http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/20/climate-change-negotiations-failure

“…The closer it comes, the worse it looks. The best outcome anyone now expects from December’s climate summit in Mexico is that some delegates might stay awake during the meetings. When talks fail once, as they did in Copenhagen, governments lose interest. They don’t want to be associated with failure, they don’t want to pour time and energy into a broken process. Nine years after the world trade negotiations moved to Mexico after failing in Qatar, they remain in diplomatic limbo. Nothing in the preparations for the climate talks suggests any other outcome…”

Copenhagen was never seriously going to deliver, and I don’t think most of the protesters on the streets in Copenhagen thought so. Activist demands, including from activist nations, were always going to be ignored, The solutions really didn’t come to the conference, and the problems really lay elsewhere.

But there’s no need to utterly despair, George !

You ask, “Climate change enlightenment was fun while it lasted. But now it’s dead : The collapse of the talks at Copenhagen took away all momentum for change and the lobbyists are back in control. So what next?”, and the two most obvious things to say are :-

a. The media have failed the public.

b. The big institutions working on global issues, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, have failed to perceive and deflect political attacks.

David Cromwell and David Edwards of MediaLens write :-

http://www.medialens.org/board/

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1285056426.html

“Re: The battle against climate change is now over. Climate change won. : Posted by The Editors on September 21, 2010, 9:07 am, in reply to “The battle against climate change is now over. Climate change won.” : Monbiot: “To compensate for our weakness, we indulged a fantasy of benign paternalistic power – acting, though the political mechanisms were inscrutable, in the wider interests of humankind. We allowed ourselves to believe that, with a little prompting and protest, somewhere, in a distant institutional sphere, compromised but decent people would take care of us. They won’t. They weren’t ever going to do so. So what do we do now?”. We turn on the corporate media that are a huge part of this problem. The attitude of the Greens to the media has always been pitiful. Time and again groups like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Green Party have told us, ‘We have to maintain good relations with the media.’ But if the world is sleeping, the mainstream media is the great corporate sandman. It really is time to wake up about that. Working through the media does not work. Eds”

Declaring war on the media is quite a bold call. A great number of people straddle and cross the boundaries between science communications and media. Should we ask everyone to step outside the publishing house circus ?

And would we see a different flavour from the writings of those such as Richard Black and Roger Harrabin if they were to quit the BBC ?

Is George Monbiot’s position compromised by continuing to write for The Guardian ? This is a question that has been posed by MediaLens contributors in the past.

Opinion is varied on that. But what is clear is that new non-traditional organisations have the opportunity to take on the role of being the best communicators on Climate Change.

Trouble is, currently that’s mostly the sceptic-deniers. But that could change, and that is maybe what George Monbiot could promote – New Media on accurate Climate Change Science reporting.

George, George, you wonderfully caring fellow, you should keep your spirits up – there are masses of people out there, all over the world, planting trees, growing organic crops, cycling their whole lives, building sustainably and putting up wind turbines – bypassing the politicking and posturing on Climate Change policy and just getting on with the things that need to be done. Quite economically beneficial, too, sometimes.

Get back your positive perspective, George, do. Chin up, old man !

Come, call with us for a truly sustainable media, outside the press barons’ nosebags and troughs. Let us tell the whole, unwholesome, worrisome narrative of the Climate Change Science, and let’s make Climate Change policy a voting-worthy issue !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11322929

“16 September 2010 : Climate change advisers urge UK to prepare for change : By Richard Black : Environment correspondent, BBC News : The UK needs to prepare itself quickly to deal with the impacts of climate change, government advisers warn. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says climate effects are already being felt in the UK in the form of higher temperatures and changing seasons. Using land more sensibly, adapting buildings and planning for emergencies are areas where it recommends action. Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman describes the CCC’s adaptation report as “a wake-up call”. “There is no part of our society which is immune from the effects of climate change,” she is due to say in a speech on Thursday. “Britain’s economy will only be as resilient and prepared as British firms, communities and infrastructure.”…”

Who’s going to pay for that, then ?

