Harrabin’s Not For Wavering

 

 

 

The BBC’s Roger Harrabin sounded pretty desperate yesterday morning on the radio as he yet again pushed a very one sided version of climate change…helpfully he has written it all down as he helps in the fight to keep the Green show on the road:

Wavering on UK climate policy ‘not justified’

Britain is playing its part in a worldwide bid to reduce emissions and should not weaken its proposed cuts, says a report to the UK government.

The Committee on Climate Change says no change in global science or policy justifies a slackening of effort.

The report was compiled after Chancellor George Osborne said the UK’s competitiveness might be put at risk by leading the world in curbing emissions.

The CCC research challenges this assumption.

 

Harrabin also highlighted China’s apparent great leap forward on CO2 reduction…..Bishop Hill thinks he may be exaggerating:

 

 

And Bishop Hill goes on:

According to this article at Bloomberg:

The [Chinese] government aims to have 100 gigawatts of wind-power installed capacity and more than 35 gigawatts of solar power by 2015…

With a population of 1.34bn, 100 GW of wind power represents about 72 W/capita. The UK currently has 8445 MW of wind for a population of 63 million, which is 134 W/capita. So we are already doing roughly double what China is expected to achieve by 2015.

For solar, China’s 2015 figure of 35 GW represents 26 W/capita, while the UK has about the same already.

 

And according to the EU the UK was ahead of the game on meeting the 2012 Kyoto CO2 reduction targets.

 

 

But what about that Climate Change Committee?

 

Our Role

The Committee on Climate Change (the CCC) is an independent, statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008. Our purpose is to advise the UK Government and Devolved Administrations on emissions targets and report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for climate change.

 

Independent.

Really?

 

We know that its Chairman, Tim Yeo had to step aside due to questions about his vested interests in renewable energy businesses….what about the others on the Committee?

 

Sir Brian Hoskins:

Over the last four years Sir Brian (Hoskins) has been instrumental in establishing the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, as an important centre for climate change research.

 

Ahh…the Grantham Institute…at Imperial College London.…one of the propaganda nerve centres for promoting man made climate change.

 

Robert McCredie May, Baron May of Oxford:

Again…..Imperial College London

He now holds joint professorships at Oxford and Imperial College London….When asked if religious leaders should be doing more to persuade people to combat climate change, he stated that it was absolutely necessary….

“A supernatural punisher maybe part of the solution.”

“Given that punishment is a useful mechanism, how much more effective it would be if you invested that power not in an individual you don’t like, but an all-seeing, all powerful deity that controls the world,” he said

“It makes for rigid, doctrinaire societies, but it makes for co-operation.”

Such a system would be “immensely stabilising in individual human cultures” and societies, he pointed out.

 

Is he neutral on climate change…Maybe not:

One of Britain’s most eminent scientists has attacked President Bush for acting like a latter-day Nero who fiddles while the world burns because of global warming.

Lord May of Oxford, the president of the Royal Society and former chief scientific adviser to the Government, said the Bush administration must accept the case has been made about the link between man-made pollution and climate change. Continuing to deny the impact of human activities on the environment may ultimately have catastrophic consequences for everyone on the planet, he said.

Lord May will also castigate elements within the British media who promote “misleading” opinions about the true nature of the scientific uncertainties surrounding climate change.

“If the public are misled into thinking climate change does not pose a serious potential threat, some policy-makers could more easily find an excuse not to act. 

Lord May accused the Daily Mail of waging an undeclared propaganda war against the science of climate change… the Daily Mail gives undue prominence and support to the views of an extreme fringe, and misleads its readers about the state of our knowledge

 

 

How about Lord Deben?:

David Cameron, who last month nominated Lord Deben (formerly John Gummer) as the new chairman of the influential and supposedly “independent” Committee on Climate Change, set up to advise government on energy policy under the Climate Change Act. This is despite the fact that Lord Deben’s array of environmental business interests includes chairmanship of Forewind Ltd, a consortium of four energy firms planning the world’s largest, and most heavily subsidised, offshore wind farm in the North Sea.

 

 

And what about his mate Tim Yeo?

MP paid £400,000 by green firms slams climate change peer… for hypocrisy exposed by the Mail

  • Tim Yeo has complained about Lord Deben’s undisclosed green interests
  • Mr Yeo has been paid more than £400,000 by three green companies
  • Lord Deben is chairman of firm which connects windfarms to National Grid

 

 

Jim Skea:

Jim [Skea] has strong links to policy processes. He is a founding member of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change and is Vice-Chair of Working Group III (Mitigation) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In the past, he was a member of the Commission on Environmental Markets and Economic Performance and acted as Launch Director for the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership. Jim is also a non-executive director of the Blackrock New Energy Investment Trust plc.

 

So he works on the IPCC?  Very independent….and not forgetting his Green business interests.

and comes from Imperial College London

and is Director of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Global Environmental Change Programme.

