Ben Stewart : Greenpeace Stalking

[ CORRECTION FROM JOABBESS.COM IN BOLD ]

Mr Ben Stewart, Head of Media at Greenpeace UK, may have no hair, but he does have a considerable number of brain cells, and he says that journalists who are Climate Sceptics need to be afraid, very afraid.

Last night at the “Sceptic Backlash” event hosted by the “Campaign against Climate Change” (what a mouthful, Phil Thornhill ! Get the name or your organisation changed ! Immediately !), Ben Stewart said, “we need to pull together a community of activists to hold journalists to account. We have to launch a campaign so these people are scared of us.”

Well, you could call this bravado, or you could call it a statement of intent. I think I’d probably plump for the latter.

So here’s a message to all those Climate Change sceptical journalists and sundry denier-obstructer bloggists out there : brace yourselves. Climate Change is coming !

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Media Gets Obama Bypass

It seems like Team Obama will be bypassing the mainstream Media in their Climate Change communications :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/12/us-document-strategy-climate-talks

“…A document accidentally left on a European hotel computer and passed to the Guardian reveals the US government’s increasingly controversial strategy in the global UN climate talks…Top of the list of objectives is to: “Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change.” It also talks of “managing expectations” of the outcome of the Cancun meeting and bypassing traditional media outlets…”

There you have it. I’m not surprised, given the appalling behaviour of some of the Gentlepersons of the Press in recent months… Read the rest of this entry »

The Great Sceptic Backlash

If you’re looking for a dose of sheer entertainment, then hop on down this Wednesday to Bloomsbury in London, for a public meeting about the dreaded, sharptoothed, hairy, boogle-eyed, Ye Olde Skeptik Backlash :-

http://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

There you should find Dr David Adam, esteemed and seriously reputable journalist from The Guardian newspaper, and an itchy-and-scratchy, rabble-rousing Ben Stewart from Greenpeace and George Marshall (no, not that George Marshall) of pork-pie-eating, Trilby-wearing-whilst-cycling and Climate anti-denial fame :-

http://climatedenial.org/

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George Monbiot : Wrong Call

There was a long time during my life when I refused to read British newspapers. They irritated me. The stories hinged on the opinions of a few unresearched writers; facts were dubious; the ideological cultures distinguishing the publications were artificial; and the constructed narratives offended me.

I distinctly recall the day I decided I needed to read the newspapers again. It was a chance glance at the Guardian Weekly, on the shelf in an international bookshop in Brussels. In there, I read a piece by George Monbiot, and my reaction was, in paraphrase, “how can he be allowed to write such a thing for publication ?” I was impressed, both at his audacity and his plainspeaking, and the facts to back up his position looked credible.

In overview, it was a good thing that I started to read the newspapers again, even though I have had to wade through interminable barrelloads of rotten opinions and poor research in following the public story of Climate Change and Energy Revival. I have traced the emergence of some almost acceptable Science and Environment writing in the Press, but there has been a remarkable turnaround just recently.

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James Delingpole : Editing Out The Truth

It appears that James Delingpole seeks to edit out the facts that don’t fit with his perrrculiarly sensationalist narrative.

I thought to engage in a little frank discussion, contributing the benefit of my wisdom at this post :-

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100032622/inside-the-seething-green-roach-pit-where-they-eat-their-own/

But I was thwarted.

What happened ?

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Warming Denial : Backwoods Revival

Lies and half-baked misstatements float around like flotsam and jetsam on a slopping and washing freight canal, refusing to sink, but with no legs to stand on…count the errors in this Redress of Grievance, below, and you will see how the combined effect of poor Media and anti-Science wreckers have led to a remarkably bad understanding of the facts :-

http://www.woodlandrecord.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=91&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=1279

“Opinion: Representatives receive Redress of Grievance request regarding global warming : Letter to the editor 22.MAR.10 : Subject: Citizen Redress of Grievance regarding human-caused climate change claim and subsequent legislation and regulations”

“Dear Governor Schwarzenegger, Rep. Wally Herger, Rep. Dan Lungren, Senator Aanestad, Senator Feinstein, Assemblyman Nielsen and County Supervisors:”

“As citizens of Yolo County and Colusa County, the State of California, and United States of America, we feel it is our duty to submit to you a request for a Redress of Grievance as guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, regarding the fraudulent hypothesis that global warming/climate change is human-caused. Of serious concern are the resultant outcomes of such untruths that have or will impact legislation, regulations, and taxes/fees in such a manner that will violate our personal and collective freedoms, confiscate our property and financial resources, and impact generations to come.”

