Our reporting should resist the temptation to use language and tone which appear to accept consensus or received wisdom as fact or self-evident.
We must challenge our own assumptions and experiences and also those which may be commonly held by parts of our audience.
These can present some of the most difficult challenges to asserting that the BBC does not hold its own opinion. Care should be taken to treat areas of apparent consensus with proper rigour.
Lord Patten, ex-BBC Trust panjandrum, gave us the benefit on the Today programme the other day. You have to laugh. I quote….
STUDENTS who want to ban objectionable ideas on campuses should go to university in China, Lord Patten said yesterday.
The Chancellor of Oxford University said so-called ‘noplatforming’ policies, which seek to ban certain objectionable speakers, are in danger of stifling freedom of speech in the same manner as authoritarian regimes.
The former Tory Cabinet minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Can you imagine a university where there is noplatforming? A bland diet of bran to feed people is an absolutely terrible idea.’
This from a man who oversaw the no-platforming of climate change sceptics on the BBC, guided of course by Roger Harrabin [activist/journalist] and his mate Joe Smith [climate activist] about whose influence within the BBC is looked upon by some as less than desirable:
‘Following their lead [Harrabin and Smith’s] has meant the whole thrust and tone of BBC reporting has been that the science is settled, and that there is no need for debate,’ one journalist said. ‘If you disagree, you’re branded a loony.’
This is the narrative that Harrabin and his mate wanted to promote….
Harrabin and Joe Smith of the CMEP have worked out a devious scheme to sideline sceptics…don’t talk about the science…talk about risk or how to stop the world warming…..
‘Climate change should not be responded to as a body of ‘facts’ to be acted upon (with the IPCC acting as prime arbiter). Instead it should be considered as a substantial and urgent collective risk management problem. Projecting climate change as a risk problem rather than a communication-of-fact problem helpfully deflates ‘debates’ about whether climate change is or is not a scientific fact.
My point is: lets not get stuck on the science. Climate change is a vast and widening body of investigation and debate: science is now barely the half of it, and in terms of political outcomes it is not the thing that counts.….a line that is designed to work for people who have ideological wax blocking their ears: ‘don’t get het up about communicating science – talk about clean American energy and jobs in a new efficient, competitive economy’.’
And let’s not forget the extremely biased Professor Steve Jones who did the science review for the BBC and made recommendations on how it should present climate change to the world…essentially by not allowing sceptics on air….apart from being very pro-climate change he also owed his living to the BBC having been washed up as a scientist…by his own admission.
The latest example of the silencing of critical debate is of course the Quentin Lett’s programme about the Met. Office.
You may recall that the BBC Trust stated that ‘The programme would not be repeated in any form.’
So much for free speech, open debate and challenging authoritarian regimes.
You can of course read a transcript of the programme here.
The sheer hypocrisy of the BBC is, ironically, illustrated perfectly by the head of the BBC’s very own climate Inquisition, Roger Harrabin himself, who said of the Met. Office:
“The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office.”
Roger Harrabin, an environment analyst at the BBC, told the Radio Times: “The trouble is that we simply don’t know how much to trust the Met Office. How often does it get the weather right and wrong. And we don’t know how it compares with other, independent forecasters.
“Can we rely on them if we are planning a garden party at the weekend? Or want to know if we should take a brolly with us tomorrow? Or planning a holiday next week?
“In a few year’s time hopefully we’ll all have a better idea of whom to trust. By then the Met Office might have recovered enough confidence to share with us its winter prediction of whether to buy a plane ticket or a toboggan.”
Is that not exactly what Quentin Lett’s was saying in a more humorous manner?
Not as if the Met. Office has been at all accurate in its long range climate change predictions:
Met Office: Arctic sea-ice loss linked to colder, drier UK winters
The reduction in Arctic sea ice caused by climate change is playing a role in the UK’s recent colder and drier winter weather, according to the Met Office.
And it did not predict the ‘Pause’.
