Roger Harrabin, a strange conflicted, tormented soul unable to square the ethics of being a professional journalist with his desire to campaign for the climate change lobby.
He’s settled for the green blob.
Harrabin admitted he was a climate change campaigner:
I have spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of climate change.
Harrabin knows many of the Public are sceptical about climate change, especially when they see their bills falsely inflated by green taxes. He goes so far as to suggest Sceptics should be brought in from the cold and given a hearing…here and here he toys with the idea…and yet still manages to slip in a few sneers for the Sceptics and some cheerleading for the likes of the CRU’s Phil Jones.
Even today Harrabin whilst luring in an unsuspecting ‘sceptic’ to the BBC can’t help trying to discredit that ‘sceptic’ whilst supposedly taking him seriously.
The Today programme announced to us that the IPCC was about to reveal its latest thinking on climate and would tell us that we will suffer irreversible climate change if we continue pumping out CO2…..the Today programme tells us that such reports are ‘resisted by a very vocal minority’.
So you get the idea….sceptics are noisy, a minority, a bit of a nuisance and…no mention of just how credible they are….but we are told Sceptics are coming into line with mainstream thinking.
Hmmmm…..isn’t it more true to say that the ‘settled mainstream science’ is being forced by facts on the ground to admit that they have got things serously wrong and it is they who are now coming into line with the sceptics rather than sceptics now ‘agreeing’ with the mainstream?
On the Today show Harrabin spoke to Nic Lewis (15 mins) whom he pointedly called ‘Mr Lewis’ in an attempt to persuade us that he is not a scientist and has little real authority to speak on the subject of climate change.
Harrabin ‘interviews’ Lewis but we don’t actually hear the interview just Harrabin’s interpretation of it…here he tells us the three points that apparently sceptics and the ‘Mainstream’ agree on….
- CO2 from humans has contributed to warming the planet.
- The current pause will end…sometime because of CO2.
- If we double CO2 emissions it will result in a rise of 1.7°C
I rather think all those points could easily be contested.
That last point for instance….Harrabin goes on to say that the range of likely temperatures given by Lewis matches the IPCC’s.
No, it doesn’t. Harrabin is spinning, this Today report is all about trying to make out that sceptics have suddenly seen the light and have slowly come to the same conclusions as the IPCC. They haven’t.
Here is Nic Lewis’s own report from March this year in which he says….
‘…a lower observationally-based temperature range of 1.25–3.0°C, with a best estimate of 1.75, for a doubling of CO2. By contrast, the climate models used for projections in AR5 indicate a range of 2-4.5°C, with an average of 3.2°C.’
In other words his range of temperatures is far below that of the IPCC…and the figure for temperature when CO2 levels double is almost half that of the IPCC…1.75 and 3.2 °C respectively….not as Harrabin claimed both agreeing on 1.75.
Again here Lewis says the same:
The CMIP5 [IPCC] models ultimately warm on average about 3.2° C when the concentration of CO2 is doubled. This is approaching twice the level suggested by the best observational studies
Lewis tells us that:
Virtually all the models that the IPCC uses in its report have been running too hot over periods as long as 35 years, long enough to judge them on a climatic timescale
Harrabin himself last year reported the IPCC’s doomladen predictions:
Harrabin admits that that was only a theory…it may be that climate is not as sensitive to CO2 as ‘mainstream scientists’ told us…..it maybe we get no temperature rise above 2.5° C but he says ‘that is very optimistic…and we will probably see much worse.’
Mainstream scientists, he tells us, suggest that 2 – 4.5° C is more likely and ‘there is little reassuring about that’
2-4.5° C? So an average of 3.2 not 1.7 as Harrabin today claimed the IPCC suggests.
Harrabin slips in a cheap couple of sneers telling us that ‘Mr Lewis’ is a Cambridge educated mathematician with a career in financial consulting…though unlike most sceptics he’s published his findings in scientific journals.
Harrabin doesn’t mention that he also studied physics at Cambridge and is a highly skilled statistician as well as having spent many years studying climate change.
Harrabin curiously omits to mention that Lewis is also an expert reviewer for the IPCC….so credible enough for them to utilise his expertise.
We might ask just how many times Harrabin has published his scientific research in science journals…the answer would of course be never….Harrabin being an English graduate.
By his own standards Harrabin should not be reporting on climate change due to his lack of paper credentials….and yet he consistently attacks sceptics for their apparent lack of professional qualifications.
