Author Archives: DB

David Shukman on weather and climate

By | |
28 Comments

Following yesterday’s item aimed at making sure the kids are still on message about MMGW, today we had Newsround for grown-ups. In a report which aired on the 6 pm news on both BBC 1 and Radio 4 this evening, David Shukman explained:

“The key thing is that there’s a difference between the weather and the climate. The weather’s what you get day by day, month by month, like this cold spell. But the climate is the kind of weather you get over a thirty year period, and that’s what the scientists say is changing.”

He was a little less clear about any distinctions back in May 2008 when he reported on a dry spell affecting Spain:

In a year that so far ranks as Spain’s driest since records began 60 years ago, the reservoir is currently holding as little as 18% of its capacity – at a time of year when winter rains would usually have provided an essential boost by now…
And it may also remind people of the forecasts from climate scientists of still drier conditions to come in the approaching decades.

As soon as Shukman left the area, it rained. A lot. From the Guardian, 7 June 2008:

After months of the worst drought for 60 years, Spain has experienced the wettest May since 1971; it rained on 18 days of the month. Heavy rains have continued into June, which is rare during the Spanish summer…
In Catalonia, the worst affected area, reservoirs whose levels had been reduced to only 20% are now nearly half full.

A proposed water pipeline, cited by Shukman as evidence of the changing climate, was cancelled. From New Europe, 16 June 2008:

The Spanish government recently cancelled a controversial plan to build a 62-kilometre pipeline to divert water from the river Ebro in the Tarragona region to the Catalan capital Barcelona, Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said. There was no longer the situation of “extraordinary necessity” that had prompted the plan, Vega said.

If Shukman did a follow-up pointing any of this out, I can’t find it online.

Here are some images from his May 2008 report. This, remember, was explained with reference to climate change:

And here are some images taken from a Spanish blog in October 2009 showing the blogger’s recent kayaking trip to the same Sau reservoir:


The blogger states (via Google Translate):

This year the Sau had a significant level in the water, exposing only the latest instalment of the famous bell tower of the church of Sant Romà de Sau.

As far as the BBC is concerned, some weather events are more climate change than others.

Update 8 January 10.40am. The BBC School Report website offers children the benefit of David Shukman’s top ten tips for reporting the environment. In tip 7 Shukman tells the kids:

If it’s about a drought, stand in a dried-out reservoir.

If the drought then suddenly ends, thus undermining your narrative, don’t worry – just move on to the next alarmist story.

Best of all is this sentence from tip 9:

You’re an ambassador for common-sense in a world of spin.

Who knew Shukman had such a sense of humour? (Hyphenating “common sense” in that context isn’t setting a very good example to budding journalists, though.)

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Newsround Thought Police

By | | ,
14 Comments

Hat tip to “Votefor” in the comments for drawing attention to the latest edition of Newsround (the BBC’s news programme aimed at children, for those who don’t know).

This evening’s programme began with a report from Manchester showing kids enjoying a day off school because of the snow.

Innocent winter fun, same as it ever was?

Not as far as the BBC Newsround thought police are concerned, relentless as they are in their fight against potential global warming thoughtcrimes.

Back in the studio, presenter Sonali was on hand to remind any young viewers who had spent the day having fun in the snow about the terrible super-heated future of our planet:

Sonali: Now this cold snap has been going on since before Christmas so you probably won’t be surprised to hear that last month was the coldest December we’ve had in 14 years. But we’re always hearing about global warming so what’s going on? Well BBC weatherman Simon King has popped into the studio to help clear up any confusion. Hi there Simon.

Simon: Hello.

Sonali: So why are we seeing this snow when the planet’s heating up?

Simon: Well the snow we’re seeing at the moment is actually a very rare event. Normally we’d expect to see much milder conditions, but if we look at the whole of 2009 and average the UK temperature, 2009 was actually the fourteenth warmest year on record, so things are signalling to be warming up.

Sonali: And do you think, then, it would have been even colder at the moment?

Simon: Well decades ago the river Thames used to freeze, we used to have snow and ice every week causing all sorts of disruption, so things in the future we could start to see more extreme weather like this. It won’t happen every year unfortunately but we could see more colder winters and much hotter summers, so lots of heavy showers, flooding possibly in the United Kingdom and other severe weather across the globe.

Sonali: Really? Everywhere, everyone is going to see extreme weather?

Simon: Absolutely. Well, the globe is warming up. If we look at the whole of the globe and average all of the temperatures there, we can actually say that 2009 was the fifth warmest year on record so the signals are certainly there that our planet is warming up.

Sonali: Thank you very much for coming in Simon. And speaking of that extreme weather, over on the other side of the world Australia has been sweltering through its hottest decade since records began. Now part of the country is recovering from another natural disaster – powerful rainstorms.