Here’s what the BBC Trust complained of:
[The programme] indicated the Met Office’s position on climate change was controversial and did not make clear that its work – which used evidence-based observations alongside computer modelling – was in line with prevailing scientific thought. Criticisms made included that it was involved in political lobbying, failed to be impartial and that its claims about climate change were alarmist. The programme included contributors who spoke from a particular perspective on the subject, yet this perspective was not made clear to audiences. A representative from the Met Office was interviewed, but her contribution in the programme as broadcast did not adequately address the criticisms that had been made.
[We] considered audiences were not given sufficient information about prevailing scientific opinion to allow them to assess the position of the Met Office and the Met Office position on these criticisms was not adequately included in the programme.
OK…so let’s look at what the BBC said in 2014:
Reply from BBC Complaints Team
Many thanks for getting in touch again about your concerns with our output on global warming.
We don’t actually have editorial guidelines on the subject but we treat it the same way we treat any controversial subject – in a fair and balanced way. We try to provide the information which will enable viewers and listeners to make up their own minds and provide a forum for debate.
Across our programmes the number of scientists and academics who support the mainstream view far outweighs those who disagree with it. We do however on occasion, offer space to dissenting voices where appropriate as part of our overall commitment to impartiality. The BBC Trust, which oversees our work on behalf of licence fee payers, has explicitly urged programme makers not to exclude critical opinion from policy debates involving scientists.
So global warming is ‘controversial’ and not settled and the BBC’s output is so heavily weighted in favour of the consensus that it is the BBC’s duty to provide a platform for dissenting voices…..seems the BBC Trust doesn’t agree despite the guidelines allowing one-off dissenting programmes like Letts’:
On long-running or continuous output (such as general daily magazine programmes, the News Channel, Online, etc.) due impartiality may be achieved over time by the consistent application of editorial judgement in relevant subject areas. For instance, it is not usually required for an appearance by a politician, or other contributor with partial views, to be balanced on each occasion by those taking a contrary view, although it may sometimes be necessary to offer a right of reply.
The BBC’s editorial guidelines are so waffly and convoluted that it is possible to make them mean whatever you want them to mean. Due weight, due impartiality, accuracy, consensus, controversial, personal views and ‘breadth and diversity of opinion’ are all just words to the BBC Trust…look at how they interpret ‘Personal View’ programmes…
The BBC has a tradition of allowing a wide range of individuals, groups or organisations to offer a personal view or opinion, express a belief, or advance a contentious argument in its output. This can range from the outright expression of highly partial views by a campaigner, to the opinion of a specialist or professional including an academic or scientist, to views expressed through contributions from our audiences. All of these can add to the public understanding and debate, especially when they allow our audience to hear fresh and original perspectives on familiar issues.
Such personal view content must be clearly signposted to audiences in advance.
and… “retain a respect for factual accuracy” or “fairly represent opposing viewpoints when included”.
How can a personal view, consisting of highly partial views and opinion of specialists also be ‘accurate’ and impartial’. Letts’ programme was clearly a ‘personal view’ programme as the Trust admitted:
Trustees considered that the BBC had failed to ensure that there was sufficient signposting to alert listeners that this was a “personal view” programme and had also failed to include adequate information about what constituted the prevailing scientific opinion.
I’m sorry…the Public weren’t alerted to the fact that this was a personal view programme? The BBC Trust in the same ruling said this:
The Committee agreed that the series had a strong authorial voice. Trustees considered listeners would have expected that the programme would be broadly humorous and would include the author’s own ‘take’ on the Met Office and its operations. They considered that, to this extent, audiences would have expected the programme to be the presenter’s “personal view” of the Met Office.
So the audience did expect a ‘personal view’. It looks very much like the BBC Trust is making the rules up as it goes to suit the climate fanatic’s narrative.
As for not giving a right of reply to the Met. Office…just read the transcript to see just how much time was given over to the ‘consensus’ side. Letts states that Piers Corbyn’s dissenting views are ‘not uncontentious’ and gives the many pro-Met. Office voices plenty of chance to speak….The Met. Office’s Helen Chivers was given maybe one quarter of the programme to reply to Letts’ questions…
Quentin Letts: I asked Helen Chivers how accurate the Met Office’s predictions were.