Harrabin demonstrates his own lack of understanding by confusing CO2 emissions with CO2 concentrations….from Nic Lewis himself via Bishop Hill:
As you know, Roger Harrabin’s piece on global warming that included excerpts of his interview with me aired at 7.15 this morning on Radio 4.
Unfortunately, his piece confusingly muddled up both CO2 emissions with CO2 concentrations and equilibrium climate sensitivity with the transient climate response level.
For an English graduate words and meaning must surely be something you could grapple succesfully with…so even in his own field of expertise Harrabin can’t cut it. Not too good with either numbers or words it seems.
Harrabin’s Today report was pure spin that tried to undermine the Sceptic case by saying that they were now agreeing with the IPCC.
However Nic Lewis has never been a ‘sceptic’ in the sense that Harrabin uses. Lewis believes that man-made CO2 is warming the planet but that the planet is not as sensitive as the IPCC makes out…but in fact he goes further than the IPCC….
In AR5 the IPCC felt even more certain (95% certain, compared to 90% inAR4) that humans have caused most (more than 50%) of the warming since1950. The media treated this as the major conclusion of AR5, but it is in fact a relatively trivial finding. The high-quality observationally-based estimates for climate sensitivity discussed in this report assume that virtually all the measured warming (not just since 1950, but over the last 100–150 years) is due to humans.
The far more important question now is how much warming is likely in the future under various scenarios.
Curiously when you read the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s blurb they say almost the exact same thing….they accept global warming is happening but that they disagree with the level of warming and the policies adopted to combat it…..
The Global Warming Policy Foundation is unique. We are an all-party and non-party think tank and a registered educational charity which, while open-minded on the contested science of global warming, is deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated.
We are in no sense ‘anti-environmental’. There is a wide range of important environmental issues, which call for an equally wide range of policy responses. Our concern is solely with the possible effects of any future global warming and the policy responses that may evoke.
And yet Lord Lawson is banned by the BBC from appearing.
So we have a climate sceptic who isn’t really a sceptic but whose positon is presented by Harrabin as the new dawning of reality in the sceptic’s camp as they merge with mainstream thinking. Harrabin spins the figures to make it appear the IPCC is correct on likely future temperature scenarios. Harrabin sneers at sceptics.
In summary we have Harrabin spinning like mad, misleading listeners and trying to discredit sceptics….what’s new in his approach to reasoned debate on climate change? Nothing.
BBC’s Mr Climate Change and £15,000 grants from university rocked by global warning scandal
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
If you were to tell the Pope there isn’t a God, what do you think he and the Vatican would do?
‘Harrabin ‘interviews’ Lewis but we don’t actually hear the interview just Harrabin’s interpretation of it’
—
Anything run through the BBC editorial filter, especially the settled science one, must be viewed as suspect.
Accepting they will always control who is invited and questions asked, or not, if it is not live and in full you can be pretty sure narrative enhancement will be introduced to summary and/or analysis.
I wonder if such full interviews could be requested?
Or would there be a BBC exemption to sharing journalism… ‘for the purposes of journalism’?
‘Harrabin ‘interviews’ Lewis but we don’t actually hear the interview just Harrabin’s interpretation of it’
OT but I’ve been following the war between the ‘liberal Inquisition’ and online game players for a while ( who knew those alienated loners in their darkened bedrooms would form such a formidable army -not liberal academia that’s for sure)
and came across this
Listen to how the BBC aperachick ,having failed to trickthe interviewee desperatly tries to force him into supporting the BBC’s chosen narative by turns conjoling and bullying
Sorry I cant get it to start were i want it to skip.game of thrones reveiw and next video is ‘full gamergate BBC interveiw’
BBC TV news was pushing the UN report yesterday and in the short piece Harrabin referred said even sceptics accept that the present pause in rising temperatures will come to an end. This was the only hint that there was any evidence against the view that temperatures are relentlessly on the rise. He then carried on with the his propaganda campaign.
In Astronomy, a Hale magnetic cycle lasts 22 years, the first 22 years produced the Global warming scare, the present cycle produced the pause, the next cycle is predicted to be a Global Cooling cycle from 2018 when the pause ends.
I personally can’t wait for powercuts in the UK. After having millions without power during the midst of winter, due to the greenlobbies demand we cut back on power generation by the use of oil,coal and nuclear in favour of wind. We are going to see a huge backlash agaisnt the greens.
Then idiots like Harrabin will be shown the door.
