“Current Media was built based on a few key goals: to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling. Al-Jazeera, like Current, believes that facts and truth lead to a better understanding of the world around us.”
That was Al Gore explaining away his sale of his media company to Al-Jazeera …whose reputation for truth might make Gore think they are a perfect match judging by his climate film ‘The Inconvenient Truth’….which was anything but the truth being a one sided, highly political polemic jammed packed full of ‘errors‘.
It is a shame that just like the BBC these fine words are no more than just that, elegantly expressed sentiments with little evidence of any attempt to fulfil them in the real world….or as Christopher Booker puts it…. ‘the BBC’s support for the embattled orthodoxy has been so one-sided that it came to be seen as a scandal in its own right.’
However it seems that even the BBC’s own concrete belief in man made global warming has been shaken.
Here Roger Harriban has more hedges than the Grand National whilst the BBC’s David Shukman looks decidedly like a man preparing the ground for a future possible ‘reappraisal’ of the ‘settled science’ in this latest article….Climate model forecast is revised
Despite the possibility that by 2017 there will have been no rise in temperature for two decades Shukman still presses the Met Office belief that the trend is upward and will continue so….whilst managing to stress how uncertain the science is.
Interesting to see how the ‘Sceptics’ are labelled…dismissed as mere ’Bloggers’ with suggestions of ‘conspiracy theorist’ about them. So despite the computer models failing utterly to predict the climate, even on a relatively short term basis never mind over 100 years, the BBC still denies any dissenters a serious voice.
In this, a pro AGW and anti-sceptic article, the importance of good reporting is stressed…..it is of course right about that if nothing else…..suggesting a well informed Public is essential for government policy making in a Democracy….
Is journalism failing on climate?
Stefan Rahmstorf discusses the latest study in ERL on “Cross-national comparison of the presence of climate scepticism in the print media in six countries, 2007”.
The media are the most important means by which lay people obtain their information about science. Good science journalism is therefore a decisive factor for the long-term success of modern society. Good science journalism clearly must be critical journalism, and it requires journalists who know what is what, who can put things into a perspective, and who are able to make well-informed judgements.
Here are some highlights from Shukman’s article:
‘The UK Met Office has revised one of its forecasts for how much the world may warm in the next few years.
It says that the average temperature is likely to rise by 0.43 C by 2017 – as opposed to an earlier forecast that suggested a warming of 0.54C.
The explanation is that a new kind of computer model using different parameters has been used…..it still stands by its longer-term projections.
These forecast significant warming over the course of this century.
If the forecast is accurate, the result would be that the global average temperature would have remained relatively static for about two decades.
Blog suspicions
An apparent standstill in global temperatures is used by critics of efforts to tackle climate change as evidence that the threat has been exaggerated.
The most obvious explanation is natural variability – the cycles of changes in solar activity and the movements and temperatures of the oceans.
The fact that the revised projection was posted on the Met Office website without any notice on December 24 last year has fuelled suspicions among bloggers.
This is an emerging and highly complex area of science because of the interplay of natural factors and manmade greenhouse gases at a time when a key set of temperatures – in the deep ocean – is still relatively unknown.
A paper published last month in the journal Climate Dynamics, authored by scientists from the Met Office and 12 other international research centres, combined different models to produce a forecast for the next decade.
It said: “Decadal climate prediction is immature, and uncertainties in future forcings, model responses to forcings, or initialisation shocks could easily cause large errors in forecasts.”
Scrutiny of Met Office forecasts and climate science generally is set to increase in the build-up to the publication of the next assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in September.’
The BBC’s tame scientist, Prof. Steve Jones, a geneticist, also has great disdain for the sceptics and is avidly pro AGW claiming….the sheer nastiness and clear prejudice of his comments should have precluded him from having any place in a review of bias in the BBC‘s science reporting…:
‘‘Global warming is a myth.” Type that into a search engine and you get thousands of hits….The subject has, alas, become the home of boring rants by obsessives. ‘
However it seems ‘myths’ can be used to support AGW when it suits……
‘Gods, floods – and global warming
The new science of geomythology links ancient legends and natural disasters – and supports climate change , writes Steve Jones.
Ice ages come in slowly, but go out with a bang.
The collapse came when climate reached a tipping point.
Then came the end.