Hope that helps to “clear up any confusion” kids. You see, we used to have snow and ice “every week”, but because of global warming we get milder weather except when we get the same extreme weather we used to get before global warming. Or something. Anyway, never mind all that because it’s been a bit hot in Australia and now it’s a bit wet. You see, it’s all global warming, children. Just promise you won’t flick channels and watch all the news about record snowfalls in China and America, OK? That would be too much confusion to clear up in one programme.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Ski Reports

By | | , ,
8 Comments

With ski resorts from Scotland to Scandinavia and down to Italy once again reporting great snow conditions this winter I thought it might be worth taking a little look back at some predictions for the ski industry, as reported by the BBC.

5 November 1998:

As warm weather threatens to close some 200 Swiss ski resorts, British and Swiss scientists have begun a joint study to examine the impact of global warming on the Alps.
Their inquiry follows some unusually warm winter weather that has left many skiing resorts without fresh snow for weeks.

14 November 1998:

Some popular Italian ski resorts could be without snow by 2008 if winter temperatures continue to rise at their present rate, according to European scientists.

(From latest Ski Club of GB snow report, 31 December 2009: “Italy has some of the best conditions in the Alps this week. Lots of fresh snow has fallen in many places and impressive snow bases mean even where the snow hasn’t fallen there is still good skiing”)

17 November 2001:

Global warming may hit skiing
By the BBC’s James Cove, in the Swiss Alps.

Scientists are warning that global warming is melting Alpine glaciers at an unprecedented rate.
They claim that in 15 years time, many low level ski resorts could have no snow at all.

28 November 2003:

The closure of Glencoe ski resort has come as a blow to the winter tourism industry in Scotland…
The theory that global warming could be to blame for the difficulties at Glencoe is favoured by Professor Adam Watson from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Banchory, Aberdeenshire.
He said: “With temperatures rising at the speed they are, within 20 years, skiing in Scotland could be finished.”

(Ski Club of GB snow report 31 December 2009 – “Glencoe (30/50cm) is in superb shape thanks to the recent wintry weather that has brought fresh snow to all of our featured Scottish resorts.”)

Oddly enough, no mention of “global warming” or “climate change” in this report from 24 January 2005:

Alpine resorts hit by snow chaos
By James Cove

Huge snowstorms have hit the Alps over the past week, causing massive disruption and a number of deaths.

But even fresh snowfall couldn’t prevent the inevitable references cropping up again the following winter. 17 December 2005:

Relief as snow hits ski resorts
By James Cove

With a week to go until Christmas, ski resorts are breathing a collective sigh of relief as snow finally falls across many parts of the Alps.

However, low level resorts face a bleak future with scientists increasingly concerned about global warming.

And the winter after that. 11 November 2006:

James Cove, BBC News

Climate change has had a significant impact on the multi-million pound ski industry, and it is now becoming increasingly reliant on man-made snow pumped out on to the slops by snow cannons

13 December 2006:

Global warming could make some Alpine ski resorts unviable within decades, a study has warned.

17 December 2006:

James Cove reports from the Alps

Ski resorts across the European Alps are becoming increasingly worried as current bad snow conditions threaten the all important Christmas holiday period…

Many believe global warming is to blame for the lack of snow.

Two months later Mr Cove appeared to suffer a sudden bout of amnesia. 18 February 2007:

Fresh snow boosts Alpine ski industry
By James Cove

Some ski resorts in the Alps have had up to a metre of fresh snow which they now hope will signal an end to one of the poorest winters in recent years…

The snow has come at an ideal time with half-term holidays across Europe. The European ski industry hopes it will help salvage its tarnished image – some people are beginning to think of the Alps as having a problem with snow. [Where could they be getting that idea from? DB.]

Bad press, bad for business

“All the stories in the press earlier this winter about the poor snowfalls did damage to the ski industry as there is now a widespread perception there is no snow,” said Toby Mallock, the commercial director of the Verbier ski school, European Snowsport.

“Of course the conditions were bad in many resorts at the beginning of the season, but they are not now.”

There are many myths and misconceptions prompted by concerns about global warming and the effect it may have on the ski industry.

“It’s a little reported fact that last winter in the Alps, it was actually the coldest for over two decades. Everyone thinks the Alps are just getting warmer and warmer,” said Olivier Roduit, a Swiss mountain guide.

This Christmas, wide sections of the media reported on the poor snow conditions in the Alps, blaming it on high temperatures [Once again, who could that have been? DB]. Not true.

It was well below zero in many resorts but it simply did not snow. The temperature had little to do with it.

But a few months later it was business as usual for the BBC’s man in the Alps. 12 August 2007:

Ski resorts seek new summer image
By James Cove

Alpine ski resorts are making a special effort to attract tourists this summer, amid fears about climate change and the impact of warmer temperatures on winter snow.