Helen Chivers: On average, we’re accurate – if you look at a great big basket of, you know, sunshine, rainfall, temperatures – round about 80% of the time.
Was there a claim of ‘political’ lobbying as the Trust claims?…
Peter Lilley: I suppose we do get lobbied by them. They come before the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, on which I sat, and tell us they need even more money for even bigger computers so they can be even more precisely wrong in future.
Well…that’s not a claim that the Met. Office carried out ‘political’ lobbying, it’s a claim that the Met. Office panhandled for more money.
The BBC Trust is once again misleading us.
What else does it mislead us on?
The Trust claims that the ‘Pause’ was always predicted by the IPCC and the Met. Office….
Periods of hiatus are consistent with earlier IPCC assessments that non-linear
warming of the climate is to be expected and that forced climate changes always take
place against a background of natural variability. The current period of hiatus does
not undermine the core conclusions of the [Working Group 1] contribution to AR5 when put in the context of the overall, long-term global energy budget.
The Trust even quoted this…
The Met Office is […] widely recognised as a world-leader in climate prediction. However, we note that the climate model did not accurately predict the extent of the flattening of the temperature curve during the last ten years.
…and yet dismissed it completely. And we know there was a pause and that it was completely unpredicted…and that the ‘consensus’ is in complete denial about it….
Phil [Hide the decline] Jones, head of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. July 5th 2005:
“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”
Curiously the BBC has a guideline on how to treat a ‘consensus’…ironically as if it presented a ‘significant risk to the BBC’s impartiality’ ….
Consensus
There are some issues which may seem to be without controversy, appearing to be backed by a broad or even unanimous consensus of opinion. Nevertheless, they may present a significant risk to the BBC’s impartiality. In such cases, we should continue to report where the consensus lies and give it due weight. However, even if it may be neither necessary nor appropriate to seek out voices of opposition, our reporting should resist the temptation to use language and tone which appear to accept consensus or received wisdom as fact or self-evident.
We must challenge our own assumptions and experiences and also those which may be commonly held by parts of our audience.
These can present some of the most difficult challenges to asserting that the BBC does not hold its own opinion. Care should be taken to treat areas of apparent consensus with proper rigour.
What is really controversial but seems to get a bye in all the discussion about Letts’ programme is this…..
An early decision that the programme should not include discussion of climate change was not adequately recorded…The decision that the programme should not include challenge to the prevailing scientific view about climate change was mentioned at a meeting between the Head of Radio, Religion and Ethics and the Series Producer.
The BBC decreed that a programme discussing the Met. Office would not talk about climate change and the Met. Office’s role in advancing that theory? Half of the Met. Office’s job is to deal with climate change and to assess what is happening to the climate in order to inform politicians on policy. It is a highly important and critical part of the Met. Office’s role and the Met. Office’s poor record should not be hidden away.
Why did the BBC try to censor Quentin Letts and control what he might say about the Met. Office? Is it because they knew full well that, as Roger Harrabin admitted, the Met. Office’s record on predicting the climate is pretty abysmal and inaccurate and open to a great deal of criticism…which might then raise doubts about the Great Global Warming Swindle? Something the climate commissars cannot allow.
The BBC Trust’s blatant fixing of the evidence and the the convenient twisting of BBC guidelines to suit the climate change narrative is bad enough but the BBC’s attempt to silence Letts even before he began is the real scandal here.
Still, there are others out there who are more brave and honest……
Sorry Alan, but I believe there is more to your protestations against “climate change” than you admit to. I would be very interested to know what it is (or what you believe it is) that 95% of the science community are conspiring against?
It seems to me that the more the value of oil decreases, the more you write about how climate change is a conspiracy.
Yep…I’m chairman of BP.
Question is Edward who are you and who do you work for?
Bob Ward perhaps? Maybe you’re the green ink conspiracy man himself…Hugh Sykes.
Climate change seems to be your favourite subject on the comments, the one you defend the most…..why? Obviously you’re a believer so why not make some intelligent argument about BBC bias on climate rather than making some cheap and juvenile, and rather ludicrous, claim that this site is set up to influence the share price of oil companies?
