
As a parent and a citizen, if teachers use non-standard curriculum material,the main thing I would be worried about is accuracy.’ He had no such qualms about the fraudulently inaccurate ‘Inconvenient Truths’video peddled by Al Gore. An Al Gore who is making millions from the climatechange ‘business’.Presumably lying fora good cause, or one you have persuaded yourself is a good cause is acceptableto Black.
And of course with Black the problem may or may not be accuracy, his worst failureis to not print the facts if they are ‘inconvenient’….note well that in thislatest effort worthy of Pravda he has avoided completely mentioning that themain document was faked….possibly because he has a good idea who the fakeris….suspicions are all pointing in one direction.
I wonder what he makes of the below where artists and performers are beingorganised to collaborate with ‘on message’ scientists to manufacture thepublic’s consent to their lifestyles being destroyed along with their businessesand futures, energy prices ramped up to extortionate levels on order to pay forpolicies based on at best mistaken science at worst deliberate attempts to hidethe truth:
‘TippingPoint, in partnership with NIReS, will be holding a major national gatheringof those concerned with the interface between the arts and culture on one hand,and environmental issues, particularly climate change, on the other. Our aim is to continue and strengthen the vital process of giving the urgentchallenges of climate change and sustainability a cultural and artisticvoice…..collaborations with scientists, artists can play a vital role inexploring and pointing the way towards the cultural, societal and behaviouralshifts needed in a world subject to a rapidly changing climate.’
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sustainability/initiatives/tippingpoint.htm
Should you be in any doubt that we are being deliberately mislead read this:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/2/20/the-entrepreneur.html
Which describes the political, not scientific reasons behind biofuels beingadopted as a solution to climate change.
Another one that Black ignores.
As I said at the start Black has gone on the offensive to defend his previousstance on Heartland….claiming the man who fraudulently obtained the documentsis the real victim of the affair…..
‘@BBCRBlack via Twitter
Fallout from Heartland may harm Peter Gleick and others, reports @suzyji@guardianeco http://t.co/G1ZaPUsn‘
A Guardian story of course.
However he does not link to the likes of this:
Heartland Memo Looking Faker by the Minute
Business Feb 17 2012, 12:14 PM ET 1080
http://www.theatlantic.com/megan-mcardle
Here are his full thoughts on the matter…they don’t need much comment as theyare clearly a man clutching at straws to defend the indefensible:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17126699
‘As the old saying goes, “news is something that someone somewhere doesn’twant you to know”
and here was information about a significant player in climate politics that itcertainly didn’t want you to have.
I am very wary of drawing parallels between the so-called”ClimateGate” issue of 2009 and the so-called “DenierGate”issue of the Heartland Institute, because they are very different.
But one thing they do have in common is that each is really a combination oftwo stories: who lifted the documents, and what the documents tell us.
With the Heartland case, we knew last week that someone had obtained thedocuments by the back door – “stolen”, to use the institute’s word.
Now, we know who; and that’s as far as it goes.
Firstly, what’s wrong with the Heartland Institute preparing curriculummaterial for use in schools, you’ve asked. “Green groups do it all thetime,” is the allegation.
As a parent and a citizen, if teachers use non-standard curriculum material,the main thing I would be worried about is accuracy.
The proposed modules would, for example, state that “whether humans arechanging the climate is a major scientific controversy” and that”natural emissions [of CO2] are 20 times higher than humanemissions”. The first is just wrong. It may be a public debate; but within science, thequestion is how much, not whether. In the second case, natural absorption is not mentioned and it’s the differencebetween the two – net emissions – that is the crucial fact.
Nevertheless, the rationale behind the argument is clear. Heartlandacknowledges it ramps its climate work up and down depending on how much moneyit receives.’
Oh, he’s such an arse, isn’t he?
Here’s another arse, the BBC poster-child of physics not quite cutting the mustard, accordinbg to Lubos Motl (a little off topic, I suppose, but it’s all part of the BBC muddle-headed thinking).
http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/02/brian-cox-misunderstands-locality-pauli.html#more
Here is WUWTs take courtesy of Chris Monkton, please read it. Obviously compulsive liars like Black and his grotesque and degenerate BBC figure, the scum at the BBC have been at the heart of the CAGW fraud since the beginning. He claims that while some cowards in government view CAGW as a bag of lies they dare not nor can they speak out because CAGW policy is created and perpetuated by our new supreme EU government, a regime nobody voted in or can ever vote out, like so many other things. And taken in that light its easy to see why the kommissars of Brussels would love CAGW, it is the perfect mechanism to subvert and steal democracy and gain political power.
Guest post by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Yesterday I had the pleasure of chairing a packed meeting in the Palace of Westminster (don’t tell the Clerk of the Parliaments), at which Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT spoke even more brilliantly than usual on “global warming”, and engagingly answered many questions from Parliamentarians and the public.