A slight increase in the Sun’s output was matched by the disruption of deep ocean currents caused by cold fresh water sinking from the melting floes above. As the glaciers began to dissolve, their waters roared towards the sea.
Most of those ingredients are evident today, but millions insist that the warming story is made up. It’s enough to make a frog laugh.’
Whilst Jones and Co seek to use myths to back up their science back in the real world the truth is out there if the hard working and integrity driven journalists of the BBC would care to look.
‘How much energy the world consumes going forward turns out to be a much bigger swing factor for climate change than the availability of technologies like solar and wind power, biofuels, and so on,” said IIASA researcher David McCollum, another co-author.”Energy efficiency, improved urban planning, lifestyle changes – these things on the demand side of the energy equation are so important; yet they receive relatively little attention compared to the supply side.” ’
There is also this inconvenient fact about wind power….
‘Just before Christmas, the Renewable Energy Foundation published The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark, showing that the economic life of onshore wind turbines is between 10 and 15 years, not the 20 to 25 years projected by the wind industry itself, and used for government projections.
“Bluntly, wind turbines onshore and offshore still cost too much and wear out far too quickly to offer the developing world a realistic alternative to coal.”
As a consequence, the lifetime cost per unit (MWh) of electricity generated by wind power will be considerably higher than official estimates.’
Perhaps this report explains partially the BBC’s failure to report the full breadth of the climate debate:
‘A new report into science and the media has found that in some respects specialist science news reporting in the UK is in relatively good health.
But the research also warns about the serious threat to the quality and independence of science reporting posed by the wider crisis in journalism.
“Most of the journalists we interviewed complain about severe workload increases, almost half say they’re mainly passive recipients of news rather than uncovering original stories themselves, a fifth say they don’t have enough time to fact-check stories they publish, and around the same number say they rely too much on PR material. These are all serious problems for the quality and independence of science news.”
This article on pro sceptic newspapers can be turned on its head to give us an insight into the BBC’s attitude towards ‘Sceptics’, an attitude not so much based upon attempting a real balance in science reporting but on the BBC’s own political leanings:
‘There is some evidence for arguing that there is a strong correspondence between the political leaning of a newspaper and its willingness to quote or use uncontested sceptical voices in opinion pieces. ‘
Whilst newspapers can do as they like and support what they like the BBC is by law supposed to be impartial and balanced in its reporting….it is anything but in many fields, climate just being one of them in which it shows a distinct bias towards one side of the argument.
Should the present stalling of global warming continue there are going to be a lot of red faces and a great deal of back tracking and explaining to do.
It might seem fortuitous that Richard Black jumped ship, or was pushed, before the reckoning comes. Harrabin must already be making room in his phone book for the hated ‘bloggers’ numbers just in case.
Addendum: Anyone with time on their hands might want to have a look at this site which gathers together all the climate articles from around the world on a daily basis.
‘The Carbon Capture Report (http://www.carboncapturereport.org/) is a free and open service of the University of Illinois devoted to being the preeminent global resource for tracking worldwide perception and developments in Climate Change, Carbon Capture, Carbon Credits, Alternative Energy, Renewable Energy, Green Energy, Biofuels, Geothermal, Hydroelectric, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Coal, and Oil. With subscribers in more than 100 countries the Report has become the go-to resource for daily insight into the global media discourse.’
I could write a book about my experience in studying Planetary Atmospheres in Astronomy. Three years ago the answer seemed to come from using the CO2 Atmosphere of Mars as a Proxy. Mars had only 18 times more CO2 than the Earth, while Venus has 250,000 times more CO2. But then someone realised a remarkable coincidence in the temperature of Venus at one bar pressure, with this coincidence being found in all planetary atmospheres at every altitude, Astronomy has within the last two years provided the holy grail of an explanation for the temperatures in all planetary atmospheres at every altitude, with the Unified Theory of Climate.
That is why we can say that the 20th Century Carbon Dioxide Global Warming was 0.007 Kelvin. But this also proves that there are only two other possible causes of Global Warming, Solar Irradiance and surface grey body temperature changes.
Now there is only one other Theory that could explain this. Cosmoclimatology
The story goes like this.
The planets make the Sun wobble, this regulates the speed of plasma within the Sun, which determines the length of the Solar Cycle and number of Sun spots as well as regulating the strength of the Suns magnetic field, this regulates the high energy Cosmic Rays that produce the Muons that regulate low Cloud Albedo and therefore regulate the Grey body temperature of the Unified Theory of Climate.