It would take more than that to have BBC eco-loonery stopped. Look at the floods in the Somerset levels – the BBC mostly got away with all its false or evasive reporting on the root cause, namely failure to dredge the rivers. Many people still hold the BBC propaganda view that it was all down to climate change.
Leopards don’t change their spots. Bigoted warmists don’t change their spiel. They are incorrigible – and unstoppable. And we are paying for them, under duress.
yes there was rather too much of …
‘there is no hard evidence to show that climate change is to blame BUT…’
type comments.
The word ‘but’ is the biggest weapon in the droids’ armoury.
The droids do it because the droid bosses allow them to do it, and the droid bosses allow them because Cam the Sham allows the droid bosses to get away with it.
BBC – corrupt is the only word for it.
Harrabin is scientifically ignorant but, to the BBC, that doesn’t matter. His activism has undue influence due to his position because he has, purely due to the exposure the BBC enjoys, a massive audience. Even if we do get power cuts, Harrabin and the other BBC Environment quislings, will push how it is due to the closure of nuclear and fossil fuel powered stations. Many of the unthinking population will accept that and not the truth of renewables having undermined the grid. They are already pushing this line as shown this week in BBC articles about the National Grid’s warning about reduced capacity.
The current crop of BBC science reporters are a disgrace to their predecessors.
OT I have been asked to prepare some brifing for a candidate who will be standing against Ed Davey. I am familiar with the Bishop Hill site (my first port of call for the truth about all the warmist nonsense) and also WattsUpWithThat.
But can anyone here point to a succinct summary of the sceptic case. eg articles by Matt Ridley or whoever – a SIMPLE summary of the contra case.
In a proper world I should be able to search the BBC website for such a contra-summary. But I might as well go looking for a unicorn.
A Simple place to start would be via. Jo Nova
Start here then follow the links to further short .pdf articles
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/03/new-here-the-ten-second-guide-to-the-world-of-skeptics/
Also Roy Spencer PhD has a very readable book
Good Luck !
In Britain, Piers Corbyns Weatheraction site is the best, but he does not articulate the science all that well. To understand why it is proven that carbon dioxide has effectively zero influence on the Earths atmospheric temperatures you should read (Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics, Gerhard Gerlich, 2009) and then the paper (Unified Theory of Climate, Ned Nikolov & Karl Zeller, 2011) which provides the solution to the problem.
Most so called sceptics seem to still stick with the Arrhenius method, because that is what all those Computer models use, and it is socially unacceptable to deny the Computer models, because the morons think that means you are denying the science.
But all scientists who know that the Arrhenius method is crap also can explain WHY ITS CRAP with the new formula (1) Grey body temperature not Black body temperature. (2) Laps rate or speed of transfer of heat is slowed down by an increase in pressure, use Poisson formula (3) Any anomalies, then recalculate grey body temperature for the cloud base, and check for geothermal heat on the surface.
That’s it, and it always works, and I do not know of anything else that works.
Therefore, as Piers Corbyn says, all other scientists must be either charlatans or morons.
But the best summary I ever read on the subject was published in the space special interest group newsletter of Mensa, so you could ask Mensa for the articles.
Richad Pinder
Thanks for the headsup on the Ned Nikolov & Karl Zeller paper. At last a paper that is based on Physics, rather then on stamp collecting, and “coulds”, “maybe”, “possible” etc.
The paper is being criticised, and that’s good. But its a proper start for the Climate “science”, if there ever can be such a properly defined science.
We might ask just how many times Harrabin has published his scientific research in science journals…the answer would of course be never….Harrabin being an English graduate.
I was under the impression that an Eng Lit degree was the prime qualification for pontificating on man made Climate Change.
Booker: the most expensive man and woman in Britain’s history
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85257
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100212713/time-to-shoot-the-husky-dave/
Bryony Worthington, Baroness Worthington, also has a degree in Eng Lit, which makes her eminently qualified to write the Climate Change Act. This act is going to cost us trillions.
Universities should quickly open departments specialising in “Eng Lit with Climate Change” degree programs. There may still be time to cash in on the bonanza.
‘Mainstream’ scientist = one tainted by environmentalism, who believes science should be driven by consensus, aka a ‘postmodern’ scientist e.g. Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society and who pisses on its sacred motto ‘Nullius in Verba’.
‘Independent’ scientist = one who follows the scientific method e.g. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Physics at MIT who doesn’t give a flying fandango what his sceptical, science-driven views might do for his career.