Afterwards, Dick went to brief a Cabinet Minister (who shall be nameless, but he is a good egg, and privately regards catastrophic manmade “global warming” as nonsense). The Minister indicated – in effect, and with scarcely-concealed regret – that the party line set by David Cameron in response to various opinion polls, focus groups and other such artifices for identifying and following a consensus rather than setting a lead, and not the objective scientific and economic truth, was likely to remain the basis of UK climate policy.
In reality, orders issued to our elected nominal “government” by the hated, unelected Kommissars of the EU, our true government, who have exclusive competence to decide and dictate the UK’s environment and climate policies, are and will remain the basis of UK climate policy, regardless of what (or whether) Cameron and his vapid focus groups think (if “think” is the right word). Government of the people, by the people, for the people has perished from this once-free, formerly-democratic corner of the Earth. We have all the trappings of democracy and none of the reality.
Continue reading →
Completely agree with both yourself and Chris on this.
It seems that Heartland have called in the FBI and that Gleick will fully contest any trial in an attempt to smear Heartland even further.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/washington-secrets/2012/02/fbi-called-over-climate-change-mole/305161
Black is worried about the anonymity of donors to both Heartland and Nigel Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation. I have a proposal for Richard in respect of GWPF. Let’s defund of taxpayers’ money just a few of the myriad of NGOs and bogus charities pumping out warmist drivel. Some of the the money saved would be used to to fund GWPF. Then Richard could sleep easy at night. Are you with me , Richard?
Oh he`s such an arse isn`t he?
Once that`s been said, I`d honestly not bother too much about Black and friends.
Just another BBC mincing chihuahua gumming a rubber ring and pretending that he`s a pit bull hanging on a tyre!
Saves me lots of time just to read Robin or Mr Booker…if the BBC say it`s a problem, then it ain`t!
Oh and BTW where is our intrepid David ‘Lysenko’ Gregory?
I saw a glimpse of him on the open thread defending the BBC protection of a gang of rapists and molestors of young vulnerable girls.
It does highlight perfectly the degenerate nature of the BBC. Here is a graph just for him below, it shows the truth that the BBC hides with the same fanatical determination that it ptotects certain religious criminals.
I think you have just done what tigers do at the boundary of their turf.
On the one hand it is usually pretty successful (and funny) at warding off a snipe and bale, but on the other it near guarantees another set of questions (over those you pose) that won’t be answered. Meanwhile…
“I don’t normally do requests, as they say”
I am not sure if this is quite accurate. Especially across the BBC enviro beat, where dancing to nudges from stage left seem pretty much de riquer, as Ms. Abbess will cheerfully testify, like a mildewed Harperson getting a Dimbleby to ensure all is on track.
I wonder if this was what got the thread pulled (highlighting the despicable nature of the whole sordid system, that it was slapped a negative and then no furtrher input)..
261. openside50
23RD FEBRUARY 2012 – 10:08
And Im proud of having the highest rated comment for asking why Rickard thinks it right he used Gleicks info no matter how he obtained it
Whereas he avoided using the info got in the Climategate leaks like the plague
Guessing another question that won’t be answered, so Dr. Gregory unlikely to brave these waters, I’d hazard.
Shame, as this is a Marinas Trench of an excavation by the BBC ‘team’ already, and a few extra scoops deeper can often be extra good value.
In summary, the comparisons between Lysenkoism and Global Warming are:
1. Work first through political organisations.
2. Claim that the science is settled. There is nothing to debate.
3. Disregard or deny all the accumulating evidence that the predictions are wrong.
4. Demonise the opposition (Mendelian geneticists; deniers of Global Warming).
5. Victimise the opposition (execution and exile; loss of jobs or research funds).
6. Relate to a current ideology (Stalinism; Environmentalism).
7. Support a vast propaganda machine.
8. Create a huge bureaucracy where many people have careers dependent on the ruling concept.
The parallel is expressed nicely by Helena Sheehan, who wrote of Lysenkoism: “What went wrong was that the proper procedures for coming to terms with such complex issues were short-circuited by grasping for easy slogans and simplistic solutions and imposing them by administrative fiat.”
Lysenkoism was eventually replaced by real science. The same will happen to Global Warming eventually, because real science will not go away.
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/method/ollier2008-28.php
WE can only hope. The first step would be to rid us of the so-called “environmental corraspondents” and other closed mind “scientists” at the BBC.
‘Nevertheless, the rationale behind the argument is clear. Heartland acknowledges it ramps its climate work up and down depending on how much money it receives.’
Fortunately, Black can keep his output at a consistent level because he’s guaranteed a constant stream of funding for his own work: your money.
“…for his own work” I would question that. He mearly writes down what other activists tell him. He certainly has no will of his own.