I’m sure you know I have posted comments about BBC bias on this site numerous times and that’s because I know for a fact that the BBC is biased – that’s why I’m here.
I have also stated numerous times that I don’t give a crap about climate change one way or the other, but I do care about misleading or selective information. Actually, it is your posts on this site that has aroused my suspicions about climate change denial and increased my interest in this subject. I was brought up to believe climate change was due to natural events such as volcanoes and the like, and it was my late grandfather who convinced me that there was no way us mere mortals could have any effect on the world’s climate. Funnily enough, he owned shares in BP and other oil companies! Hence my initial comment.
I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen any evidence that would suggest there is a conspiracy to con the world into believing in impending climatic doom and gloom. I haven’t seen any statistics that contradict the fact that the world is warming. And if, as the statistics show, the rate of warming has increased during the years since the beginning of the industrial revolution, it is looking more and more likely that the cause is, at least in part, man-made.
That still doesn’t get the BBC off the hook, but at least they are adhering to scientific consensus, even if the science is ultimately proved wrong. You cannot blame the BBC in that respect.
If a group of astronomers bring to our attention an approaching asteroid and warn that it is likely to hit earth with devastating consequences, and another group claim that it will miss, I’m not going to take sides. I’m still going to build a missile to intercept it!
Now, I know you’re highlighting supposed BBC bias here, but you’ve obviously taken sides with the sceptics, so I doubt you can give an impartial account of BBC bias on this subject.
“I haven’t seen any statistics that contradict the fact that the world is warming. ”
Really! You mean you have not looked at any actual out turn figures for the last 15 years and compared them with the “95% consensus” fantasy projection figures of around 2000 and not noticed that we are currently in a period of global non-warming. Surely you have also checked that non rise against the CO2 emissions figures, which march ever upwards, diverging annually from the 95% consensus that CO2 and global temperature are inextricably linked.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/no-warming-in-16-years.htm
So we have to ignore the natural factors in the short term (were they ignored in the long term too or did they “help” previously?), and now we have to concentrate on the ocean temperature figures because they are the ones that now matter to keep the increasingly desperate warmists afloat (pun intended).
I don’t know. But 16 years in the grand scheme of things is just the blink of an eye, and not a long enough timescale to base counter-evidence on.
Creationists use the same flawed logic to claim that evolution is a lie because we don’t see one species evolve into another. We don’t see crocodiles giving birth to ducks.
I have also stated numerous times that I don’t give a crap about climate change one way or the other, but I do care about misleading or selective information.
Edward, I’m so glad you said that because you’ll just luuuurve the Hockey Stick!
Click to access McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf
I was brought up to believe climate change was due to natural events such as volcanoes and the like, and it was my late grandfather who convinced me that there was no way us mere mortals could have any effect on the world’s climate. Funnily enough, he owned shares in BP and other oil companies!
Ha ha haaaa!! Oh, my aching sides! Not even Brigstocke could come up with that one.
Ahem. You’re NOT Brigstocke, are you?
Don’t know where you get that ‘95% of the science community’ nonsense? Invariably quoted is 97% of scientists support CAGW, which has been thoroughly debunked anyhow. But even so, science is not done by consensus. For what it’s worth, there has been no warming for 19 years, and only today alarmists are trying to dismiss accurate satellite records because they show no warming, whereas surface temp records, which are far less accurate, and can be affected by UHI and other issues, are relied upon because they’ll be made to show warming, whatever the case.
Perhaps you, or others promoting the alarmism, will tell us how to falsify the null hypothesis, and, in doing so, can award yourself the Nobel prize. I’m sure the super-biased BBC, Harrabin, Shukman and all the other cultists will all report on that. Until then, expect rationalists on the sidelines to continue blowing big fat raspberries.
On a side issue, the BBC used to employ a very qualified science editor, Dr. David Whitehouse, unlike Shukman or Harrabin who don’t have a science background. Dr. Whitehouse writes intelligently on climate change issues, and does not, I would wager, share the BBC’s enthusiasm for alarmist reporting. He was on the BBC today, commenting on Tim Peake’s space walk. Shame he’s not on to cover climate change, but that would be far too sane a voice for the BBC to tolerate.