Numpty Harrabin unwittingly shoots himself in the foot – yet again.
By the issued stats, it’s all still based on scientific theory. Therefore, all the mainstream’s witch hunt on conspiracy theory deniers is an actual hypocritical crusade of denial. As the main power institutions are leading an inside crusade and pilgrimage, of antagonistic collectivism against sceptical view. Is this not just an insider conspiracy theory? Inside trading? Inside power grabs? Monopolistic employment? Etc….( “if you don’t agree. Somehow! we’ll manipulate legislation to shut you up”)
Roger’s latest line of attack…
‘I’ve been talking to sceptics in the last few days and even they are admitting…’.
Oh just fuck off man.
I think he needs psychiatric help, I really do.
He didn’t talk to me. Had he have done, he would have departed, rather quickly, with a flea in his ear. What a sanctimonious, biased prat.
Just looking at the HYS on phasing out fossil fuels or else. It seems that the population controllers are in the ascendancy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29855884
It is highly significant that only the BBC is running this tosh. Oh, and the Guardian.
I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
The population controllers appear on every HYS. They are quite the saddest bunch of losers imaginable. Why don’t they all get together and commit mass suicide a la Heaven’s Gate thereby actually doing something about the problem they always blame everybody else for.
At the end of Wogan, the BBC News headline was “The UN has announced that the end is nigh”.
There is nothing new in the scientific community, man-made carbon dioxide levels are still only a total of 4 percent or 16 percent of the increase, and those two facts are still censored by the IPCC. But then the IPCC is in a state of emergence, due to the politics, with Australia, Canada, China, India and Russia refusing to sign the scientific, economic and politically loony suicide treaty to try and stop a problem that does not exist.
I have wasted time on the Arrhenius method of calculating the Greenhouse effect and all that doubling crap, but this does not work for Venus and Mars, that is why Astronomy has lead the way forward with the thermodynamics solution. The Unified Theory of Climate which solves the problem of explaining the temperatures in all parts of the atmospheres of all the planets in the Solar System, including the Earth and the carbon dioxide atmospheres of Venus and Mars. Sceptics like Nich Lewis and Benny Peiser are behind the times due to the fact they only use the Earths Atmosphere as an example, that is why Piers Corbyn is way ahead of the game on this issue, so that’s why you will not see him on the BBC, and why Corbyn instils terror in morons like Harrabin.
And apart from Nigel Calder, I do not know any other journalist that knows about the bogus rebuttal of the Svensmark theory using low energy Cosmic Rays when the fact is that only the higher energy Cosmic Rays unaffected by the Earths magnetic field are relevant. It has been noted in the space special interest group newsletter of Mensa and has been put on the internet by CERN scientists involved with the CLOUD experiment, which only confirmed the explanation of how cosmic rays cause cloud formation, proven since Henrik Svensmarks cloud chamber results in 2006, but censored by CERN Director-General Rolf-Dieter Heuer to avoid it being included in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.
The Unified Theory of Climate may well solve the problem of temperature in all parts of the atmosphere in planets such as Venus and Mars, but unless one can show that these Climate Changes were caused by Man, Martians or Venetians, the theory has no relevance, even if it explains, and predicts temperature and Climate variations on Earth to a high degree of accuracy.
Any respectable theory of Climate Change that does not have Man as an important factor, is really not worth considering, no matter its science or predictive capability.
This is the age of Aquarius.
PS
but unless one can show that these Climate Changes were caused by Man, Martians or Venetians, the theory has no relevance
Correction
The theory must not only consider the impact of Martians or Venetians, but must also prove that it is capitalist greed of said Martians/ Venetians, that is the main contributor to Climate Change on Mars/Venus.
” Booker:
Met millions for getting it wrong ”
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85288
In 2010 Horrorbin put out a call for UK academic climate sceptics. I responded, as did at least 2 others, and got a 1-line reply. Since then he:s repeatedly claimed that he couldn’t find any.
You mean that Harrabin tells porkies ?
Never !!!
(He did not contact Nic Lewis, for example, who is a published scientist)
We know about the Green Blob and its meshing of public funding and media and political support but why no similar investigation of its twin, the Pink Blob?
We are already reaching peak CO2 effect.
“The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is real enough, but its influence is known and widely accepted to diminish as its concentration increases. It has a logarithmic in its relationship to concentration. Global Warming advocates and Climate Change sceptics both agree on this.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/10/the-diminishing-influence-of-increasing-carbon-dioxide-on-temperature/