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CURRU : Launch of the Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit

Tiresome ?

You know the feeling. As a scientist or lay person with some inside knowledge on Climate Change, you’re reading your favourite daily newspaper or checking the news online, when an article with outright falsehoods in it really leaps out at you, grabs you by the throat and makes you very, very annoyed and FTB.

Being Full To Bursting, you make a mental note to write a letter to the Media organisation, or phone somebody and be very stern with them, but during the course of the day you are forced to engage with your normal duties and you reach nightfall tired and unable to pen the letter or lift the phone to make a complaint.

It’s really wearing.

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Amazongate : Why Investigate ?

The Climate Change “sceptics” are calling it “Amazongate”. I’d rather like to rename it “Investigate”, because of the appalling lack of investigative journalism that surrounds latest news of the Science of the Amazon basin.

Why is it that so many mainstream newspapers repeat the same lazy accusation that somebody has uncovered “yet another error” in the IPCC report ? This looks like a flawed attempt to create a narrative of scandal, where there is actually nothing to find.

Many expert commentators have tried to explain that, yes, the IPCC had a couple of problems, where they have used information that was not peer-reviewed Science, and findings that other experts disagree with. But no, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report still stands, and is still the best statement that Sciencekind can give on the subject of Climate Change.

There is no evidence of the kind of wrongdoing in the work of the IPCC that the Climate Change “sceptics” claim. So why do the journalists carry on with the narrative of doubt ? Could it have something to do with the fact that they don’t check the facts ?

And why do most of the mainsteam news organisations take the same line, with the same sloppy thinking and poor arguments replicated in article after article ? Could it be that there is no investigative journalism left these days ?

Why does it have to fall to the independent web loggers to point out the facts ? Why can’t the newspapers at least hire Environment writers who have studied Climate Change Science ?

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Curry and Rice

The Royal Statistical Society publishes a truly readable magazine called “Significance”, and until today I hadn’t realised it’s available online.

The front cover of the March 2010 Volume 7 Issue 1 edition shows an artist’s mock-up of severe drought and the headline question is “After Copenhagen : What can be done ?”

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Fear and Loathing in Sceptico-Vision

I still cannot get my head around exactly why we need a House of Commons Inquiry into the “goings-on” at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

It’s not as if Professor Phil Jones has done anything wrong. In fact, he’s been behaving like any other productive and fruitful researcher, getting on with the work and trying to brush off unhelpful distractions, including a deliberate smear campaign.

OK, so he wrote a few contentious e-mails, using casual language and a frustrated tone. This was not Science, and should not be considered representative of his work. Take a look at his work, results of painstaking and in-depth analysis of raw data :-

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003RG000143.shtml

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Amazongate Redux : Jonathan Leake Still Misguided

I was going to entitle this little web log post “Yet More Proof Journalists Can’t Read” but I thought that might seem a little too rude, and anyway, I wanted to be clear about the subject of the content of the post in the title, so I changed it.

I have just received an e-mail from Jonathan Leake of the Times of London and the Sunday Times. By order of his e-mail signature, I am not permitted to share entirely the contents of that e-mail with you, however, I can relate to you that it concerns the latest Climate Change “sceptic” bunkum story, to which you can find extensive reference plastered all over the Internet like some ugly, testosterone-fuelled teenage graffiti :-

http://news.oneindia.in/2010/03/12/amazonrain-forests-were-unaffected-from-once-in-a-centuryd.html

“Amazon rain forests were unaffected from once-in-a-century drought in 2005 : Friday, March 12, 2010″

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311175039.htm

“New Study Debunks Myths About Vulnerability of Amazon Rain Forests to Drought : ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2010)”

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Bringing Physics Into Disrepute

I first commented on the suspected link between the Institute of Physics and the noted Climate Change “sceptic” Piers Corbyn in a previous post :-

http://www.joabbess.com/2010/03/02/fred-pearce-still-crucifying-phil-jones/

One of my commentators challenged what I had written, so I edited it out, awaiting the opportunity to discover more.