Edward: The evidence I have is that Global warming ended in 1997. You also need to differentiate the maximum 4 percent of man-made CO2, from the 96 percent natural CO2, and why this is never mentioned on the BBC, or for that matter any of the basics of the carbon dioxide hypothesis. If you have a very high IQ, then you would ask yourself, why does Climate science become more vague over time by going from Global Warming to Climate Change, instead of from Global Warming to the calibration of carbon dioxide warming in a Planetary atmosphere. Maybe this is evidence that the conspiracy is a conspiracy of silence, a conspiracy by the BBC to censor the science, scientists and scientific debate.
I know that Astronomers have infinite faith in Keplers Laws, but the problems with this is that errors in respect of a perfectly accurate Mass, changing Mass and unpredicted gravitational influences can make an attempt to stop an asteroid hitting the Earth, counter productive. But with Man-Made Climate Change, there was never any evidence carbon dioxide could cause any warming, and proxy evidence using Venus says that this would be impossible. Proxy evidence is necessary because CO2 is only a trace gas on the Earth. As well as this, the evidence is that the length of the Solar Cycle correlates with Climate Change. But any attempt to blow up the Sun would also be counter productive.
I have to go with Edward on this one Alan. I fully agree with the vast bulk of the comments posted on this site about the way the BBC twists/selects their preferred “truth” with it’s bizarre liberal left agenda that will contribute to destruction the nation and society we have created over many painful centuries. However, even school Chemistry students understand the Greenhouse effect. it’s just a fact that CO2 and CH4 absorb heat. So if you chuck ever increasing amounts of the stuff into the atmosphere you get heat build up. It’s not rocket science! Arguments against this are as ridiculous as saying the CIA blew up the WTC or Islam is a religion of peace and diminish the power and legitimacy of this forum.
So why haven’t atmospheric temperatures risen in the last 18 years in line with CO2 levels – you know, like the models (unfortunately still used as the fount of all knowledge on ‘climate change’) from the ‘settled science’ told us they would?
Also, if you accept that in theory increased CO2 levels will mean more absorption of heat, you need to explain why you believe that what are – still – only trace levels of CO2 could have had such significant effects as the global warming of 1975-1997. Roger Harrabin on the BBC has said that the pre-industrial level of CO2 in the atmosphere was 3 parts per 10,000 and that it is now 4 parts per 10,000. Even ignoring the point Richard Pinder made that only 4% of this CO2 is man-released, I fail to see how such low levels could have much influence, compared to cyclical solar variability and oceanic phenomena.
1) The effects of CO2 are logarithmic not linear.
2) No. It’s not rocket science. It is far more complicated than that. Let the IPCC themselves explain…
‘The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future exact climate states is not possible.’
3) Arguments are the way science advances, through debate, testing hypotheses and theories, falsification, empirical data etc etc. The problem comes when ideologues want to shut down all voices that do not accord with the supposed orthodoxy. Science is NEVER settled.
School Chemistry students are still taught this theory about the Greenhouse effect. But you have to ask yourself what is meant by “absorb”. Why not (1) Albedo: White reflection (2) Conversion: Black re-transmision (is it all supposed to be to Infra-red?). To answer this and other issues relating to radiation, and where it goes, read (Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics, Gerhard Gerlich, 2009). This leaves the question of what the Greenhouse Effect is. For this answer we have a simple formula that always produces everything we see in observations for the Earth, Venus and Mars. (Unified Theory of Climate, Ned Nikolov & Karl Zeller, 2011). So that’s why I was taught a load of bolocks, which is still continuing in the majority of schools and universities today. This issue is at the very core of this scientific fraud.
This post is more about the BBC’s corruption than climate change. The BBC has driven a coach and horses through its own editorial guidelines and conspired with activists and other ne’er-do-wells in doing so, and continues to bow down to these factions – see how Letts’s harmless programme was trashed when Daft Green complained. Rather than seeking Alan’s views on climate change, let’s hear your opinion on the BBC’s corruption. Tell me where Alan has got it wrong.