Oh dear. It appears that the Edinburgh Chapter of the Peoples Golfing Association, formed in 2005 ahead of the G8 Gleneagles Summit, has got the band back together at the Climate Camp, and played a round just a tad too close to the buildings of the Headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-11054166

“22 August 2010 : Climate change protesters arrested at RBS office : Two women have been arrested after climate change protesters attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) Edinburgh headquarters on Sunday. More than 100 protesters took part in the action, which also involved an oil-like substance being thrown at the building and windows being smashed. The protest comes in response to RBS’s investment in oil industry developments around the world…Shaun Caulfield, who took part in the attempted raid, said: “RBS is one of the biggest climate criminals in the UK. People are angry that bankers are ploughing the billions that they got in the bail out into incredibly destructive fossil fuel projects around the world.” Golf balls were also apparently thrown at the building, the Press Association reported…”

I wouldn’t call it an “attack”. It was more like a good walk spoiled.

And as for “attempted raid”…well…there are plenty enough doors to sneak through, nobody needs to break anything to get inside. They probably didn’t.

Who chipped the first ball into the panes of expensive coated glass, eh ? Lady golfers or police chappies ?

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/east-central/193315-hundreds-gather-for-rbs-climate-camp-protest/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/aug/23/climate-camp-day-action-edinburgh

The SDC guys and gals have been such vocal, radical thinkers. They have contributed so much to public discourse and the politics of Climate Change. The country needs their services.

Ironically, their take-no-prisoners approach to the facts could have made them a natural target for the chop. Perhaps the political establishment can see no need for a hotbed of academic “dissent” (otherwise known as “truthtelling”).

In a sense, the SDC have been so convincing and effective, they’ve worked themselves out of a job :-

http://www.mrw.co.uk/news/defra-announces-withdrawal-of-funding-for-sustainable-development-commission/8603660.article

Let this not be an end to transparent research and strong demands for de-carbonisation in public life !

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/08/hacked-climate-science-emails-climate-change

I think the appropriate question would be, “How has Climategate poisoned the minds of journalists and their editors ?”

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace gets it spot on :-

“Stewart says it is the media, not the CRU scientists, who are to blame for any extra confusion among the public…”The emails didn’t change the way that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, but the media created a situation that presented a false symmetry between the various sides of the debate.”

The newspapers and TV programmes are in danger of losing their customers if they continue selling such dodgy wares.

Climategate has been a pseudo-scandal, written in the language of acrimony and suspicion, personal and professional attacks making claims of bad behaviour amongst scientists, arguments with extremely poor foundations.

Yet the Science still stands. Climate Change is still happening and we are still responsible for it. “We” in the inclusive sense, that is. The majority of bad behaviour is to be found in the business plans of energy companies. They show little intention of de-carbonising the resources of energy they sell to the rest of us.

The Media is a circus on Climate Change, but not a very entertaining one.

It’s time for some proper science journalism in the daily press.

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/233887

“…he says, people tend to use hockey-stick graphs when they are trying to pull one over on you. “Reality usually isn’t so tidy.”…”

Er, no. Nobody could rightly assert that Climate scientists have been trying to trick anybody. Why does Newsweek not decline his argument ?

And another thing. In point of fact, nobody, not even Steven McIntyre, who does a good impression of conniving with any ignorant, mealy-mouthed, cynics he can find, has managed to unseat the Hockey Stick :-

http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/04/penn-state-michael-mann-hockey-stick-science/

A year of so back, you could trust “shoddy research” Melanie Phillips to be on the wrong side of nasty about it though – and she still seems to know nothing about Climate Change science even though she seems to know a lot about the emotive use of language to push her apparently jaded opinion :-

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3332616/that-famous-consensus.thtml

And of course, James Delingpole, another non-scientist, doesn’t know how to interpret the facts emerging from Climate science either, nor recognise the authority of the data, and instead bangs on about a methodological mindspace called “post-normal science” as a ruse in order to avoid looking at the facts :-

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/all/5780868/part_4/postnormal-science-is-perfect-for-climate-demagogues-it-isnt-science-at-all.thtml

Post-Normal Science enquiry was proposed to increase engagement with science and navigate safely around risks and uncertainties, so it is a supreme irony that James Delingpole has not been able to use this method to dodge his personal fact-free conclusion icebergs.

The minor headline of the Newsweek article repeats a recent viral phrase that has absolutely no basis :-

“Iceberg Ahead : Climate scientists who play fast and loose with the facts are imperiling not just their profession but the planet.”

Let me repeat : there is absolutely no evidence that Climate scientists have “played fast and loose with the data”.

That accusation must have originated in the mouth of Steve McIntyre, or one of his little cohort of email analysts, and like most of their pronouncements on the motivations, agenda and modus operandi of Climate scientists, it is pure bilge.