And he was at it again a year ago, dutifully trotting out the alarmist line. 3 January 2009:

A lack of snow caused by global warming could be threatening the future of many ski resorts, according to scientists.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned of the eventual disappearance of some low-lying mountain resorts.
James Cove reports from the Swiss Alps.

(Swiss resorts had a bumper 2008/9 season, as did those across Europe: “Conditions in the Alps and Pyrenees are as good as they have been for 25 years, according to the Ski Club of Great Britain.”)

So, if you’re going skiing this year at one of the resorts which “scientists” told us should have closed by now, spare a thought for James Cove and his BBC colleagues; the poor sods must be wondering where their next “Ski industry doomed by global warming” articles are going to come from.

Update 18.20pm. James Cove appears to have taken some time off from his BBC employment to set up his own website, PlanetSKI. From his base in Verbier, Switzerland, he blogged the following on the 3 December, 2009:

As we approach 2010 it seems worth asking how the noughties have been for snowfall?

An analysis of the facts shows that in Verbier the snow level has been pretty similar on average throughout the last decade.  I have looked through the details of every year and every month and quite frankly there isn’t much difference. There was more snow on average at the beginning of the decade, but not that much more. At 73-years old Hubert Cretton is the resort’s oldest working mountain guide, and has been a high mountain guide for almost 50 years.  “Sometimes we get good winters and sometimes we can get bad ones,” he observes. “Overall things really haven’t changed that much. The winter of 1962/63 saw huge levels of snowfall and then 1 year later we had a very poor winter and many resorts had to close early due to a lack of snow.”

I get the impression that James is a decent Cove who just wants to ski, and as such has spent a decade giving BBC editors what they wanted to hear so he can carry on with his favourite pastime. I might have done the same thing given the chance. Anyway, I wish him well with his new venture.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Soulmates

By | |
10 Comments

Here’s BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner on the Phil Williams show (Radio Five Live, 31/12/09) discussing the Guardian’s front page story about Iran’s involvement in the kidnap of Peter Moore and his bodyguards:

“They’ve spent a lot of time and money and given cameras to people going into places that are too dangerous for Western reporters to go to. To some extent we’ve worked with them in the last few weeks trying to stand up or down their claims, and they’ve allowed us to interview, or re-interview, some of the people who they’ve used as sources.”

Does the BBC provide weeks of journalistic assistance to all newspapers seeking to break major stories or is this licence fee funded service available only to the Guardian?

(Happy New Year to all, btw)

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Johnny Ball booed from Robin Ince gig

By | |
22 Comments

Johnny Ball was booed off stage last night after questioning man made climate change during his part in a Christmas show celebrating atheism and science. The crowd for ‘Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People’, organised by BBC regular Robin Ince, was too close-minded to hear him out. Ince has criticised Ball’s views on Twitter and Ball says he won’t be doing the climate change stuff in future shows. More from the Telegraph.

I see also that another rationalist, the flimflam debunker James Randi, has expressed scepticism over claims that the science is settled. Like Johnny Ball, he too has come under attack for his views.

(Full disclosure – I’m an atheist climate change sceptic.)

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Copenhagen Guest Blogger

By | | , , ,
11 Comments

(This is a guest blog from BBC environment correspondent Richard Blackbin in Copenhagen.)

Why can’t more people be just like me?

The question first came to mind on the plane to Copenhagen as I caressed my cheek with my Guardian COP15 84-page pull-out supplement.

If more people were like BBC environment correspondents, I reflected, then the world would be a better place because people like me understand things so much better than ordinary folk.

Gazing out from the window at the frosty city landscape while we circled the airport, another thought struck me: perhaps I should have worn a little more than a Greenpeace T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and Birkenstock sandals.

I asked the stewardess if there was a clothes shop in the terminal building where I could purchase some sturdy boots and a reasonably priced winter coat made from sustainable natural products, but she didn’t seem to understand.

“Have you at least heard of Fair Trade in Denmark?” I asked, pointedly.

“Sir, I can’t understand a word you’re saying when you’ve got your thumb in your mouth,” she replied, rather too harshly for my liking. Maybe she was one of those “conservative women” one sometimes hears about. I was quite shaken, and decided not to press the issue. I would jolly well find a shop myself, I thought.

As things turned out, I didn’t have to.

There I was shivering by the baggage carousel waiting for my duffle bag (small size, made from sustainable Romanian hemp) when who should I see but Marmaduke Quimly-Farquharson, one of Oxfam’s go-getting young press officers. We have shared many thousands of air miles together travelling the world to exotic locations for various climate conferences. Indeed, we’d both been on the same flight just then but thanks to all this frightful recent scrutiny about BBC expenses I’m no longer able to travel up in first with all my pals from the NGOs.