Edward
The 97% of scientists that allegedly prefer ‘man made climate change’ as opposed to ‘natural variable climate change’ has been totally discredited just as Al Gore has been. Mark Steyn in his brilliant book ‘A disgrace to their profession” proves as others have that this 95% is an actual lie.
It’s rather like the ‘eight out of ten cat owners said their cats prefer ‘Kit e Kat’, all they need to do is trial one hundred people find eight that are happy and two that aren’t ( because ninety don’t know, rather like most scientists and climate change ) and hey presto Kit e Kat is the next best thing since sliced bread.
I ask you this :-
Just 100 miles down the road from the floods in Cumbria is a waterfall that hasn’t had any water running from it in over two hundred years of recorded history. It now has running water down it again.
To me the logical explanation bearing in mind there was no industrial age then or polluting cars then is that it was a wetter period, it went drier hence it dried up, now it is wetter again hence it is falling again.
Is your explanation that this wet weather is due to man? if so why has it been wetter and drier in the past if natural climate change does not exist, I would love to read your contortions?
Does he mean this 97%?
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+sierra+club+97%25&view=detail&mid=0BF15FFDE44963B1B36B0BF15FFDE44963B1B36B&FORM=VIRE1
The evidence that Climate science is dominated by fraudsters is that the fraudster treats assumptions as facts. That’s how they get promoted, as they must comply with the political consensus if they are to avoid damage to their career. Investigations reveal that the BBC is top of the list in support for this authoritarian censorship policy, as was revealed recently by the actions of Richard Ayre. The BBC is the main enemy of independent scientists in Britain today. Its much safer if you are retired. ITS THAT BAD
I heard that when students use lots of old long range weather forecasts to judge which weather forecaster gets the weather correct the most. Piers Corbyn’s Weatheraction always wins by a mile.
Edward: I am not aware of any currant reputable polling organisation that has polled every causational climate scientist in Britain. It would need to be a secret poll, due to fears of being sacked. The 95 percent poll was done years ago in the US, and included mostly scientists who had nothing to do with Atmospheric Physics and Solar Astronomy, but where just following the consensus of political opinion prevailing in the general population at the time, due to media brainwashing.
You should also read my latest post on Weatheraction, and the Mensa article on “BBC CENSORSHIP”
Can you give a link please for the 95% figure, I believe it refers to government-funded certified climate scientists in the main, not the whole scientific community but I could be wrong.
Sorry, it’s actually 97% of climate scientists.
Your 97% of Climate Scientists lie has been shown to be such rubbish that even the green loonies at the Guardian had to admit it was not true , as it was based on just 75 selected replies in the Doran/ Zimmerman paper .Then rehashed with even less believability by Cook Et Al .
But as every actual climate fact shows AGW is not happening , the 97% concensus is one of the lies that the scammers keep coming back to .
OK, so why are we being lied to?
Edward
‘OK, so why are we being lied to?..
Oh dear me!
The answer to why any lie is told is to look to see who gains.
Green taxes = vast monies for government = vast monies for huge corporations getting government ( our ) grants for the development of ‘renewable energies’ which they then control.
But most of all it is about control of every day lives and living. There is scarcely any part of human activity in the west today that doesn’t have some control. Once upon a time you could lawfully do most things. Now more oft than not you have to have a law that allows you to do something.
Your question would need an encyclopedia length reply and to be honest I can’t be bothered, you need to open your eyes like most here have. it’s really rather easy once you know how!
So what does NASA get out of all these lies?
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
NASA Administrators seem to be either touting for Government money, or as with the democrats, have money thrust at them to do more to support the Political Consensus manufactured by the United Nations. As you can see on this website, funding NASA‘s role in this scam is an expanding self perpetuating drain on the taxpayer, all for the benefit of NASA employees, and NO ONE ELSE. Apart from errors due to issues with outdated trends and Ice core data. It also says:
“In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first speculated that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect”
So there we have it in words, on the NASA website, the core error for the biggest scientific fraud in history.