THAT’S IT,
SIMPLE
I totally agree with all plus the fact that the cows are sitting down facing North.
That would make sense on a Sunny day, as the arse would put the face in shade.
“The story goes like this.
The planets make the Sun wobble, this regulates the speed of plasma within the Sun, which determines the length of the Solar Cycle and number of Sun spots as well as regulating the strength of the Suns magnetic field, this regulates the high energy Cosmic Rays that produce the Muons that regulate low Cloud Albedo and therefore regulate the Grey body temperature of the Unified Theory of Climate.
THAT’S IT,
SIMPLE ”
Excellent- Shame I can’t get all that on a T shirt; I’d make a fortune on e-bay!
‘Is journalism failing on climate?’
Not sure, in most cases, it’s necessarily restricted to climate.
” Al Jazeera Gore ”
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/01/09/al-jazeera-gore
Maybe those who God would destroy, he first makes mad after all.
This mornings “Today” was a hoot.
Nanny Montague was able to put on her best mumsnet voice as she worried about criminals being pumped full of lead-apparently it puts holes in the brain where a conscience ought to be…something like that.
Got to be true as well-George Monbiot of the Guardian blogged it yesterday, and-given his scientific credentials, as in global boiling-this has GOT to be worth the best liberal arts minds at the BBC having a stab at popular science.
Seems now that all those petrol pump attendants of the 70s are likely to have been made into criminals…by my reckoning, it`ll be worth a good look at whether those outrageous rip offs in energy prices are due to Big Oil executives licking their pencils too often way back.
You`d have to have a heart of …what`s that stuff nanny rubs on Jocastas feet?…PUMICE…not to laugh at the BBCs latest excuse for criminal behaviour…living too near the leaded petrol pumps way back.
Was it Shell or BP to blame for Mark Duggan and Raoul Moat then?…hope Sarah will get up there to investigate!
Saw David Baddiel on Stargazing last night-a worthy replacement science correspondent for Harrabin I thought.
Desperate stuff…truly desperate…Big Oil causes crime,and Porritt knew it all along…brilliant!
Moonbat swinging the lead again? Quelle surprise…
Why they spent so much time on a paper by an obscure American “scientist” from an obscure American university defeats me – then I remember Mann, Hansen, et al, and it all adds up.
I feel so guilty now – all those Green Shield stamps we used to collect as kids were actually tokens of our complicity in the poisoning of petrol pump attendants. The shame. Shan’t sleep well again.
The Today show and science…the gift that still keeps a giving!
The BBCs own Farming Today-yes folks, up so early, so no-one normally knows how fatuous the science at the BBC can be-tells me today that our food is likely to be leached of all goodness and t`ing, due to that horrid rainfall of last summer.
Oh my Buddah…surely this calls for compulsory Vitamin D additions, folic acid additions and more fluorine even…into ALL our foods…NOW!
I myself thing that we`ll all need to get ourselves down to Burger King, MacDonalds etc so we DO get all necessary nutrients….the BBC wouldn`t want us to starve and be deficient in all those leachy things( no, not BBC hacks!) that make us all a bit white vannish!
Ah the good old heatwave of 2003-did the BBC tell us to eat it all up then, because it was the sunniest food-“ever!”- and oh-so -good for us at that time..no?…negligence!-who do I sue then?
Actually I do have a tin of sweetcorn from 2003…any offers , given how full of unleached nutrients it is now likely to be.?
Oh for Gods sake…anybody got a contact for any relatives of Magnus Pyke…even the worst of them will know more about food science than anybody currently peddling this new age gloop to me there at the Beeb!
Stock up on Frosties, plenty of additives in them.
Be quick though, Andy’s coming for them!
http://tinyurl.com/b2odqgn
The best essay by far on Gore is to be found on Daniel Greenfield’s blog- Sultan Knish.
He wrote it this week.
The sort of writing that would give a beeboid nightmares. I urge you all to read it.
I do not do links so look for it yourselves
Pure poetry. Here’s the link :
http://sultanknish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/hollow-men-in-hollow-earth.html
Thanks for the link! an exceptional read !
According to Gore, Climate reality is only for one day in a blue Moon.