In one of the many acts of kindness one often experiences at these events (populated as they are by caring planet-loving types and not old right-wing white men with their sceptical views) Marmaduke offered to lend me a coat on condition that I give Oxfam a bit of a mention now and then during my reports. I agreed, of course. “After all, we’re in this together!” I said.

“Indeed we are!” he replied. “Why quite can’t more people be just like you, Richard?”

My thoughts exactly.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Group Fisk

By | | ,
39 Comments

Richard Black asks ‘Why are virtually all climate “sceptics” men?‘ I don’t have time to give this the fisking it deserves but I’ll get the ball rolling by noting that the question occurred to him while reading the Guardian on a plane to Copenhagen.

[Hat tips to Rachel Miller (funny name for a climate sceptic) and Roland Deschain in the comments.]

Update. Also, feel free to add your own Richard Black-style questions. For example:

Why are virtually all BBC “journalists” left-wing?
Why are virtually all BBC “environment correspondents” arts graduates?
Why are virtually all “reports by Justin Rowlatt” such desperate pleas for attention?

Update. 17.35. A quick scan of the comments at Black’s blog suggests that the group fisk is already taking place over there. Don’t let that stop you here, though.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Today Again

By | | , ,
10 Comments

I’m not the biggest fan of the Cameron-led Conservative Party, but even I was forced to wonder where the Today programme gets balls big enough to follow yesterday’s double-team attack on Tory spokesman Phil Hammond with another one-sided assault on Tory policy this morning. Daniel “Danny” Dorling, a socialist professor of human geography, was given the prime-time slot following Thought For The Day to promote the idea of expanding public sector employment and increasing taxation. Conservative-proposed spending cuts were singled out for criticism by Dorling and his softball-tossing interviewer Sarah Montague. There was no one to offer a counter opinion and not the slightest pretence of balance. It’s not just the political parties that are already in election mode; the Today programme’s manifesto is taking shape too. (Interview can be heard here)

Immediately after Dorling, Justin Webb interviewed Sir David King about his proposal to have a climate scientist on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee. King got very irate when Webb brought up the CRU emails. Even though Webb wasn’t challenging the consensus view, the very mention of the emails is now considered off-limits as far as the high priests of the Warmist cult are concerned. Webb took his punishment meekly, like a good on-message Today presenter should. (Interview can be heard here)

Here’s a rushed transcript of the relevant segment:

King: It’s rather like the fact that there’s a labour market economist on the MPC itself, on the group, designed to stop monetarists riding roughshod over the jobless people. In other words that person has a particular hat to wear, and I’m saying why not put someone on there who understands energy, energy technology, low carbon moves and wears that hat and can express it right there when policies are being decided on our finances.

Webb: You look at the University of East Anglia emails and you do wonder, actually, whether putting someone there would just make them a target, quite apart from anyone else, a target from their own colleagues. It’s not settled enough, is it, to have someone doing the job and everyone accepting that they are doing the right job?

King: Good heavens. What are you saying is not settled enough? The science of climate change?

Webb: No, not the science, but the arguments, the flurries of discussion and dissent among the scientists themselves, and that to have someone there…

King: There is very little discussion and dissent among the scientists. That’s a total misreading of the theft of the UEA emails.

Webb: Well you can see it in the emails, can’t you?

King: (getting angry now) I’m sorry, that is an interpretation of the emails – the scientific community is of one voice on the issue. Is the planet warming up at the moment? That was the issue around the emails, and our Met Office, not involved in the issue, has published its own set of data this week demonstrating that of course we know icebergs are melting, we’re losing ice around the planet, every single piece of evidence from satellites, from temperature measurements is showing that the temperature has risen by three quarters of a degree centigrade.

Webb: OK, and you want that information to be there at the top table in the Treasury, in the Bank of England. Sir David, thank you very much.

“Sir David, thank you very much. May I have another?“

Does anybody else get the impression that Sir David has been rattled by Climategate? As more and more holes appear in their theory, King and his fellow zealots become ever more shrill in their declaration that the science is settled and that all dissent should be crushed. Talking of which, check out the Stalinist heading to King’s article in the latest Prospect magazine:

The Bank’s green future
Darling is getting it wrong on climate change. Now scientists must shape monetary policy.

Update 13.30. Just noticed that Umbongo mentioned these two interviews in the comments to an earlier blog post. Don’t want to deprive anybody of a tip of the hat.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Graphic example of bias

By | |
14 Comments

On Monday December 7, BBC1’s News at Ten adopted an interesting use of scale to illustrate claims about greenhouse gas emissions made by Lord Stern’s Grantham Research Institute:

As you can see the entire 2009 column fits easily into the gap between the GRI’s projected and hoped for target for 2020, giving a misleading, exaggerated impression. (The screengrab comes from this week’s Newswatch.)

Update 19.35. In the comments Asuka notes the use of danger-sign red for the word “Carbon”. And of course, green equals good.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.