Edward says (see above) I have also stated numerous times that I don’t give a crap about climate change one way or the other….
Yep, sure sounds like it.
Here’s your 97% Edward
http://richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/now-almost-two-years-old-john-cooks-97.html
Although there are large areas of substantive agreement, climate science is far from settled. Witness the dozens of alternative explanations of the current, 18 year long pause in warming of the surface atmosphere. The debate on the seriousness of climate change or what to do about it ranges even more widely.
The Cook paper is remarkable for its quality, though. Cook and colleagues studied some 12,000 papers, but did not check whether their sample is representative for the scientific literature. It isn’t. Their conclusions are about the papers they happened to look at, rather than about the literature. Attempts to replicate their sample failed: A number of papers that should have been analysed were not, for no apparent reason.
The sample was padded with irrelevant papers. An article about TV coverage on global warming was taken as evidence for global warming. In fact, about three-quarters of the papers counted as endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter.
Cook enlisted a small group of environmental activists to rate the claims made by the selected papers. Cook claims that the ratings were done independently, but the raters freely discussed their work. There are systematic differences between the raters. Reading the same abstracts, the raters reached remarkably different conclusions – and some raters all too often erred in the same direction. Cook’s hand-picked raters disagreed what a paper was about 33% of the time. In 63% of cases, they disagreed about the message of a paper with the authors of that paper….
etc
Happy reading.
Alan
The idealistic, neutral, unbiased, impartial, even-handed, open minded attitude peddled by FatPratten, with which you begin your analysis, are typical of the soon-to-be-extinct organism BBCus-Maximus-Liesus-24us-7us-365/366us-Greedy-Leftieus-Snoutus-in-Troughus-Treasonus-Perpetualis Cuntus-Totalus-Queerus (Linnaeus 1758,) and differs markedly from the actual behaviour of IslamicAl-Beeb in its occasional, adventitious, subnanosecondlong, contacts with real science.
On non-scientific subjects IslamicAl-Beeb behaves in a diametrically opposed manner. Marxist.
Naturally when real, genuine, science meets lefty propaganda something has to give, and it is always the science. Worse, it is always the scientists. Scientists belong to the order Grantus-Seekus-Principles-Abandondedonus-Resultus-Tailoredus-to-Your-Requirementsus-Lepidoptera, and as such undergo a complete metamorphosis. However, due to the poisoning of the biosphere by Beeboids and other sinistral parasites, the metamorphosis is irredeemably corrupted and the imagines are defective.
Liked the Bruegel, it would have been better if airbrushed and showing IslamicAl-Beeb staff being torn apart by ravenous wolves, complete with copious amounts of real blood.
The formatting trolls have awakened from hibernation.
” Harrabin and Joe Smith of the CMEP have worked out a devious scheme to sideline sceptics…don’t talk about the science…talk about risk or how to stop the world warming…..
‘Climate change should not be responded to as a body of ‘facts’ to be acted upon (with the IPCC acting as prime arbiter). Instead it should be considered as a substantial and urgent collective risk management problem. Projecting climate change as a risk problem rather than a communication-of-fact problem helpfully deflates ‘debates’ about whether climate change is or is not a scientific fact.
My point is: lets not get stuck on the science. Climate change is a vast and widening body of investigation and debate: science is now barely the half of it, and in terms of political outcomes it is not the thing that counts.….a line that is designed to work for people who have ideological wax blocking their ears: ‘don’t get het up about communicating science – talk about clean American energy and jobs in a new efficient, competitive economy’.’ ”
The above is a very useful bit of evidence. It appears to be a quote. Alan, please can you supply the source. Is it a press comment? Recent?
We had quite a heavy frost last night. I wonder if Roger Harrabin is going to give us an update on the fate of his strawberries?