Still can’t find anything from the BBC about Current TV staffers hating on St. Algore. On Saturday, Evan Davis spoke with some US woman about how Al-Jazeerah is going to compete with the BBC for US market share. The competition rightly frightens them, because Al-Jazeerah is sometimes more balanced and honest than the BBC when it comes to the Arabs vs Israel. No mention of the curious circumstances of the sale.
No mention of it in the lone article on the sale in the Business section, either.
I wonder why the BBC thinks this is unworthy of reporting? A link to a critical op-ed from another media outlet in the “Elsewhere on the Web” sidebar is woefully inadequate.
One of my local NY papers (part of the evil Murdoch Empire, no less) doesn’t shy away from controversy.
Current situation: Staffers talk about first meeting with Al Jazeera
Yesterday morning, the still shell shocked staff at Current TV was called to an all hands staff meeting at its San Francisco headquarters, which was teleconferenced to their offices in LA and NYC, to meet their new bosses.
That would be two of Al Jazeera’s top guys: Ehab Al Shihabi, executive director of international operations, and Muftah AlSuwaidan, general manager of the London bureau.
Ominously missing was the creator of Current, the self proclaimed inventor of the Internet and savior of clean energy, Al Gore, although his partner, Joel Hyatt, stood proudly with the Al Jazeera honchos.
“Of course Al didn’t show up,” said one high placed Current staffer. “He has no credibility.
“He’s supposed to be the face of clean energy and just sold [the channel] to very big oil, the emir of Qatar! Current never even took big oil advertising—and Al Gore, that bulls***ter sells to the emir?”
Was this a hot topic for any of the usual Radio 5 suspects? Maybe a defender of the indefensible can show their worthy by finding a Beeboid tweet heaping scorn on Gore over this? Are they really giving St Algore a free pass?
Some thoughts on rules for public life inspired by Albert Arnold “Al” Gore, Jr.
1. Embrace a cause. The ’cause’ is not a long held belief but a ladder. Climb it. Lie, climb, dissemble, climb, invent facts, climb, posture, climb till you get to become “someone”. The aim is to climb the ladder in order to reach the “platform”. Later you can tell people you were “young”, “Mislead” or have “reconsidered your position”. Mostly people will forget what you said anyway.
2. The main element of the “platform” is financial independence. Money replaces achievement, intellect and brains. When you reach you “platform” you have f*** you money. With money comes celebrity. Now you can now go on to get an “honour”.
3. Honours (for the British) means a knighthood. It is the peak of achievement. It grants credibility. (Sir Jimmy Savile, after all.) Mr. Al Gore does not have an honorary knighthood – yet! – but surely some Saudi Prince can a pull a few strings? With an honour (a peace prize for example) tucked under you arm you have arrived. You can claim a paragraph in history. Failing that: a grubby little footnote. The least deserved prize is undoubtedly one of the most prestigious: the Hollywood “Oscar” – the preening classes’ gift to itself.
4. Finally you must consider your historical legacy. Buying a place in history is simple. History is taught by individuals called “teachers”. These are people who have lived all their lives in the hothouse of education and are usually the least qualified people to teach anything. (Keep quiet at the back!) Their students are young people with a Ryvita thin grasp of reality and tons of self-esteem. (I’m going to say this only once!) They can be convinced of anything as long as its cool and has a video game or app attached. (Buy your WW2 app now and learn in short sentences of no more than 64 characters about an event that cost fifty million lives) Urban myths meld with facts The US never sent a man to the moon. Paul McCartney died in 1968. Sweden has the highest suicide rate. Gerry Adams is really Mother Teresa in drag. Mahatma Ghandi won Indian independence by sitting down in the road and pouting at the British. In such a universe anything is possible: even an environmentalist becoming a spokesman for an oil producing country.
Albert Arnold “Al” Gore, Jr. is the simply latest example of a world turned upside down and wins this months Ted Kennedy Award.
In summary, then, the science is pretty damned unsettled but man-made global warming is definitely happening.
Jonathan Swift could have written tomes on it.
Still nothing on the BBC website about St. Algore’s hypocrisy yet, nor about Current employees calling him out. Considering his high profile in the Warmist industry and prominence for years in the so-called public debate about the issue, it’s definitely newsworthy. Yet another Nobel Prize the BBC studiously avoids mentioning.