Unlike the morons at the BBC, my qualifications are in Science and Maths, not Arts and the Humanities. I use my scientific training to think for myself, so I have never needed the Heartland Institute or the Royal Society to think for me. A love of Astronomy and Geography, even before this Climate Change scam are all that I have needed to judge the Heartland Institute superior to the politically perverted disgrace that the Royal Society has become.
You can see that the liberal elite are rattled with thier being rumbled.
You might as well shut up shop and raise the white flag to any cause when old Moonbat shows up on his rusty Swede!
Still, if you dare turn to the Guardian, you`ll find the patron “saint” of lost causes calling out Christopher Booker for not revealing that Heartland bought his plane tickets or what have you.
Monbiot is fuming, and is pleased to say that his website reveals all his moneyed sources etc…and if only lesser hacks might only do the same.
Safe to say that Booker is welcome and gets offers to speak on social service scandals,on Europe and climate change because he has something to say-and is unusual in that he thinks for himself!
Safe too to say that Moonbat is one of thousands of woodlice that creep out from under the warm,damp stone when the dogwhistle issues and reflexes are required by the BBC and Guardian…and hasn`t stopped thinking for himself since he flogged his fag about the muffins not been toasted to Kyoto targets.
Monbiot won`t get many offers to say anything outside the Zone 1 unless the BBC/Guardian will pay in kind….so no wonder he`s keen to reveal his hairshirts-for they`re all his “talents” merit!
I wonder if Black (or Gregory) have ever read or listened to Professor Dr. Richard Lindzen. Although I expect they would not understand the science. This chap from The Independent has:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/24/the-uk-independent-asks-is-catastrophic-global-warming-like-the-millennium-bug-a-mistake/
When has the BBC ever had an honest debate on AGW? Never !! We are expected to look on people as Dr. Richard Lindzen as spreaders of evil, not based on what they say or any scientific evidence but on the principle that the “science is settled” therefore people who say it is not are “deniers” and evil.
“The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.”
Elbert Hubbard
The millennium bug wasn’t a mistake – it was something that was resolved before it became a real issue. Where I worked, we were affected by minor problems but quickly dealt with meant the impact was minor.
Basically the millennium bug was real but, due to being dealt with, had only minimal effect. If it hadn’t been dealt with prior to the changeover it could have been catastrophic.
Therefore it is quite different to the Man-made Global Warming scam which hasn’t been scientifically proved. All critics of Black’s position agree that the climate changes, but admit it went on long before the industrial revolution, long before man was on Earth and even long before dinosaurs roamed. It’s the Climate alarmists who are in denial about it. To claim that CO2 production is harmful is frankly crazy – without CO2 feeding plants and trees we would all die in very quick time.
That’s why I wouldn’t liken the Millennium Bug (real) to Man-Made Global Warming (completely unproved and probably totally bogus).
Then how come so many countries that did little to nothing to counteract Y2K seem to have escaped unscathed?
“…When has the BBC ever had an honest debate on AGW? Never !…”
This is, of course, to get right to heart of the problem: the BBC doesn’t consider it a problem, because they consider themselves ‘balanced’ and ‘impartial’ on the issue. So there can never be any movement on this from such a monolithic, closed-minded, politically-led, intransigent, inflexible behemoth.
Two decades ago, the BBC decided it wanted to pin its colours to the same mast as the Greens and the climate alarmists and it has resolutely towed the party line on these matters ever since, to the (now absolute) exclusion to all dissent. In real terms it has actually become a huge publicly-funded propagandist for such views, infecting its output (everything from natural history to light entertainment) with a carefully adhered-to (and carefully repeated) doctrine of proAGW propaganda).
It is an outrage. How they have ever been permitted to get away with it is quite breathtaking. Worse, their undiguised scorn and vitriol for any who take a contrary view on AGW is surely a matter for some sort of ethics committee?
Black, being just an apparatchik, is a useful idiot. A man who switched off his own critical faculties many years ago, who now, subsumed to the party line, operates more as a clerk than as a rational, objective journalist. Questions no longer get asked; it is far easier to cosy up to his publicly-funded friends in the Green movement, to quote their carefully stage-managed agenda verbatim. It’s a sad tale of how the slow drip-feed of a political indoctrination can ruin – and compromise – the best of us.
Thankfully we don’t have to rely on the output of The Corporation. We have the internet and blogs like this and many, many others in the climate sceptic camp. Alternative voices are being heard – and they grow ever more numerous in the face of growing evidence to support a sceptical stance on AGW. In the end, Black and his ilk become little more than mild irritants…eventually, they will render themselves a complete irrelevance.
Blacks “piece” is pure politics. There is nothing here about science. I would suggest that Black moves it to the politcal activists pages on the BBC web site.