 

The same ESRC that has close connections to the Grantham Institute and the famous Lord Stern

Professor Lord Stern of Brentford, Chair of the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy who also runs the……

Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy wins second phase funding from UK Economic and Social Research Council

The University of Leeds and London School of Economics and Political Science have been jointly awarded more than £5 million by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to support a second phase of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, it was announced today (17 September 2013).

 

 

Professor Samuel Fankhauser: Co-Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment – LSE.

He also works for the business Vivid Economics which advises on climate to government and business:

The economics of climate change has taken centre-stage for energy-intensive industries and governments across the world. We are established thought leaders in this field, levering our expertise on competitiveness, strategy, infrastructure, resources and innovative policy.

We provide advice on policy design at national and international level, on commercial strategy and planning, mitigation of emissions, adaptation to climate change, investment, infrastructure, innovation and economic growth, with a thorough understanding of related financial and scientific issues.

 

Professor Dame Julia King non executive director of the Green Investment bank

We are committed to addressing the very serious issue of the ever growing demands on the planet’s natural resources and building a strong and sustainable legacy for future generations.

In order to meet this green challenge there are ambitious and legally binding targets which the UK must meet.

 

Paul Johnson serving on the council of the Economic and Social Research Council. (as above)

 

Professor Lord Krebs and David Kennedy seem to be the only ones without any serious vested interests in  green business or promotion.

 

 

The Committee on Climate Change..

Independent then?

I think not.

 

Nice though of Harrabin to give so much credence to anything they say.

 

 

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21 Responses to Harrabin’s Not For Wavering

  1. Guest Who says:

    Given who is influencing what, with such interesting back stories as to why, it seems astoundingly uncurious of so-called reporters and analysts from the BBC to be facilitating these people’s claims whilst studiously not asking pertinent questions, and in some cases even running interference.
    That of course does fall under propaganda & censorship.
    Not trust & transparency.

       33 likes

  2. phil says:

    Just the usual BBC approach – if the corporation agrees with someone they are right and if they don’t the infamous BBC analysis is required.

       31 likes

  3. Selohesra says:

    Related to climate perhaps – I got the feeling Evan Davis was disappointed by the response from the Philopine chap as to the number of casualties so far. When told that it was three he cut him off very quickly saying but of course it be much higher and then asked same question of different person. These things unpleasant as they are – BBC dont need to big up these events

       15 likes

  4. Phil Ford says:

    Alan, a very forensic take-down of the laughable ‘Committee on Climate Change’ if I may say so. If ever there was a more utterly pointless, wasteful committee in government I’d like to know. Of course, the fact that the vast majority of them have their grubby snouts well and truly stuffed into the ‘green’ trough, funnelling away as much public money as they can grab comes as absolutely no surprise – it just angers me every time I’m reminded what a bunch of total hypocrites there are on this committee.

    Of course, the loony Left see no ‘conflict of interest’ with any of these reprobates; to them it naturally all looks ‘on-message’ and they must equate these motley charlatans with ‘a safe pair of hands’ as far as their precious Climate Agenda goes. The fact that there are Tories in there amongst them is a good reminder of why nobody should trust the present Tory Party one iota on matters related to ‘climate change’.

    It’s depressing that the UK is beholden to such easily-provable duplicity and misinformation from a government committee such as this. I’m sure this kind of rank cronyism isn’t confined to this committee, either; it’s just that when the evidence is so conspicuous you’d think someone…oh, I dunno, say a BBC journalist for instance? might have something to say about it.

    Not. A. Peep.

       32 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:

      I think that scientists are realising that they have to start doing their own Journalism because the established publications have been purged of off-message opinion especially from causational or attributional climate scientists. Environmental scientists are the only scientists that are guaranteed to be on-message because their employment is essential for this scientific scam to continue. But the scepticism of the public must be growing if they realise that Climate science is the only science where those scientists who deal with the core issues do not have much say in advising the media, such as being excluded from a seminar advising the BBC by a gang of environMENTAL activists such as Harrabin.

         12 likes

  5. Span Ows says:

    Ironic that the only one with a name steeped in energy creation (Krebs) has no obvious vested interests in the energy market.

       4 likes

    • AngusPangus says:

      I’ve heard he’s quite the environmentalist and travels to Committee meetings on his Krebs cycle

      ba-dum tish!

         9 likes

  6. Richard Pinder says:

    Grantham Institute? I thought the warmists already had enough Climate Change organisations such as the Tyndall Centre. All that the sceptics have is the Heartland Institute, and from personal experience, sceptics who think for themselves do not need the Heartland Institute to make decisions or give advice about the facts, evidence and correlations revealed in scientific papers.

    Harrabin could advise the Institute to build a pyramid, and then the supernatural punisher could sacrifice people on top of it, but I do not think that people outside of the BBC/Guardianista world view are thick enough to think that this will stop the Climate from Changing. But the idea that it would be “Immensely stabilising” is contradicted by how such madness has caused the downfall of civilisations in the past, such as in Mexico.