More has now been uncovered; not my me, I hasten to add, but by another commentator :-

http://www.joabbess.com/2010/03/06/institute-of-physics-nosedive/#comment-600

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The Dutch Will Get Wet

When are the Media going to get their own School of the Environment, where all the journalists can come and learn the Science of Climate Change ?

The Times of London continues to mangle the facts, it seems to me; this time from the pen/fingers of Ben Webster, perhaps a Mini-Me version of that accreditable journalist Jonathan Leake :-

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7056173.ece

“[The IPCC]…also claimed that global warming could cut rain-fed North African crop production by up to 50 per cent by 2020. A senior IPCC contributor has since admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim…”

I don’t think that quite pins it down accurately.

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Zombie Climate Change Sceptic Arguments

Some bad ideas just won’t die.

Here’s Skeptical Science’s regularly updated list of the hottest and battiest Climate Change “sceptic” arguments :-

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

And here’s the full, and updateable list of nearly 250 “sceptical” arguments that have been weighed in the balance and found erroneously wanting :-

http://www.skepticalscience.com/resources.php

Why do these arguments keep coming back from the grave with their great big evil green zombie eyes and their matted, bird’s nest zombie hair and their outstretched murderous arms ?

Who is promoting and protecting these vampire lies ?

Who are the stinking, rotting funders of disinformation on Climate Change ?

I think we should find out, and ask them to stop.

Imagine There’s No Medicine

Imagine there’s no Medicine; no doctors, nurses, hospitals, surgeons, ward administrators, paramedics on bicycles in bright yellow and green jackets, ambulances, medical technology or pharmaceuticals. It’s not easy, even if you try. What would your life be like ? Pretty painful and quite possibly nastily shortened, I’d hazard.

There are people in the world who still do not have access to medical care (let’s think…all those Americans without basic health care insurance), so they know the grim realities of it all – but the reason I’m considering this is there could have been a point in human history where the development of Medicine was thwarted by sceptics and people with ulterior motives.

“You’re sick because you’ve sinned”, a portion of humanity used to believe; the wealthy throughout history have sometimes been keen for disease to wipe out the scum of the poor. Appeals to Nature and to God to explain sickness and accidental damage could have been followed by a refusal to care for or treat people – as it was not what the Laws of the Universe dictated.

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Open Season on Science

Like several commentators, I am picking out a trend in Internet communications that indicates that there is a tribe of “doubt believers” out there, proselytising for their cause : bringing down the Science of Climate Change.

These evangelists often write and reply to web posts with statements of alarmingly high confidence levels, assuming authority they cannot possibly claim, sometimes using anonymity to cloak their network connections.

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How You Were Taken In : Media “Balance”

Poor (middle-aged) old George Monbiot ! He really feels like he’s been wasting his time trying to get through to people to communicate about Climate Change :-

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/08/the-unpersuadables/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/mar/08/belief-in-climate-change-science

I don’t think that he should despair. What the ordinary, Tabloid-reading , Daily Telegraph-reading, Times of London-reading or even Guardian-reading man-or-woman-in-the-street thinks about Climate Change Science doesn’t really matter in the end, as long as the policymakers know the direction of travel required. That is, towards strong regulation on Carbon Emissions.

And anyway, I think that the problem of Climate Change “doubt” can be resolved relatively easily – by educating those who work in the Media.

Let me begin my argument by asking a question : is it right and fair and balanced to pitch Dr Benny Peiser against Professor Phil Jones on the subject of the Science of Global Warming ?

I ask this, because this is effectively what happened during the hearings of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on 1st March 2010, when Dr Benny Peiser and Lord Nigel Lawson were first in the seats, and then Professor Phil Jones and Professor Edward Acton sat in the seats later on :-

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/uc387-i/uc38702.htm

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How You Were Taken In : The Manufacture of Doubt

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/naomi_oreskes_on_merchants_of.php

Please do watch Naomi Oreske’s magristral (not “magisterial”, since she’s female) presentation on her new publication “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming” in the YouTube above.

The presentation is somewhat marred by poor audiovisual capture, but it’s fascinating, all the same, and good to hear her logical argumentation; and be reminded of what has been happening for the last 50 years in the public “debates” on Science.

The Media have still not gotten to grips with what Science actually is, and how to present it, and how to research it, and often end up interviewing and reporting people who are either not expert in the field they are asked about, or have an underlying agenda for misinformation being published.

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