There is evidence of minor issues in the gathering, sampling and processing of Climate data, that much has been admitted – it’s a global job and you can’t be everywhere at the same time – it was bound to be problematic.

However, the analysis of Climate data is still sound, and Steve McIntyre should back away from the charts. His seemingly closed mind makes him unqualified to contribute helpfully. I think that most people studying his involvement in Climate science would conclude that his agenda is to deliberately create setbacks. This is unacceptable interference.

We’re still going to get the same outcomes, even if we get there a few years late thanks to the bad attitude of Climate deniers, who increasingly have to rely on the techniques of mind-control psychologists to create false impressions and insecurities that keep the general public from accepting reality.

The world is warming. It’s caused by humans burning Fossil Fuels and cutting down trees and making chemicals and cement. Admit it, Steven McIntyre.

I want to pose a general question to Climate denier-sceptics : you want us to believe that you have a reasonable position from which to critique Climate science, but your input seems to consist mostly of personal smears, unfounded accusations and false assertions. How can you be such brazen myth-tellers ? Who sanctions you to create such a divisive mess ?

Steve McIntyre, as a retired mining geologist probably relies on the profits from his mining investments to keep him into his potentially feebleminded, delusional old age. He could be living on the proceeds of the strong share price of such things as Petroleum Oil and Natural Gas. Can he be relied on to be fair with the facts and the figures ? Why does anyone believe him and his ilk ?

As one of the key people responsible for the mass movement of anti-science hysteria known as “Climate scepticism”, can Steve McIntyre be successfully and finally challenged to quit stirring up suppositions ?

As they say on Euronews : no comment :-

http://news.sky.com/skynews

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/28/lunen-germany-biogas-power

A few reports from the Copenhagen Climate conference, which promises to take both creative communications and straightfaced besuited politicking to a new height in a truly unique global, yet distinctly European melange :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-festivities-and-activities-start-in-copenhagen-1836136.html

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2009/12/08/Copenhagen-kicks-off-Passion-and-banality.aspx

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6947988.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/dec/07/copenhagen-conference-ngos

A must-watch !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8400792.stm

In the Munk Debates 2009 on Climate Change, Bjorn Lomborg made a claim that I immediately found contestable, a claim that probably seemed to be convincing to the audience and yet was without foundation.

He claimed that there would be more people suffering water stress in the world without Climate Change, than there would be if Climate Change were allowed to continue.

He cited somebody’s research and I thought he said “Nicholls”. There are two Nicholls’s I think who might be likely : who write research papers about Environmental research. One Nicholls N. writes about Australian rainfall futures, and the other is Nicholls R. J., who is cited by the Stern Review, so I guess that’s the one Bjorn is making reference to. Except Nicholls R. J. writes about coastal flooding and sea level rise, not water stress directly :-

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/Chapter_3_How_climate_change_will_affect_people_around_the_world_.pdf

I think Bjorn must have really meant “Arnell”. I have been able to establish from a PowerPoint presentation that Bjorn Lomborg gave which is online, that he considers Arnell to be useful as regards discussions on water stress. Before you “anglophones” panic, the first slide is in Danish, but the rest is in English :-

http://www.klimatopmoede.dk/fundanemt/files/artikler/15.pdf

See Slide 25 where Bjorn presents a simple graph : by 2085, nearly 3 billion people will be suffering water stress without Global Warming : with Global Warming, only just over 1.5 billion people will be suffering water stress. He cites “Arnell (2004)”.

Well, I looked up the reference, and it doesn’t say what Bjorn Lomborg is claiming, exactly. In fact, it says something almost completely dissimilar to what Bjorn Lomborg is claiming :-

http://ncsp.va-network.net/UserFiles/File/PDFs/Resource%20Center/Water%20resources/Arnell_2004_waterresources.pdf

“Climate change and global water resources: SRES emissions and socio-economic scenarios” Nigel W. Arnell, School of Geography, University of Southampton : published in Global Environmental Change 14 (2004) 31–52

Reading the conclusions, I find that Bjorn has possibly misrepresented and mis-summarised.

So, Bjorn Lomborg makes a throwaway line to win a debating argument, but he seems to have got his facts wrong.

He continues to maintain a contentious and entirely unfounded line of argument that Global Warming won’t amount to very much by the year 2100, and so there’s no justification for spending our way out of Climate Change. Thousands of scientists around the world beg to differ :-

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/