    I suppose it has become essential for everyone to be blackmailed by an employment dependent on one outcome in Climate science, bribed to be biased by taxpayers money.

    This is similar to the situation in Cancer research and our membership of the EU, there are thousands of parasites who would lose their jobs if they found a cure for cancer or we left the EU or Astronomers could explain why thermodynamics and cosmic rays have solved all the problems in explaining why man cannot be responsible for Climate Change.

       14 likes

  7. johnnythefish says:

    ‘“Given that punishment is a useful mechanism, how much more effective it would be if you invested that power not in an individual you don’t like, but an all-seeing, all powerful deity that controls the world,” he said

    “It makes for rigid, doctrinaire societies, but it makes for co-operation.”

    Sounds like this scary, power-crazed twat is advocating some kind of authoritarian world government.

    Oh, hang on, wouldn’t be UN Agenda 21 by any chance, aka ‘mitigating actions against climate change’?

    Amazing, or rather, not, how the incurious at the BBC felt Climategate unworthy of their ‘world’s greatest investigative journalism’, how they seem to be blissfully unaware of revelations that the IPCC isn’t made up of the world’s top climate scientists after all, how they blithely accept that in the final stage of the IPCC’s report the politicians tell the scientists what they should be saying, how climate models have failed so totally in their temperature predictions for at least the past 15 years the IPCC had to massage the graphs between draft and final versions of their report, how……. oh, you get the idea.

       15 likes

  8. jpt says:

    Slightly off topic but I just watched a 2003 documentary on Mount Kilimanjaro in which it was said that due to global warming amongst other things the mountain would be ‘glacier free’ by 2015. So I did some research and latest figures say that the mountain will be glacier free by 2060. Say no more.

       12 likes

    • OldBloke says:

      Don’t forget that we have been told by those same people who predicted (using the hockey graph) the *glacier free* moment of 2015, that global warming has stalled and because of this stalling the mountain will be *glacier free* in 2060. Next of course, they will be telling us that global warming has been reversed by all the savings of CO2 and that in fact the glacier will always be there. I think they call it a win win situation. I’ve no doubt that the BBC in every effort to save face, will promote it as such.

         9 likes

    • David Kay says:

      here’s one from the BBC in 2007 saying the Arctic will be ice free by 2013. Hows that one gone?

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7139797.stm

         16 likes

  9. George R says:

    What will Harrabin’s tactics be now to stop fracking?:-
    ‘Telegraph’ (£)-
    “Fracking ‘is safe… and it’s coming soon’
    Households “right across the South” should prepare for gas fracking to begin in their areas, a senior minister warns”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10437394/Fracking-is-safe…-and-its-coming-soon.html

       5 likes

  10. Smell the glove says:

    Stop fracking no nuclear no coal Luddite anti capitalism

       4 likes

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  12. Amounderness Lad says:

    Just over a decade ago BBC Radio Scotland, after a couple of warm winters, was pushing the meme, as hard as it could, that, because of Global Warming, skiing was a thing of the past in Scotland and was never going to happen again. That prediction immediately failed to materialise.
    Last winter skiing carried on in Scotland until into May. This winter there has already been sufficient snow in some areas to enable skiing to commence at least or a couple of weeks. Admittedly it seems there may be a short break after that until the main winter season finally sets in but that is a far cry from the BBC’s predictions of doom and gloom about the Skiing Resorts in Scotland being consigned to the dustbin of history.
    Hard as they try the climate steadfastly refuses to follow the orders of the BBC that it should get ever warmer and warmer and warmer until we are all desperately seeking respite from the sun which has turned Britain into a semi-desert, or was that avoiding the downpours in our very own tropical jungle.

       9 likes

  13. George R says:

    HARRABIN’s incessant political propaganda against shale gas development, and for organisations, ‘foe’ (an occupying ‘foe’ indeed), and for ‘greenpeace’ ( shouldn’t that be ‘greenwar’?).

    Harrabin’s fiefdom section of BBC can’t put out a straight summary of a scientific report; instead it deliberately mixes in its ‘foe’ propaganda.

    Which of these two reports propagandises for high-cost occupying ‘greenies’? No prizes.

    1.) ‘Telegraph’ (£)-

    “Fracking ‘is safe… and it’s coming soon'”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10437394/Fracking-is-safe…-and-its-coming-soon.html

    2.) Harrabin’s fiefdom:-

    “Water report ‘says fracking is safe'”

    (but read on for Harrabin fiefdom’s propaganda)-)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24880452

    Just as the political scandal of Beeboid bias for E.U., for Labour Party, for mass immigration is widely known, in the environment sphere, Harrabin’s fiefdom is blatantly biased and opposed to climate sceptics, to advocates of gas and oil energy, and to fracking.

    And Director General HALL lets Harrabin’s fiefdom get away with this daily propaganda.

       6 likes