Edward
“I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen any evidence that would suggest there is a conspiracy to con the world into believing in impending climatic doom and gloom. I haven’t seen any statistics that contradict the fact that the world is warming”
I won’t get into the science – or non-science – here since this site concerns itself with BBC bias. The fact that the BBC decided – on the back of a spurious meeting of non-scientists in 2006 – to effectively prevent any non-“consensus” opinion concerning AGW being broadcast is a scandal in itself. The BBC compounded its bias by refusing (by rejecting a FoI request) to inform us that the participants in this farce were not the claimed “high-level scientists” but mainly BBC apparatchiks. The continuing refusal by the BBC to give sceptics any broadcast time speaks of a weakness in the anthropogenic climate change case. After all, if the case is so self-evident you would expect the BBC to welcome sceptics on to the air to humiliate them often and publicly. That this does not happen points rather to the gaping holes in the “science” relied on by warmists.
You now claim that there is no contrary evidence to discredit warmism. Were you interested, you might seek some of the evidence by going to the Bishop Hill, Judith Curry or Antony Watts sites. My guess is that you won’t. Evidently your mind is closed. So closed that, not only do you accuse Alan of “climate change denial” (no-one sane, BTW, denies that the climate changes), worse – in the context of this site’s purpose – you support the censorship imposed by the BBC on any mention, let alone evidence, that climate change might not be substantially man-made.
Edward dear chap please differentiate between climate change and alleged man made climate change… but of course you can’t can you? That is your problem and I think you will have to live with the fact that you are not able to think for yourself. Just let the tv papers and radio be your thought process. This is a site for enlightened people perhaps you should go elsewhere bearing in mind as you say that you ‘don’t give a crap about climate change’!
As a science graduate I find claims that the AGW hypothesis has the status of ‘settled’ science to be very interesting. This would suggest that only some minor details need to be ironed out. If that is the case, why are there so many versions of global climate models all giving different answers? Different answers implies different models which implies different processes with different parameters being modelled. If that is the case, the other favourite climate science trick of averaging different models is invalid. So which is it? Is the science settled, if so why the different answers? If the science is not settled how can different models be averaged?
Perhaps our resident climate expert can explain it.
“As a science graduate…”
Any particular science? Anything to do with climatology perhaps?
“As a science graduate…”
This suggests the ability to question any hypothesis as to it’s veracity.
In other words, the science is never “settled”.
Over to you “Edward”, I look forward to your denial of the principle.
Physics. That is the branch of science that should underpin climate science. Admittedly, that was way back in the 80s when all science was taught on this basis:
You have a fixed figure for Black body temperature and Global Surface temperature. All the rest is a simple fantasy based on using 300ppm of CO2, to 400ppm with an increase of 0.76 Kelvin. You don’t need Computer Models for that calculation, just a pen and paper and a calculator. But Computer Models are more impressive to the left-wing Arts and Media studies morons who dominate the Environmental movement.
But the proof that its fantasy is that from “Black body temperature to Surface temperature” on Mars is 3 Kelvin for the equivalent of four times doubling of CO2, adjusting for the distance from the Sun. A figure that produces one tenth of that assumed for the Earth. Do that with Venus which has a quarter of a million times more CO2 than the Earth, and you realise that the Arrhenius method must be bullshit. But then the Grey body temperature in the Unified Theory of Climate exists in reality, while the Black body temperature is a none existent theoretical limit.
Richard,
You hit the nail on the head with,’ But Computer Models are more impressive to the left-wing Arts and Media studies morons who dominate the Environmental movement.’
These people, such as Harrabin, like to use scientific language to try and give their BS credibility whilst conveniently ignoring that credibility was earned by the rigorous application of the scientific method. Hence the constant whining about consensus. Sadly, the ignoratti have reached critical mass in the media and can effectively keep dissenting voices out.
Can’t be having any criticism of CAGW on the BBC, but jihadi wannabes are no problem at all. Guido Fawkes writes
IT appears that the BBC chauffeured the Islamic extremist “Jihadi Sid” to a series of interviews so he could spout his pro-ISIS views on national TV.
The BBC insists it can find no record of having paid Siddhartha Dhar for four TV appearances before he fled to Syria.
Though it did not deny that the licence-payer had forked out for taxis to take him along to the studio.
Why was Auntie giving a platform to a Daesh supporter who, just a few months later, executed a hostage in a sick propaganda video?